A Cocoa mother arrived for a custody pickup and found her two young children and their father shot dead, in a suspected murder-suicide police tie to the dad.
Olivia Piccolo, 29, went to her ex’s house in Cocoa, Florida, on her day to take the kids. The door was partly open. Inside, she found all three dead.
Her daughter Aira, 5, and son Remy, 7, were gone. So was their father, Joseph Dingwall, 37. Officials told The Post they believed Dingwall was responsible for the children’s deaths. Motive had not been publicized.
Cocoa Police Chief Evander Collier IV described the scene at a press conference. It was a custody handoff that turned into a nightmare no parent should face.
Collier said Piccolo tried to reach the children’s father, then went in.
"It was her day to have custody of her children and after she got to the house to try to reach... the kids’ father, she went to the home and went inside,"
he said. He added the detail that sealed the horror:
"The door was partially ajar and she went inside and found all three deceased."
Neighbor Marcos Garcia told WESH 2 News he heard gunfire long before Piccolo arrived Wednesday afternoon.
"Two gunshots. Two clear gunshots, and it was 12.20 a.m., midnight,"
Garcia said. He did not call police.
A short time after those shots, Garcia’s doorbell camera caught Dingwall pacing in front of the home with a flashlight. About 12 hours later, Piccolo walked into the house and found the three bodies.
That gap matters. Shots at midnight. A man seen outside with a light. A mother arriving the next afternoon for her kids. The timeline leaves little room for comfort.
Cocoa police had been called 11 times to Dingwall’s home or over related “medical and suspicious activities.” The public account does not spell out the dates or the exact nature of each call. It does show repeated contact with the address before three people ended up dead.
No formal charges beyond the official belief of responsibility appear in the available statements. No detailed weapon inventory or autopsy findings were released in the early reporting. Authorities framed the case as a suspected murder-suicide and said the father was believed responsible for the children’s deaths.
When police keep returning to the same house for medical and suspicious calls, families and neighbors deserve clear answers about what those visits found, and what, if anything, changed afterward. Three lives were lost after that pattern of contact.
Cocoa Mayor Michael C. Blake asked residents to stand with the family.
"We ask that you continue to hold them up in prayer, show support and love because tough times don’t always last, tough people do,"
Blake said.
A family friend set up a GoFundMe page for funeral costs and support for Piccolo. By Friday morning it had raised more than $15,000. Memorial notes on the page remembered Aira as a little girl who loved “squishy dumplings, all animals, and everything pink.” Remy was recalled as a boy who loved video games, music, and friends, and as a “fierce protector of his little sister and his mother.”
Those details do not explain the shooting. They do show what was taken: a five-year-old, a seven-year-old, and the ordinary future their mother came to collect that day.
Piccolo went to pick up her children on a custody day. She found a door left open and a home turned into a crime scene. Officials point to the father. A neighbor heard two shots after midnight and later saw him outside with a flashlight. Police records show 11 prior calls tied to the home or related medical and suspicious activity. The motive still has not been made public.
When warning signs stack up at the same address and children still die on a custody handoff, the public is right to demand more than condolences, it needs accountability for what was known, what was done, and what failed before that door was left ajar.
