Police say the children’s mother discovered the three after arriving at a Cocoa home when the children failed to attend school.
COCOA, Fla. — A Florida father is believed to have killed his two young children before dying by suicide inside his Cocoa home, police said, in a case discovered after the children’s mother went to check on them when they did not attend school.
Police identified the children as 7-year-old Remy Dingwall and 5-year-old Aria Dingwall. Their father was identified as 37-year-old Joseph Kyle Dingwall. The three were found dead Oct. 7 at a home on Sorrento Drive. Cocoa Police Chief Evander Collier IV said investigators believe Dingwall was responsible for the children’s deaths, though authorities have not publicly identified a motive.
The children’s mother, Olivia Piccolo, went to the home shortly before 1 p.m. after she could not reach Dingwall and learned the children were absent from school, according to police and local news reports. Piccolo was scheduled to have the children that day. Collier said the home’s door was partially open when she arrived. She entered and found the children and their father unresponsive before calling 911.
Investigators are also examining events from earlier that morning. A neighbor, Marcos Garcia, told WESH that he heard what sounded like two gunshots at about 12:20 a.m. Police said no one called 911 at that time, and authorities have not established publicly whether the sounds Garcia reported came from Dingwall’s home. Surveillance footage from a nearby residence showed a man walking outside around the same general period.
Police later said the person seen pacing outside the house in the surveillance footage appeared to be Dingwall. Earlier reporting from WFTV said the video appeared to show a man leaving the home, walking around the yard and then returning inside. Investigators have not released a complete timeline of the deaths or publicly said how the surveillance footage fits into the sequence of events.
The Sorrento Drive address had generated 11 police calls for service since 2021, Collier said at a news conference. Those calls included medical matters and reports of suspicious activity. The chief said one dispatch record listed “suicide” as the type of call, but he could not confirm whether that incident involved Dingwall or another person associated with the home. Authorities have not said that any previous call was connected to the deaths of Remy and Aria.
Initial reports Wednesday described the deaths as a suspected murder-suicide but did not identify who police believed was responsible. By the following day, Collier said investigators believed the father had killed the children and then died by suicide. Police have released few details about the evidence supporting that conclusion and have not publicly described what may have happened inside the home before the deaths.
Neighbors described seeing the children around the neighborhood before the killings. Their mother later told WESH through a reporter that she wanted people to know how deeply she loved them and how special they were to her. Fundraisers established after the deaths described Remy as protective of his younger sister and remembered Aria for her bright and compassionate personality.
The case remains under investigation as detectives continue reviewing evidence, witness accounts and the history of calls to the property. Police have said the deaths appear to have been an isolated incident and that there is no continuing threat to the public. Authorities had not announced a motive as of Friday.