September 03, 2024
A 73-year-old Mississippi man has been arrested and charged with the strangulation murders of three women in California in1977.
Suspected serial killer, Warren Luther Alexander, an ex-long-haul trucker residing in Diamondhead, Mississippi, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder.
He was transferred from North Carolina, where he was awaiting prosecution in connection with a long-unsolved murder case that took place in 1992, to California, on August 8, 2024.
He has been accused of the murders of Kimberly Fritz, 18; Lorraine Rodriguez, 21, and Velvet Sanchez, 31, who were all murdered in a span of several months in 1977.
On May 29, 1977, teenager, Kimberly Carol Fritz, was found naked and strangled to death with her own stockings, in a room at the Marv-Inn in Hueneme on 645 E Port Hueneme Road.
Fritz went by the name “Carol Brown,” and according to the Ventura County Star, she was a sex worker who worked out of the Plaza Marina Shopping Centre in Oxnard, a place known for prostitution. Authorities at the time believed she was a “runaway” who lived throughout various states, using upwards of twelve fake names. At the time of her death had a fake ID that stated she was 21-years-old. Her parents resided in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Velvet Sanchez was born on June 30, 1946, and was just 31 years old when she was strangled to death in an Oxnard motel in September 1977. She was born in Amarillo, Texas and lived there for several years where she worked as a clerk-typist for the Port Hueneme Construction Battalion Center. She was a mother and wife.
According to a 1977 article in the Camarillo Star, Sanchez had been living in the Villa Motor Court Motel on Oxnard Boulevard for around one month before she was murdered.
The article states that Sanchez was separated from her husband.
Earlier that year, on Aug 30, 1977, The Camarillo Star reported that Velvet Sanchez had been arrested for allegedly attempting to stab a man named Nolan Anderson, 37, inside the hotel room where she lived. According to the article, Sanchez struck the man with her car as she fled the scene. Anderson received surface level injuries which did not require medical attention. Anderson admitted to picking Sanchez up at an Oxnard mall. She was booked into a county jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.
In an article published in Valley News Sun, Sep 11, 1977, both Fritz and Sanchez death are described, alongside the murder of a former cocktail waitress, 27-year-old Terry Storey, who was also found dead in a remote area, in a lemon orchard on Etting Road, in Oxnard, that same year. Storey died by blunt force trauma to the head.
Her uncle had reported her missing September 8, 1977. The Storey case has not officially been connected to the murders of the other women, or Luther Alexander, at the time of writing.
The article describes an unidentified suspect in the murders, whom eyewitnesses saw around the Sanchez scene. This man reportedly bore a resemblance to a suspect connected to the murders of two other alleged sex workers.
Twenty-two-year-old Lorraine Ann Rodriguez was found dead in December of 1977. Her body was discovered on a bridge along Laguna road, where it appeared her assailant had dumped her body from a vehicle. Rodriguez lived at the same hotel complex as Velvet Sanchez, the Villa Motor Court in Oxnard. Police at the time were unsure if Rodriguez was a sex worker.
Their cases wouldn’t be connected to Warren Luther Alexander until 2024, when DNA collected from victims of the 1977 slayings was tested.
By 2022, Luther Alexander was being held in connection with the 1992 murder of Nona Cobb.
Nona Kay Stamey Cobb was murdered in North Carolina in 1992. Her body was found on Interstate 77, near Elkin, on July 7. Cobb was only 29 years old at the time of her murder, and was last seen on July 6, getting into the truck of an unidentified male in Cleveland County, at the welcome centre on Interstate 85. One woman described the vehicle as a black Peterbilt truck with a Caucasian male driver.
Nona Cobb was a mother who had lost custody of her children after developing a drug problem. Her family loved her dearly.
Her brother Gregory said: "She loved us, and we loved her. Just because you do something wrong doesn't mean you stop loving her." "She loved her child and was very proud of him."
A trucker found Nona Cobb’s body the following day at 6:15am, on CC Camp Road by a ramp.
At the time, Sean Goble, who was also a truck driver, residing in North Carolina, was suspected of killing Cobb. He had moved to the area in 1988 but did not get his commercial driver's licence until several months after Cobb was murdered. His DNA was also not found on the victim.
Luther Alexander was identified as a possible suspect using DNA evidence, as well as genetic genealogy tools. He was arrested March 15, 2022, and charged with felony murder in Cobb's slaying.
Following the arrest, SBI director, Robert Schurmeier, said at a news conference: "The men and woman of the SBI, in partnerships with sheriff’s offices across the country, will seek out justice for the cold cases that we have on our books. We will work, day and night, to pursue the suspects who think they may have gotten away with it 20, 30, 40 years ago.”
Authorities believe Luther Alexander could have more victims.
December 03, 2024
