TLDR
Fort Worth police charged Chase Cook and Alexander James Nicholas with murder after John Richardson, 24, was found stabbed and buried in a shallow grave. Affidavits describe witness statements, a girlfriend’s account about digging a hole, and cellphone data linking all three men to the wooded site.
The killing of John Richardson in North Texas moved quickly from a missing person alert to a homicide case. Within weeks, investigators uncovered a shallow grave in the woods and focused on two 23-year-olds who had left a party with him.
According to the Fort Worth Police Department, Chase Cook and Alexander James Nicholas are charged with murder in Richardson’s late December 2025 death. Both remain jailed on six-figure bonds, and neither has entered a plea in a publicly reported hearing.
From Party Argument to Missing Person Case
Affidavits describe Richardson, 24, leaving a November 30th, 2025, party in Fort Worth with Nicholas, who allegedly argued with him during the drive. Richardson was expected at his girlfriend’s home but never arrived, prompting a missing person report that soon shifted investigators’ focus.
Nicholas allegedly told detectives he dropped Richardson off alive along a corridor between Alliance Boulevard and a truck stop in far north Fort Worth. The next documented development in the case was the December 22nd, 2025, discovery of Richardson’s body in a wooded area, buried in a shallow grave.
Witness Accounts and Girlfriend’s Statement
In the same affidavits, a partygoer reported that Nicholas displayed a silver and black handgun before leaving with Richardson. Days later, that witness told police Nicholas said, “John wouldn’t be coming around anymore,” then gestured with his hand in the shape of a gun.
A second witness told investigators Nicholas resented Richardson over a car crash. Cook, when interviewed, allegedly cried and claimed he was too drunk to recall who else was in Nicholas’ car that night. He denied knowing where the body was, but his girlfriend later offered a fuller account.
Forensic Evidence and Current Legal Posture
According to an affidavit, the girlfriend said Cook left home late that night after receiving a text from Nicholas, explaining that he had to help a friend named Alex. When Cook returned the next day, he allegedly said they had gone into the woods, and later, while drinking, described digging a six-foot hole.
Investigators then turned to digital records. Police say cellphone location data placed Richardson’s, Nicholas’, and Cook’s phones in or near a house by the same wooded area where the body was recovered. The medical examiner reported fatal stab wounds and blunt force trauma to Richardson’s head.
None of the allegations have been tested at trial, and both defendants are presumed innocent. Prosecutors must still prove who inflicted the fatal injuries and each man’s role, if any, in the killing and burial of John Richardson as the case moves through Texas courts.
