CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, N.Y. (WKBW) — Tonia Stebbins wasn’t entirely surprised when she learned that Richard J. Fox was arrested earlier this month and accused of murdering a woman.
Stebbins said that when she was a little girl, Fox, who had been her stepfather, beat, choked and sexually abused her.
Fox is accused of killing Marquita Mull in June 2021 at a location in the City of Buffalo. Mull, a 50-year-old Buffalo woman, went missing and her body was later found off a trail in Chautauqua County, next to the remains of a second, unidentified woman in September 2021.
Police announced they recently identified the remains of the second woman but are not releasing her name yet as the investigation continues.
Stebbins said her cousin texted her when the news broke that Fox had been arrested on January 8.
"I believe there's a lot, a lot more victims out there,” Stebbins told me. "The scariest part of him was his eyes and his like, I mean, he had big eyebrows and that didn't change in all of his pictures, they were always still black."
"I can't say I couldn't believe it because I knew he was capable of it, but I was just in shock that it was finally gonna be a charge that he couldn't wiggle his way out of,” Stebbins said.
Like when he got only three years in prison for sexually abusing her from the time she was 3 until she was 14.
"There were certain people that knew I was abused, but they have no idea what he was capable of," Stebbins said. "I mean, he was capable of that in his twenties. So I could just imagine as he got older and older that it just got worse and worse because that's what happened with me."
When Stebbins was 3, Fox was questioned about the suspected abuse but nothing happened to him. She said instead she and her brother were put into foster care for three years. When they got home, their mother was still with Fox.
"She told me I was a liar and she didn't believe me and I'm like, your own mother doesn't believe you, then what do you do?” Stebbins said.
When she was 14, Stebbins said Fox attacked her so brutally that she decided to run away. She went to the police and she told them about his shed filled with electrical cords that he used to choke her
He pleaded guilty to third-degree rape and served three years.
Then in 2005, he was arrested again on 19th Street in Buffalo, this time for beating, choking, stabbing and trying to rape his then-girlfriend.
Fox pleaded guilty in that case and spent 13 years in prison.
Now, he’s back behind bars in the Erie County Holding Center — this time charged with murder.
"Until they find him guilty or he pleads guilty and I know that he's not gonna get out, I'm still never gonna feel safe from him,” she said.
"That's one of the main reasons I agreed to do the interview was for that reason," Stebbins said. "One, I wanted to finally have my voice because it had been taken away from me for so long, and two just to help other people and hopefully people that will come forward."
There are resources available if you or someone you know needs help or support. The Child Advocacy Center in Buffalo can be reached at 716-886-5437 and you can find their website here. You can also reach the Erie County Crisis Services hotline at (716) 834-3131 and the National Crisis Lifeline at 988.
