Ex-trucker awaiting trial in North Carolina murder is charged with suspected serial killings in California

A former long-haul trucker awaiting trial in the 1992 murder of a North Carolina woman was charged in the suspected serial killings of three more women in California more than four decades ago, authorities said Thursday. Warren Luther Alexander, 73, was charged with three counts of murder in connection with the 1977 strangulation deaths of Kimberly Fritz, 18; Velvet Sanchez, 31; and Lorraine Rodriguez, 21, law enforcement officials said at a news conference in Ventura County. The women, all sex workers, were found dead in Port Hueneme, Oxnard and an unincorporated part of Ventura County, respectively, in May, September and December of that year, officials said. Ventura County District Attorney’s Office via Facebook Alexander, who is being held without bail at a Ventura County jail, was extradited earlier this week from North Carolina, where he was charged with murder two years ago in the strangulation death of Nona Cobb, Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko told reporters. Ventura County District Attorney’s Office via Facebook Alexander was arrested in connection with the killing on March 15, 2022, in Diamondhead, Mississippi, the bureau said in a news release at the time. Nasarenko said authorities in North Carolina used genetic genealogy, a technique that matches DNA obtained from crime scenes and elsewhere to profiles assembled by genetic testing companies, to link Alexander with Cobb’s killing. After Alexander’s 2022 arrest, his DNA was uploaded to a nationwide law enforcement database and authorities in Ventura County were alerted to the case, Nasarenko said. In 2006, investigators in the county had uploaded DNA preserved from the 1977 crime scenes to the same database, Nasarenko said, but it wasn’t until after Alexander’s arrest that his DNA entered the database and there was a match. Alexander lived in Oxnard, roughly 60 miles northwest of Los Angeles, in the 1950s and 1960s while attending school, Nasarenko said. Authorities are now working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation through its Highway Serial Killings Initiative to help identify other potential victims linked to Alexander, Nasarenko said. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ex-trucker-awaiting-trial-north-carolina-murder-charged-killings-rcna166058