A 73-year-old suspected serial killer from Mississippi extradited to Ventura County earlier this month in connection with three strangulation murders nearly a half century ago pled not guilty at his arraignment Wednesday, officials announced.
In February 2023, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Cold Case Unit began re-examining the deaths of the three women – Kimberly Carol Fritz, Velvet Ann Sanchez and Lorraine Ann Rodriguez – each of whom was killed in 1977, the Ventura County DA’s Office said.
While the exact circumstances surrounding the women’s deaths were not disclosed by the DA, an article published in 1978 in the Utah publication The Daily Herald stated that the three women were prostitutes who were strangled with their own underwear.
Sanchez was 31 when she was found dead in an Oxnard motel on Sept. 9, 1977, the Daily Herald reported; the 18-year-old Fritz was found in a motel room on May 29 of that year and Rodriguez, then 22, was found dead near a highway in Oxnard on Dec. 27, but the Herald reported that investigators believed she was also killed at a motel and dumped there.
After decades and decades of investigation, detectives were eventually able to identify the suspect as Warren Luther Alexander, a resident of Diamondhead, Mississippi.
Alexander was extradited to Southern California on Aug. 6 from Surry County, North Carolina, where he was awaiting prosecution for a 1992 cold case murder.
The 73-year-old has been charged by the Ventura County District Attorney’s office with three counts of first-degree murder for the 1977 strangulations.
He is scheduled to appear in Ventura County Superior Court again on Aug. 30 and is being held in the Ventura County jail without bail.