Investigators say Molly Richards vanished after a trip to South Dakota, and her remains still have not been recovered.
DENTON, TX — A 53-year-old North Texas man has been charged with murder after police said his girlfriend disappeared during a trip tied to South Dakota late last year, leaving investigators to piece together a case built on blood evidence, travel records and messages sent before she vanished.
Christopher Sanders is accused of killing 31-year-old Molly Richards, who had been missing for months before Little Elm police announced his arrest. The case matters now because investigators say they believe Richards is dead even though they have not found her remains, and because the alleged trail of evidence stretches from Denton County into Oklahoma and South Dakota. Sanders is being held in the Denton County jail. Authorities have said the investigation is still active as they try to determine where Richards was killed and where her body was left.
According to police accounts and court records described in local reports, Richards had been living with Sanders at a home in Little Elm since about October 2025. Her father later told investigators that he last had direct contact with her in November, after she said she and Sanders were traveling to South Dakota. Before she disappeared, Richards told her father in a message that Sanders had become “abusive physically and controlling,” a detail investigators later included in the arrest affidavit. On Dec. 1, her father received what police believe may have been the last message sent from her phone, saying she was checking into a mental health facility for bipolar disorder. After that, her father kept trying to reach her and to get answers from Sanders. In one message later cited in reporting, he wrote that he was worried and asked where his daughter was. Police said Sanders did not provide a clear explanation.
The missing-person case widened in January. Richards’ father contacted authorities after not hearing from her, and police began checking hospitals, hotels, motels and mental health facilities for signs that she had been admitted or had traveled on her own. Investigators found no record that matched the story they had been given, according to the affidavit described by local outlets. They also learned Richards’ car had turned up in Deadwood, South Dakota, after a minor crash. A witness there told investigators he had met the couple at a bar and, at Sanders’ request, agreed to keep an eye on Richards’ vehicle while Sanders said he was taking her to a doctor in Rapid City, about 40 miles away. By late January, Deadwood police were publicly asking for help locating Richards, saying her last possible sighting may have been in the downtown Main Street area. Even then, Deadwood Police Chief Cory Shafer said officers could not confirm the exact business, time or location of a verified last sighting.
As the investigation moved back to Texas, police said search warrants led them to evidence inside properties tied to Sanders. Reports on the arrest affidavit said investigators found blood residue on bedding at a home in Little Elm. A human-remains detection dog also alerted in a bedroom there, according to police. Officers later found receipts for items that investigators considered significant, including saws, multiple five-gallon buckets, gloves and a tamper. The tools themselves were not recovered, according to reporting on the affidavit. Police also received information that Richards’ identification, credit cards and other belongings were at another residence Sanders owned in South Dakota. In addition, investigators said they found Richards’ vehicle had a strong odor of cleaning products inside. Taken together, officers said, those details helped persuade them that Richards had not left on her own and that efforts had been made to hide evidence after her disappearance.
The case has also drawn attention because it spans several states and because a body has not been found, a hurdle that can complicate homicide investigations even when prosecutors believe they have enough evidence to file a charge. Local Texas and South Dakota reports show how the inquiry grew from a welfare concern into a larger interstate case. Deadwood police first treated it as a missing-person investigation and asked residents to help identify where Richards might have been seen. In Oklahoma, law officers were warned that a person of interest in the case would be traveling through Love County. In Texas, investigators worked backward through messages, housing records and physical evidence found in homes connected to Sanders. Records later obtained by KXII identified Richards as Sanders’ ex-girlfriend and said the killing may have happened during an argument, though authorities have not publicly laid out a full account of how they believe she died. They also have not publicly said whether another person has been charged with helping move or conceal remains.
Police arrested Sanders on March 7 in Marietta, Oklahoma, after Little Elm investigators alerted law officers there that he would be passing through Love County. He was detained without incident by a fugitive apprehension team that included deputies and local police officers, according to Oklahoma reports. Records later showed he was booked into jail on a fugitive charge before being transferred to face the Texas murder case. By March 16, KXII reported that Sanders had been booked into the Denton County jail. Little Elm police later said a SWAT team also took part in an operation at a Denton residence earlier in March. The murder case remains in its early procedural stage. No trial date had been publicly announced in the reports reviewed, and authorities had not said whether prosecutors would pursue additional charges tied to abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence or transport of remains across state lines. The next major step is likely to be further court proceedings in Denton County and continued searches aimed at recovering Richards’ body.
Neighbors in North Texas told reporters they knew little about Sanders before the arrest, adding a note of shock to a case already marked by long gaps and unanswered questions. Jessica Martinez, who lives near one of the homes connected to the investigation, said she mostly remembered that the yard was rarely maintained and had no idea police would later tie the property to a homicide inquiry. Another neighbor, Jaedy Smith, said the arrest left her wondering what can be happening behind closed doors in otherwise quiet neighborhoods. In South Dakota, the public appeal from Deadwood police had earlier cast Richards’ disappearance in a different light, asking residents and visitors to think back to late 2025 and whether they had seen a woman from Texas on Main Street. That shift from missing-person notices to a murder charge has sharpened the stakes for Richards’ family, who are still waiting for the part of the case that matters most: finding her and learning, in a clear official account, what happened in the final days before she vanished.
For now, Sanders remains jailed on the murder charge, and investigators have said Richards’ remains have not been recovered. The next milestone is expected to come in Denton County court as police continue tracing her last movements through Texas, Oklahoma and South Dakota.
Author note: Last updated March 31, 2026.