This week, authorities apprehended a second man from Texas in connection to the murder of an individual discovered in a shallow grave in Tarrant County last December.
Chase Cook, 23, has now joined Alexander James Nicholas, also 23, in custody, both facing murder charges for the death of 24-year-old John Richardson, according to KDFW. Cook’s arrest took place on Tuesday, whereas Nicholas had been detained last December.
Richardson was last observed leaving a party on the night of November 30, 2025, purportedly heading to his girlfriend’s residence. Unfortunately, he never reached his destination. His remains were uncovered in a wooded area on December 22, and the medical examiner concluded that his death resulted from stab wounds and blunt force trauma.
According to an affidavit for Cook’s arrest, he was initially questioned in December about Richardson’s disappearance but declined to permit a search of his cell phone. However, when police executed a search warrant, they discovered records indicating that Cook had been with Nicholas the night Richardson vanished, in the same vicinity where the body was later found.
Investigators also highlighted several messages from Cook’s girlfriend that revealed her growing distress over his absence throughout the night.
The girlfriend had previously informed investigators that Cook left in the middle of the night to assist 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.
