A North Texas man hid his girlfriend’s death behind texts, travel claims and a story about mental health treatment, investigators say.

DENTON, Texas — A North Texas man has been charged with murder after police said a monthslong search for his missing girlfriend turned into a homicide investigation that stretched from Little Elm to South Dakota and Oklahoma, even though the woman’s remains have not been found.

Christopher Charles Sanders, 53, is accused in the death of Molly Richards, 31, whose father told police he had not heard from her directly since November 2025. The case matters now because investigators say they moved from a missing-person inquiry to a murder charge after finding blood residue, belongings left behind, suspicious purchase records and a travel timeline that they say did not match Sanders’ account of where Richards went.

The case began with worry, not a body. According to accounts of the arrest affidavit, Steven Richards told police his daughter moved in with Sanders at a home in Little Elm in late October 2025. He last saw her on Nov. 18. Later that month, he received a text from her phone saying she and Sanders were traveling to South Dakota. On Dec. 1, another message from her phone said she was checking into a mental health facility for bipolar disorder. Steven Richards kept pressing for answers. In one message cited by news reports, he asked where Molly was. Sanders later told him she was not at a facility and should call her father herself, but police said that direct call never came.

As the weeks passed, investigators said Sanders offered changing explanations. Police said he told Richards’ father that she had gone for mental health treatment. Later, according to Law&Crime’s account of the case, he also told people she had decided to stay in South Dakota with another man. Officers tried to test those claims. WFAA reported that investigators contacted motels, hotels, hospitals, facilities and mental health centers in the area where they believed Richards might have gone, but none reported seeing her. Police also began reviewing digital evidence and the movement of Richards’ vehicle. By then, they were no longer treating the silence as a routine disappearance. They were trying to determine whether the messages had been sent to create distance between Sanders and whatever had happened to Richards.

The evidence described publicly added to that shift. Investigators said Richards had told her father before she vanished that Sanders had become “abusive physically and controlling.” Separate reports said officers had previously seen possible strangulation marks on her body before her disappearance. In January 2026, police received information that Richards’ identification, bank cards, credit cards, laptop and unopened mail were at a South Dakota residence linked to Sanders. On Feb. 19, police said Richards’ phone was reactivated and pinged in Denton near Sanders’ home. A few days later, a woman caring for Sanders’ dogs at his South Dakota property reportedly found more of Richards’ belongings there. Those details, police said, undercut the idea that Richards had simply chosen to start over elsewhere.

Searches of property in Texas pushed the case further. Investigators later executed search warrants at residences tied to Sanders in Denton and Little Elm. According to the affidavit as described by local media, officers found bedding with blood residue and a human remains detection dog alerted in a bedroom. Police also recovered what they said was a Lowe’s receipt for a 24-inch bow saw, a reciprocating saw, 10 five-gallon buckets, gloves and a tamper. Richards’ prescription medication, unopened mail and documents bearing both names were also found, according to those reports. Police have not publicly described a confirmed cause of death, and Richards’ remains have not been recovered. That remains one of the central unknowns in the case.

Investigators also focused on where Richards’ body might have gone. Reports on the affidavit said officers reconstructed a route for Richards’ vehicle and found that it traveled through Oklahoma on the way to South Dakota on Nov. 27. During that trip, authorities said there was a gap of about one hour and nine minutes near property tied to Sanders in Marietta, Oklahoma. Police now believe Richards was killed and that her remains were buried in Oklahoma, although some published accounts initially said South Dakota. Sanders was arrested March 7 in Marietta while traveling from South Dakota, according to police accounts in local and national coverage. Officers said he denied killing Richards and did not tell them where she was.

The case has shaken people who lived near Sanders. Jessica Martinez, a neighbor quoted by FOX 4, said she knew little about him before the arrest. “And to think that it was just right there is just wild,” she said. Another neighbor, Jaedy Smith, told the station the case left her wondering what may be happening behind closed doors in otherwise quiet neighborhoods. Their comments did not add evidence to the case, but they captured the way the investigation moved from private worry inside one family to a public crime scene spanning several states and several months.

Currently, Sanders is being held in the Denton County Jail after his arrest, and public reports say he is being held without bail. Police have said the investigation is continuing as they work to locate Richards’ remains and refine the timeline. The next major milestone is any court filing that lays out prosecutors’ case in fuller detail or any recovery effort that answers where Richards is.

Author note: Last updated April 20, 2026.