Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Crime Alert 10.31.24 | Men Kidnap, Torture Roommate over Money Dispute

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

4 men hold their roommate hostage and cut off his finger over a money dispute. Giant Jack-O-Lantern squishes Ohio cop! 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. Denver PD get a tip a man may be in danger from his housemates. They perform a welfare check, but the two men that open the door claim they haven't seen their roommate in days. In the back bedroom, the man's two other roommates are holding him down. They haven't let him leave in two days. Later that afternoon, the man makes it to a police station missing a finger. He says his roommates refused to let him leave due to a

dispute over money. Nancy, authorities did not have the power to enter the home based on the evidence at hand, forced to take the two residents at their word. The victim says his roommates cut off his finger after he had been held captive for roughly 12 hours. The suspects left the shared home hours after the welfare check and the victim was able to escape his restraints. Investigators are still working to determine if the kidnapping could be gang-related, but currently believe it to be an isolated incident. Roommates Jose Pineda Moreno, 19, and Darwin Gonzalez, 34, now charged with kidnap, assault, and criminal extortion. Ohio cops check out a report of giant jack-o'-lanterns blocking traffic.

They find a giant inflatable pumpkin had flown from someone's yard and is now blocking half the road. As an officer tries to remove the pumpkin, the gigantic inflatable knocks him to the ground and he can't get out from under it until his partner steps in. With backup, the cops manage to return the decoration back to its owners, who plan to add extra ties to keep it down next year. More crime and justice news after this. Los Angeles is famous for the always captivating entertainment industry, some of the most famous sports teams, and incredibly expensive smoothies.

But beneath the glamour, it's also a breeding ground for bizarre, historic, and unforgettable crimes. My name is Madison McGee. You might know me from my podcast Ice Cold Case, where for the last three years I've been investigating my father's murder. But now I've embedded myself into the LA Times crime beat to bring you not only some of the juiciest cases, but what it takes to be a gritty crime reporter in a giant metropolis. From LA Times Studios comes its latest series, LA Crimes. From deep dives into the Menendez brothers to conversations about why Bravo TV seems to be a hotbed of white-collar criminals,

we'll cover it all. The solved, the unsolved, the love triangles gone wrong, you get the idea. Tune in every Wednesday starting May 21st, wherever you stream your podcasts. You can also watch the episodes on YouTube and Spotify. You don't want to miss this. Now with the latest crime and justice breaking news, Crime Online's John Lindley. A Tennessee man has pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing Memphis school teacher Eliza Fletcher during her early morning run near the University of Memphis in 2022. 40-year-old Cleotha Abston

now faces life in prison without parole after entering guilty pleas for first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping. Fletcher, a 34-year-old kindergarten teacher and mother of two, was forced into an SUV while jogging before dawn on September 2, 2022. Her body was discovered days later near a vacant duplex. Abston's DNA was linked to the scene, and an autopsy confirmed that Fletcher died from a gunshot wound to the head. Abston, also known as Cleotha Henderson, has a lengthy criminal history dating back to the 1990s

and was previously sentenced to 80 years for a 2021 rape conviction delayed by a backlog in processing a sexual assault kit. Fletcher's death spurred new legislation in Tennessee, mandating timely sexual assault kit testing reports from the state's Bureau of Investigation. 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 Nassarenko 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 27, 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. Tony Williamson, 72, depends on care she receives at her Independence, Missouri, nursing home. She suffers from dementia, schizophrenia, and other medical conditions. 2 a.m., she gets out of bed, leaves her room, and walks out of the facility. Staff doesn't realize she's missing until 6 a.m. Police put out a silver alert and search extensively, find nothing. That afternoon, a tipster says she saw Tony near Prospect Plaza Park in Kansas City. Tony Williamson,

5'2", 117 pounds, long blonde hair, blue eyes. She was wearing clear frame glasses. Last seen on surveillance video wearing light blue blue jeans, a light blue or gray zip-up hoodie, and a face mask. If you have info on 72-year-old Toni Williamson, now missing three years, call Independence, Missouri PD 816-836-3600. 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.