2013 Bucks County murder case re-opened after charges dropped – NBC10 Philadelphia

Warning: This story contains graphic details that readers may find disturbing.

A 2013 cold case in Bucks County is back on the cold case list after charges were dropped against one of the men accused of murdering a bar owner and raping his fiancée.

In January 2024, Bucks County detectives said that 50-year-old Thomas Delgado of Philadelphia was one of the men who broke into a Hilltown Township home on January 18, 2013, murdered Joseph Canazaro and raped his fiancée.

But just eight months later, on Monday, September 9, a judge dropped all but two of the 34 charges against Delgado.

The murder of Joseph Canazaro

On Jan. 18, 2013, just after 10 a.m., Bucks County 911 officials received a call from a home in the 300 block of Swartley Road in Hilltown Township. Officers attempted to respond, but the caller was no longer on the line, the affidavit states.

About a minute later, dispatchers received another call from a nearby home. A woman answered the phone and said she was calling from her neighbor's house. She told dispatchers that two armed men had broken into her home, taken her family hostage, and possibly kidnapped her fiancé, later identified as Joseph Canazaro. She also reported that her fiancé's pickup truck had been stolen from the home, as well as other items.

Police arrived at the home and found Canazaro's body in the garage, his hands bound with zip ties, officials said. An autopsy later confirmed he had died from multiple stab wounds, and his death was ruled a homicide.

Investigators then spoke with Canazaro's fiancée. She told investigators that two armed men entered her home early that morning and approached her and Canazaro in their bedroom.

According to the affidavit, the two men then tied the legs of the two victims with cable ties and held their hands behind their backs.

Canazaro was then led through the home by one of the suspects while another suspect stayed with the woman and Canazaro's younger son, investigators said.

Thomas Delgado was accused of being the suspect who stayed with the woman and her son. Delgado was accused of taking Canazaro's fiancée to another room and raping her.

Resources for victims of sexual assault are available through the National Sexual Violence Resources Center and the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-4673.

Some time later, the two men took the woman and the boy to the basement of the house and left them there with instructions to wait for two hours, officials said.

After the woman believed the two men had left, she managed to untie the zip ties and help the boy escape, according to the affidavit.

The woman said she then went to the neighbor's house with the boy and the family dog ​​to call 911.

Canazaro's eldest son was at school throughout the ordeal, investigators said.

At the time of his murder, Canazaro was the owner of Finn McCool's Tavern in Ambler, Pennsylvania.

If you have any information about the murder of Joseph Canazaro, please call Bucks County Detectives at 215-348-6354 or Hilltown Township Police at 215-453-6011.