Share and Follow
A second suspect has been apprehended in Texas in connection with the murder of a man whose body was discovered in a shallow grave in Tarrant County last December.
Chase Cook, 23, was detained this week, joining Alexander James Nicholas, also 23, who is already in custody facing murder charges related to the death of 24-year-old John Richardson, according to a report from KDFW. Cook’s arrest took place on Tuesday, following Nicholas’s arrest in December.
Richardson was last seen departing a party on November 30, 2025, reportedly heading to his girlfriend’s residence. Tragically, he never arrived. His remains were found on December 22 in a wooded area, and an autopsy revealed that he died from stab wounds and blunt force trauma.
The affidavit for Cook’s arrest disclosed that he was initially questioned about Richardson’s disappearance in December but declined to permit a search of his cell phone. However, a subsequent search warrant allowed police to access the phone, uncovering records indicating that Cook and Nicholas were together on the night Richardson vanished, in the vicinity where his body was later discovered.
Additionally, investigators highlighted several messages from Cook’s girlfriend, which showed her growing increasingly distressed about his absence throughout the night.
The girlfriend had previously told investigators that Cook left in the middle of the night to help Nicholas.
“She said a few days later when he had been drinking, he told her that they were digging a 6-foot hole that night,” according to the affidavit. “Due to [Cook’s] admission to his girlfriend that he helped [Nicholas] that night when they were in the woods and that he dug a 6-foot hole, before that information was public, indicates his aiding of this murder.”
Nicholas’s arrest affidavit says that witnesses told police he left the party with Richardson, promising to drop him off at his girlfriend’s home. He told police that he got into an argument with Richardson and dropped him off near a Bucee’s on Interstate 35, but neither of their cell phones were ever in that location.
Another witness told detectives that Nicholas told him Richardson “wouldn’t be coming around anymore,” forming his fingers into the shape of a gun and saying “you know what I mean.”
Another witness, who was at the party the night Richardson disappeared, told investigators that Nicholas was upset about a car accident he blamed on Richardson.
Investigators used data from Richardson and Nicholas’s phones to find the dead man’s body located behind a home where another friend of Nicholas and Cook lives.
The affidavits do not indicate where the murder may have taken place, as no blood was found in the vehicle Nicholas was driving. They also don’t say whether a murder weapon was recovered.