Oxnard man arrested in 19-year-old cold case homicide

Police caught a break in a nearly two-decade old cold case homicide out of Salem, Oregon when they were able to identify the man connected to the crime as an Oxnard resident living under a fake name.

Investigators with the Ventura County Violent Crimes Task Force were contacted by the Salem Police Department requesting help to find 45-year-old Fernando Cortez.

The Oxnard Police Department said Cortez was living in the City of Oxnard under the alias of Moises Garibay. Officers located Cortez in the 1900 block of Ginger Street and took him into custody without incident. He was booked into Ventura County Jail for second-degree murder.

Cortez is alleged to be responsible for the death of 25-year-old Alfredo Nabor-Lopez who was murdered outside a Salem convenience store in 1998, according to a report from the Statesman Journal, a media publication from Salem.

According to the Journal who cites a warrant request filed in 2014, Nabor-Lopez was shot in the parking lot of a Circle K during a fight between two groups.

Anyone with information regarding this case is asked to call the Oxnard Police Department at 805-385-7796, or 805-982-7070 to remain anonymous.