Accused serial killer in 1977 Ventura County cold cases will face 'day or reckoning,' prosecutor says

New details are emerging about the man suspected of killing three women in Ventura County in 1977 — cases that went cold for decades before DNA evidence recently linked him to the slayings.

Warren Luther Alexander, 73, was extradited to Ventura County from North Carolina earlier this week to face prosecution, two years after he was arrested and charged with another decades old slaying. Alexander, a resident of Mississippi and former long-haul truck driver, had only a minor criminal record before he was first taken into custody in 2022 in connection with another cold case homicide in North Carolina, according to District Attorney Erik Nasarenko.

All three of the Ventura County killings were by ligature strangulation, a pattern investigators noticed at the time but all their leads eventually ran cold, Nasarenko said. DNA evidence collected at the scenes finally led detectives to Alexander, he said.

"While we cannot bring back Kimberly, Velvet and Lorraine, we can make sure the person accused of these horrific crimes faces in Ventura County the full weight and force of the law," Nasarenko told reporters during a Thursday news conference. "For Warren Luther Alexander — once a fugitive from justice — the day or reckoning in Ventura County has finally arrived."

On May 29, 1977, Kimberly Fritz was found strangled to death in Room 18 of the Marv-Inn Motel located along Hueneme Road in Port Hueneme. She was one of three sisters and originally from Michigan, where she attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor before moving to California. 

About three months later, on September 8, investigators discovered the body of Velvet Sanchez at the Villa Motor Court Motel on South Oxnard Boulevard in the city of Oxnard. Her cause of death was also determined to be strangulation. The mother of three children, Sanchez was a native of Amarillo, Texas and had been working at the nearby U.S. Navy Exchange not long before she was killed. She was 31.

Nearly four months later, on December 27, 21-year-old Lorraine Rodriguez was found near the Laguna Road Bridge in the Oxnard plains area. She had also been strangled to death. Originally from Kansas, she moved to Oxnard and attended Hueneme High School. She had a son and a daughter, who was just 3 years old at the time, and has been described as a "loving and devoted mother who loved spending time with her family," Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said.

In each of the cases, homicide detectives collected DNA evidence which was preserved over the more than 40 years since the killings, Nasarenko said, adding that recent advancements in forensic science and DNA technology have allowed for "greater accuracy, sensitivity and efficiency."

Alexander was identified as the suspect after his DNA was collected for his 2022 arrest in North Carolina, finally giving cold case detectives a break they had long been pursuing. His DNA was determined a match last year after being placed into the national DNA database known as CODIS.

"These murder cases have literally spanned generations — through generations of detectives," Oxnard Police Department Chief Jason Benites said. "Many of the detectives and officers that initially responded to these cases are either long since retied or some have passed on."

According to Nasarenko, there's a possibility Alexander is responsible for even more killings in other states. He worked as a long-haul truck driver through the 1970s into the early 1990s, bringing him into contact with several other places and people around the country. 

He was a free man living in Diamondhead, Mississippi when he was arrested in 2022. DNA evidence linked him to the 1992 killing of 29-year-old Nona Cobb, who was found strangled to death off the I-77 Freeway in North Carolina.  

According to Ventura County law enforcement officials and prosecutors, Alexander lived in Oxnard through the late 1950s and 1960s and had attended elementary, middle and high school in Ventura County. He previously worked as a cab driver as well as an electrician for the U.S. Marine Corps and moved away from the area before returning to Oxnard during the 1970s.

"We believe there may be additional victims both locally and in other states," Nasarenko said. "This is an ongoing investigation, and we will continue to pursue all leads that become available."

"This is not in any way closed," he said.

The DA declined to say whether the victims were sexually assaulted and if that may have been a motive in their killings.

All of the them had been working as commercial sex workers at the time, according to Nasarenko, describing it as "a vocation that subjected them to violence, trafficking as well as extreme exploitation." He said they were known to frequent the same areas. 

Alexander is currently being held without bail at Ventura County Jail.