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.  

Several bystanders watched in surprise as a man stuffed merchandise, including expensive sunglasses, into a bag and fled the Northridge Fashion Center.

Cellphone video of the incident shows the robber walking around a Sunglass Hut store while deciding which items to put in what appeared to be a trash bag.

A security guard arrived at the shop and briefly confronted the suspect but was not able to detain him. 

The suspect is then seen running from the store with his bag of goods still in hand.

At one point, the suspect even stops and points at the security guard giving chase but still has time to turn and run out of the mall.

He was wearing a light-colored hat, dark shirt and white pants.

Two men are dead and two suspects are on the loose after gunfire erupted at a smoke shop in the Vermont Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles overnight.

Officers responded to an assault with a deadly weapon call in the 8600 block of South Figueroa Street shortly before 10 p.m.

Two victims, a 39-year-old man and a man in his 20s, were found inside the smoke shop with multiple gunshot wounds, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson confirmed.

Both victims, whose identities have not been released, were pronounced dead at the scene.

It was unclear if they were customers or employees of the store.

Investigators learned that two male suspects, believed to be in their 20s, walked into the Figueroa Mini-Market smoke shop and fired multiple rounds at the victims.

The gunmen fled in a vehicle and remained on the loose, police said.

No description of the suspects or their vehicle has been released.