Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 08.20.24 | 3 Injured in Driver's Violent Rampage

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

A Dallas Driver sends three to the hospital in morning rush hour rampage. Illinois lunch lady lifts $1.5 million worth of chicken wings.  For more crime and justice news go to crimeonline.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Alert, I'm Nancy Grace. Breaking crime news now. Angel Moreno crashes into four cars on a Dallas freeway, then gets out, grabs an eight-inch knife from his trunk, and attacks the other drivers. Bystanders try to subdue Moreno. He stabs one of them and hijacks a truck, running over the owner. Moreno then hijacks a second car. Again, the car's owner is run over, but this time, the owner's dragged across two lanes of traffic. The car crashes, surprise, surprise, and a group of men pull Moreno from the car, holding him down until police arrive. Nancy, Moreno's violent rampage unfolds during morning rush hour.

Moreno first stabs a man who confronts him with a metal pipe after he jumped on a bystander's windshield. That victim was stabbed in the ear and stomach. Each time a bystander tries to help a victim, Moreno injures that bystander. This vicious cycle loops three times before enough people join together to subdue Moreno untilures that bystander. This vicious cycle loops three times before enough people join together to subdue Moreno until police arrive. Angel Moreno, 26, charged with ag-assault car theft and criminal mischief. I'm holding out for attempted murder. Vera Lidell, working for the Harvey School District in Illinois, is in charge of ordering food for meal kits provided to children learning remotely.

Lidell orders over 11,000 cases of chicken wings, but then steals the $1.5 million order and resells the meat. The business manager discovered the invoice during an audit. The audit was called because the school was $300,000 over budget with half a year still to go. The 68-year-old lunch lady, Vera Lidell, now sentenced to nine years behind bars on theft and operating criminal enterprise. The lunch lady. Who'd have thunk it? More crime and justice news after this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Limley. A 73-year-old man from Mississippi has been charged with the strangulation murders of three Southern California women, crimes that date back

to 1977. We bring in Sydney Sumner of Crime Online for details. California authorities have now revealed that Warren Luther Alexander was linked to the cold cases through a DNA match, raising concerns that there may be additional victims. Alexander, who hails from Diamond Head, Mississippi, has yet to be arraigned on the three first-degree murder charges. The arraignment has been postponed until later this week, and he remains in custody without bail, according to the Ventura County District Attorney's Office. The path that led to Alexander's arrest began when he was extradited to California from North Carolina, where he is also a suspect in another cold case murder from 1992. Ventura County District Attorney Eric Nasarenko disclosed during a press conference that the California victims were found dead in Ventura County. Each woman had been strangled with a ligature, a detail that has haunted investigators for decades. The victims have been identified as 18-year-old Kimberly Fritz, whose body was

discovered in Port Hunemi on May 29, 1997, 31-year-old Velvet Sanchez, found dead in Oxnard on September 8 of that same year, and 21-year-old Lorraine Rodriguez, whose remains were uncovered in an unincorporated area on December 27th, 1977. Authorities were finally able to connect Alexander to these heinous crimes after a DNA sample entered into a national database last year provided a match. This breakthrough was made possible through the use of investigative genealogy, a technique that had previously linked Alexander to the unsolved North Carolina murder of Nona Cobb in 1992. Cobb's body had been abandoned along Interstate 77. Records indicate that Alexander lived in Oxnard during the late 1950s and 60s, and he later returned to the area in the 1970s. During the 70s and extending into the early 1990s, Alexander worked as a long-haul

truck driver, a job that often took him across the country, a detail that may now hold even greater significance as investigators explore the possibility of other unsolved crimes connected to his travels. Thanks, John. Abigail Bernstein sets up a year-long round-trip journey at sea for herself and her two boys, Koa, nine, and Kush, six. Abigail, Koa, and Kush say goodbye to family outside of Boat Harbor there in Hawaii, promising to visit when they return. Relatives never hear from them again. The FBI says Abigail lives a nomadic lifestyle with her children and may be off-grid, but investigators have not ruled out foul play. The family has ties to the Big Island and Maui.

Abigail Koa and Kush Bernstein now missing nearly two years. Last seen there at the harbor in October 2022. Abigail, long brown hair and wears glasses. Sons, Koa and Kush, long blonde hair. If you have info on the Bernsteins, please call the FBI, 808-673-2719. For the latest crime and justice news, go to CrimeOnline.com and please join us for our daily podcast, Crime Stories. With this crime alert, I'm Nancy Grace. This is an iHeart Podcast.