In May 2024 Columbia, Missouri, longtime resident and 77-year-old educator and ordained interfaith minister Marcia Hess and her 50-year-old daughter Sara Fox were reported missing after they were last seen at their Ridgemont Drive home on May 8, 2024. Friends and family raised concerns when the women could not be reached, prompting a police welfare check and a missing persons investigation.

During a subsequent search of the Ridgemont Drive residence, officers discovered the bodies of both women hidden inside a closet. Both had sustained fatal gunshot wounds; one victim had been shot multiple times and the concealment of the bodies was noted. The case was reclassified as a double homicide.

Law enforcement identified 51-year-old Randall Fox, the ex-husband of Sara Fox, as a person of interest; he was located and arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence and held without bond in the Boone County Jail. Marcia Hess is remembered by relatives and neighbors as a devoted teacher, quilter and spiritual leader who moved back to Missouri to be near family. If anyone knew Marcia or Sara or has information about their deaths, please come forward.