Retired truck driver charged with 1993 murder of Tulare mother found off Interstate 10 in Riverside County
A retired truck driver has been charged with the 1993 murder of a 30-year-old Tulare woman whose body was found near Interstate 10 in Riverside County.
Sherri Herrera's body was found on the eastbound Hayfield Road on-ramp to the I-10 in Desert Center on March 30, 1993. The mother of four children was last seen alive just a few days before her body was found.
According to the Riverside County District Attorney's Office, recently retired cross-country truck driver Douglas Thomas, 67, was arrested in late May in connection with a 1992 murder in Titus County, Texas. Thomas, who traveled extensively through the country during his more than 40 years as a truck driver, was linked to the Texas murder by a DNA match to evidence found at that crime scene, authorities said.
That DNA was also a match to evidence gathered in the investigation into Herrera's murder, according to the district attorney's office. After investigators with Riverside County's Regional Cold Case Team traveled to Texas to interview him about Herrera's murder, Thomas was charged with murder with a special circumstance allegation of rape.
Thomas remains in Texas, where he face charges in the 1992 murder before he can be extradited to California.
Anyone with information about Herrera or Thomas or may have seen something suspicion in that area of Desert Center on or around March 30, 1993 can contact the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team at (951) 955-2777.
