Victim Sherri Herrera. Credit: Riverside DA
A recently retired cross-country truck driver arrested in Texas for a 1992 murder in that state has also been charged by the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office with the cold case murder of a woman whose body was found off Interstate 10 in the Desert Center area nearly 30 years ago.
On March 30, 1993, the body of Sherri Herrera, 30, a mother of four from Tulare, Calif., was found on the eastbound Hayfield Road onramp to I-10 in Desert Center. She was last seen alive just a few days before her body was found.
In late May, Texas Rangers arrested Douglas Thomas, DOB: 7-5-54, on suspicion of the murder of a woman found in Titus County, Texas, in April 1992. Thomas was connected by authorities to that murder by a DNA match to evidence from that crime scene. Thomas traveled extensively throughout the United States during his 40-plus years as a truck driver, according to authorities.
Thomas’s DNA was also connected to evidence gathered during the investigation into Herrera’s murder. Investigators with the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Team, which is led by the DA’s Bureau of Investigation, traveled to Texas and interviewed Thomas about Herrera’s murder.
Based on their investigation, the DA’s Office charged Thomas with the 1993 murder of Herrera. Along with murder count, the DA’s Office also has filed a special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a rape.
Thomas remains in custody in Texas and will be prosecuted there first for the 1992 murder in that state. The DA’s Office will then request Thomas be extradited to California to face justice for the murder of Herrera.
The Riverside County DA’s Office is asking that anyone who may have any information about the victim, Sherri Herrera; or Douglas Thomas; or who may have seen anything suspicious around I-10 and Hayfield Road on or around March 30, 1993, contact the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team. Information can be provided by calling (951) 955-2777.
The Regional Cold Case Homicide Team comprises members of the DA’s Office Bureau of Investigation, the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner Department, the FBI, and the Riverside Police Department. The team is available to assist in the investigation of cold case homicides for all Riverside County law enforcement agencies.
Republished courtesy of Riverside DA.