Charges filed against second suspect accused of concealing death of 17-year-old girl
Charges were filed Thursday against the second man suspected of concealing the death of a 17-year-old Fayette County girl in 2023.
Vincent Cossell, 44, of Brownsville, reportedly told police he had helped Derrick Bradley dispose of the body of Kaitlyn Whoolery. Court paperwork said the men had found her dead after staying the night with them and another person in a motel room in November 2023.
Charges were filed against Bradley, 37, of Uniontown, on Wednesday.
Cossell told investigators he and Bradley had taken Whoolery’s body to Washington Avenue and Hogsett Lane in North Union Township, according to charging documents. After Bradley grew paranoid, he paid Cossell to return to the site to bury Whoolery, which he did on Christmas morning, according to his criminal complaint.
Cossell and Bradley discarded Whoolery’s personal belongings at sites around the county, the affidavit said.
Prosecutors initially agreed they would not charge Cossell in exchange for an April 2024 interview with police in which he gave investigators the precise location where Whollery was buried, District Attorney Mike Aubele said Wednesday. After Cossell had received additional unrelated criminal charges for retail theft, police reinterviewed him about the case.
With the exception of Crawford’s additional charge of interference with custody of children, Cossell’s are identical: a felony charge of hindering apprehension and misdemeanor charges of endangering welfare of children, concealing the death of a child, tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse.
A district judge denied bail for Bradley during his arraignment on Wednesday. Cossell had not been arraigned as of Thursday afternoon.