Man charged with concealing death of 17-year-old girl, hiding her body
Remains of Kaitlin Whoolery discovered in April 2024
A Uniontown man is accused of concealing the death of a 17-year-old girl and hiding her body at an abandoned property in North Union Township in November 2023.
Police said Derrick Bradley, 37, conspired with Vincent Cossell, 44, to dispose of the body of Kaitlin Whoolery, who had spent the night with them at the Heritage Inn in Uniontown before they found her dead the next morning.
“After 22 months since she went missing, it’s a big relief for us to finally have charges filed and be able to proceed to hopefully get justice for Kaitlin here,” Fayette County District Attorney Mike Aubele said Wednesday.
Aubele said he anticipated filing charges against Cossell later in the day on Wednesday.
Relatives said Whoolery had last been seen leaving a relative’s home in Uniontown on Nov. 23, 2023. At the time of her disappearance, Whoolery was either supposed to be at a drug treatment facility or in the care of a guardian, police said in the complaint. Aubele said she had been granted a home visit for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Another person who stayed in the motel room the night of Whoolery’s death, described only as “Witness 1” in the complaint, recalled falling asleep next to Whoolery on the night of Nov. 23, waking up the next morning to Bradley and Cossell returning to the room, and Cossell exclaiming, “She looks like she’s dead.”
Cossell reportedly told police he had attempted to perform CPR on Whoolery, but was unsuccessful in resuscitating her. The unnamed witness said they had also run to purchase Narcan, due to Bradley and Cossell’s concern about Whoolery possibly overdosing, according to the complaint.
The witness said they pleaded with Bradley and Cossell to inform police of Whoolery’s death, according to court paperwork. They both refused, the witness told police: Bradley because he had sex with Whoolery, who was underage, and Cossell because the room was rented in his name.
The witness continued pleading unsuccessfully with Bradley and Cossell for the next 30 minutes before getting a ride away from the motel, according to the complaint.
During an interview with police on April 16, 2024, Cossell reportedly said he and Bradley backed up a vehicle to the door of the motel room and carried out a tote containing Whoolery’s body. The men allegedly left her body in the area of Washington Avenue and Hogsett Lane in North Union Township.
As part of that interview, Cossell showed police where Whoolery’s body was on a map, the complaint stated, and Uniontown and state police found her remains the same day.
Cossell reportedly told police they had transported Whoolery’s remains to the site on Nov. 24, the day they found her dead, but had not buried her. Over the following weeks, Bradley grew paranoid and offered to pay Cossell to dig a grave, police alleged. On Christmas morning, Cossell returned to the lot and buried Whoolery in a shallow grave of 3 to 4 feet, according to the complaint.
Cossell told police he and Bradley had discarded Whoolery’s personal belongings at sites throughout the county, the affidavit said.
The complaint did not indicate how police came to interview Cossell.
In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Aubele said he had agreed not to press charges against Cossell at the time of the 2024 interview in exchange for the precise location of Whoolery’s remains.
He was able to reinterview Cossell a second time after he was charged with unrelated crimes, Aubele said.
“Based on some other potential criminal allegations that he faced — some retail theft issues, primarily — it presented an opportunity for us to reinterview him and get him to basically give us the information, give us another statement that would be on the record,” he said.
Police attempted to interview Bradley in February 2025, but he refused to talk without a lawyer present, according to the complaint.
Bradley is charged with felony counts of interference with custody of children and hindering apprehension or prosecution. He also faces misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of children, concealing the death of a child, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse. Aubele said Cossell would face similar charges, but as of press time the state’s online portal did not show a complaint had been filed.
Magisterial District Judge Nathan Henning denied bail for Bradley on the grounds of continued criminal activity, being a threat to himself and others and “total disregard for the law.”
Bradley is scheduled for a preliminary hearing before Henning Sept. 29.
The investigation in the case remains ongoing, Aubele said. He said there had been a lack of cooperation, “even among certain family members who we think probably knew what had happened to her.”