TOWN OF PORTLAND, N.Y. (WKBW) — 61-year-old Richard J. Fox is facing a second-degree murder charge in connection to the mysterious 2021 murder of Marquita Mull.
Mull, a 50-year-old Buffalo woman, went missing and her body was later found off a trail in the Town of Portland in Chautauqua County, next to the remains of a second, unidentified woman in September 2021.
According to the Erie County District Attorney's Office, Fox is accused of killing Mull in June 2021 at a location in the City of Buffalo.
You can watch our previous report on Fox's arrest below and read more here.
We recently learned that Fox spent his childhood in the Town of Portland, so I headed there to speak with residents who reacted to the news, realizing they may have known a killer.
“You just don’t believe somebody that you could've known once upon a time, would be capable of doing something like that," said Rich Carpenter.
“You don’t expect someone in your small town to grow up to be a murderer," said Barb Smith.
Carpenter and Smith are long-time residents of the Portland area and said they remember Fox from grade school and were stunned to hear of his arrest.
“I have the pictures from our kindergarten class," said Smith. "I remember seeing him in elementary school, but I don’t believe he was in any of my classes.”
“When I first read it I didn’t link the name right away because it said Buffalo, but then I thought wait a minute, he’s my age and he’d be intimately familiar with Chautauqua County, particularly Portland," said Carpenter.
It started to make sense as Mull's remains and the remains of another woman were found in a wooded area by a trail off Woleben Road.
“If you don’t live around here, you don’t know where Woleben Road is," said Smith. "I mean we do because we grew up here, but the normal person…it’s way off the beaten path.”
“It’s all farm country out that way, you’d really have to know about Woleben Road and the Rails to Trails and all that, to have a place that you would hide a body," said Carpenter.
Woleben Road is a rural country road, not a lot of buildings and I saw maybe three cars the whole time I was there. Then of course you have the Chautauqua Rails to Trails and that’s where the two bodies were found in the woods.
“It would be pretty coincidental for two separate murderers to bury bodies that close to each other," said Carpenter.
“It’s scary because you don’t know who you’re walking around with," said Smith.
Many more questions to be answered as authorities said the investigation is ongoing.
Fox is scheduled to return on January 13 for a felony hearing and was held without bail.
