LOCKPORT — A Buffalo man who previously pleaded guilty to a pair of cold case murders involving two women has been indicted by a Niagara County grand jury for the murder of a Lockport woman.
Richard Fox, 62, pleaded innocent in Niagara County court on Monday to a charge of second-degree murder in connection with the death of 32-year-old Crystal Curthoys of Lockport.
Fox pleaded guilty in September to two counts of second-degree murder tied to the deaths of two females — Cassandra Watson and Marquita Mull. Watson is believed to have been killed in Buffalo sometime between 2003 and 2004, while Mull was likely murdered in June 2021.
On Sept. 26, 2021, a hiker walking along the Chautauqua Rails to Trails near Woleben Road in the Town of Portland discovered the remains of a human skull. A forensic analysis determined that the skeletal remains had been buried at the site for more than a decade.
The following day, Sept. 27, 2021, investigators discovered Mull’s body, in a shallow grave, as they excavated the site where Watson’s remains had been discovered.
Both women were reported to have been involved in relationships with Fox, a registered sex offender.
Fox was arrested on Jan. 7 as he walked in the 1000 block of Portage Road in the Falls. He was taken into custody by a Falls Police Narcotics & Intelligence Division (NID) detective and a Falls detective assigned to the U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force.
Falls police said investigators with the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office and the Buffalo Police Department had contacted them for assistance in locating Fox, who, although he was from Buffalo, was living in the Falls at that time.
From the time of his January arrest, law enforcement sources said that Fox was a “suspect in other unsolved crimes,” including possible homicides.
Authorities identified Fox as a “person of interest” in the grisly discovery of the skeletal remains of another woman in the stairwell of a Niagara Falls home where he once did handyman work.
Through dental records, the Niagara County District Attorney’s Office has now linked the skeletal remains to Curthoys, whom authorities said had previously lived with Fox in the Falls.
This is a developing story and the Niagara Gazette will provide additional information as it is made available online and in Tuesday’s print edition.