Warrants: Charlotte murder suspect told sister he killed co-worker

Mark Anthony Cox, 22, allegedly ran to the apartment he shared with his sister and confided in her that he killed his manager, Danielle Marie Watson, 25, while she closed up the Flying Biscuit Cafe on Rea Road Jan. 13.

He said that he stabbed her and discarded her body in a dumpster near the restaurant, warrants state.

Detectives later found a bloody butcher knife in Cox's kitchen and blood throughout the apartment.

He was arrested Jan. 16 at a friend's house in Fayetteville, where police believe drugs were being sold. Watson's car was found parked at a nearby apartment complex.

A waste service company employee found Watson's body in the early morning hours of Jan. 14 while he was emptying the dumpster at the Flying Biscuit Cafe on Rea Road, where Watson worked as a manager and Cox worked in the kitchen.

Warrants also allege that Cox has a history of targeting people he knows. 

In 2008, he and several accomplices robbed the Sonic Restaurant in Roanoke Rapids where he worked, held co-workers at gunpoint and took off with $3,100, warrants state.

He was given a suspended sentence and placed on probation, but he eventually served three years in prison after Knightdale police say he broke into the home of an acquaintance in 2009.

The victim in that case was a man trying to help Cox get his life straightened out by offering him a place to stay. The man eventually asked Cox to leave, and that's when Cox broke in and robbed him, warrants state.

Within weeks of his November release from prison, Cox got the job at Flying Biscuit.

Watson's fiancée Keith Smith, who said she was two months pregnant and that they were planning to marry this month, said Watson didn't know that Cox was a convicted felon.

The restaurant owners have not said whether they conduct background checks on employees.