Richard Fox Pleads Guilty to Murdering Marquita Mull and Cassandra Watson, Found on a Rail Trail
The Buffalo man admitted killing two women about 18 years apart whose remains were found in 2021 in the Town of Portland, New York.
Published
On September 26, 2021, a woman walking the Chautauqua Rails to Trails off Woleben Road in the Town of Portland, New York, noticed something off the path. It was a human skull. As the Chautauqua County Sheriff's Office and a forensic anthropology team from Mercyhurst University excavated the spot, they uncovered the skeletal remains of a woman in a shallow grave that appeared to be years, if not decades, old. Then investigators noticed an odor. A few yards away, inside a garbage tote, were the remains of a second woman who had been left there far more recently.
Nearly four years later, on September 19, 2025, Richard J. Fox, 62, of Buffalo, pleaded guilty in Erie County Court before Judge Suzanne Maxwell Barnes to two counts of second-degree murder, for killing Marquita Mull and Cassandra Watson roughly 18 years apart.
The newer remains were identified within weeks in 2021 as Mull's. She was 50 and lived in the Broadway Fillmore area of Buffalo, and according to the Erie County District Attorney's Office, Fox killed her in the city in late June 2021. The older remains went unidentified for three more years. In December 2024, testing by Othram, a Texas laboratory, extracted DNA that matched an apparent relative, and the woman in the shallow grave was identified as Cassandra Watson, last seen by her family in 2003 or 2004. Prosecutors said Fox killed her in Buffalo around that time, and investigators learned that she had been living with him and was in a relationship with him when she disappeared.
Fox had grown up on Woleben Road, about half a mile from where both women were found. He was arrested in January 2025 in Niagara Falls and had been held without bail ever since. WKBW described him as a twice-convicted sex offender.
He faced up to 40 years to life in prison, with sentencing set for November 20, 2025.
The Erie County District Attorney's own release could not be opened; this account rests on reports by WKBW 7 News and Spectrum News 1 Buffalo, which cites the district attorney, Michael Keane. Neither report gives Cassandra Watson's age.
Sources
- Richard Fox pleads guilty to murdering two women, years after their remains were found, WKBW 7 News Buffalo (Maki Becker)
- Buffalo man pleads guilty to killing 2 women roughly 18 years apart, Spectrum News 1 Buffalo