2nd suspect arrested for murder of Fort Worth man whose body was buried in shallow grave
FORT WORTH, Texas - A second person is facing charges for the murder of a Fort Worth man whose body was found buried in a shallow grave in December.
2nd Suspect Arrested
What's new:
Chase Cook, 23, was arrested for murder on Tuesday and booked into the Tarrant County jail. His mugshot has not yet been released.
He is the second person arrested for the death of 24-year-old John Richardson.
Alexander James Nicolas, 23, was arrested in December and is also charged with murder.
Fort Worth missing person found buried in shallow grave, suspect arrested
Fort Worth police arrested a murder suspect after finding the body of a missing person buried in a shallow grave just days before Christmas.
Body Found in Shallow Grave
The backstory:
Fort Worth police said the victim was reported missing after leaving a party on Nov. 30, 2025. He was headed to his girlfriend’s house but never showed up.
His body was found on Dec. 22, 2025 in what police described as a shallow grave in a wooded area. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office later determined he died from stab wounds and blunt force trauma.
Dig deeper:
According to an arrest warrant affidavit for Nicholas, multiple witnesses told police that Richardson left the party with Nicholas, who had promised to drop him off at his girlfriend’s house in White Settlement.
When detectives first questioned Nicholas, he said he got into an argument with Richardson and dropped him off elsewhere. When they questioned him a few weeks later, Nicholas said Richardson asked to be dropped off elsewhere because he wanted to take an Uber.
During the course of the investigation, the detectives talked to a friend of the two men who said Nicholas told him Richardson "wouldn’t be coming around anymore." When the friend questioned what he meant, "[Nicholas] made his fingers into the shape of a gun, and said ‘you know what I mean.’ When [the friend] asked him if he killed [Richardson], [Nicholas] shook his head yes and told [the friend] if he wanted to know what happened that they could go into the woods and turn their phones off," the affidavit states.
A second friend told detectives that he was at the party with both men on the night that Richardson disappeared. The friend said Nicholas asked him if he thought Richardson "should get home safe." The friend said he didn’t understand what that meant but knew that Nicholas was upset about a past car accident that he blamed on Richardson, according to the affidavit.
Cook’s girlfriend also told detectives that Nicholas contacted him on the night that Richardson disappeared. She remembered Cook leaving in the middle of the night to go 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," the affidavit states.
According to the court document, detectives used data from both Nicholas and Richardson’s phones to find Richardson’s remains in a wooded area. His body was buried in a shallow grave.
What we don't know:
The arrest warrant affidavit for Cook has not yet been released, so it’s not clear whether police found additional evidence linking him to Richardson’s murder.
Nicholas’ affidavit doesn’t mention anything about a knife or possible murder weapon.
The Source: The information in this story comes from the Fort Worth Police Department, an arrest warrant affidavit for Alexander James Nicholas, and past news coverage.