Man charged with killing bar owner and raping his fiancée in 2013

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

A major break in a Bucks County cold case from 2013 has one man facing a long list of charges including robbery, rape and murder, officials said.

Bucks County detectives say Thomas Delgado, 50, of Philadelphia, was one of the two men who broke into a Hilltown Township home back on Jan. 18, 2013, murdered Joseph Canazaro, 48, and raped his fiancée.

The murder of Joseph Canazaro

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

Then about a minute later, the dispatchers received another call from a nearby house. A woman was on the line and said she was calling from her neighbor's home. She told the dispatchers that two armed men broke into her home, took her family hostage and may have kidnapped her fiancé, later identified as Joseph Canazaro. She also reported that her fiancé's pickup truck was stolen as well as other things from the home.

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

Detectives then spoke with Canazaro's fiancée. She told investigators two gunmen entered her home earlier that morning and approached her and Canazaro inside their bedroom.

The two men then proceeded to zip-tie the two victims by the legs and with their hands behind their backs, according to the affidavit.

Canazaro was then led around the house by one of the suspects while another suspect, later identified by investigators as Delgado, stayed with the woman and Canazaro's younger son, investigators said.

Delgado then allegedly took Canazaro's fiancée into a different room and raped her.

The two men then took the woman and the boy down into the basement of the home sometime later and left them there with instructions to wait for two hours, officials said.

After she believed the two men left, the woman was able to get out of the zip ties and help the boy escape, according to the affidavit.

The woman said she then took the boy and their family dog to their neighbor's house to call 911.

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

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

What led to Thomas Delgado's arrest

Officials discovered that surveillance video from Jan. 18, 2013, showed the suspects unloading the trunk of the victim's stolen pickup truck and leaving it behind a Friendly's in Quakertown. Later that same day, officers found the stolen pickup truck abandoned behind the restaurant and a pair of gardening gloves near the vehicle.

The gardening gloves found near the vehicle were sent to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, and the results came back with an unknown male's DNA.

Canazaro's fiancée then completed a sexual assault nurse examination, officials said. The results from the test showed an unknown man's DNA profile.

Meanwhile, detectives went through the victim's home after the incident and found 11 cell phones. While trying to investigate the contents of the phones, only eight of them were usable and able to be downloaded.

Years later, while investigating the stolen pickup truck in October of 2019, detectives found a black face mask. A lab report of the mask released in August 2020 showed DNA from a man that matched the profile of Thomas Delgado, police said.

Then, in September and October of 2022, detectives in Bucks County were able to use new technology to investigate ten of the 11 phones originally found inside Canazaro's home.

One of the phones belonged to Canazaro and had been found to have been connected to a number associated with Thomas Delgado nearly half a dozen times between August and December of 2011, investigators said.

A second phone owned by Canazaro had been connected to another number associated with Delgado over 40 times between June and November 2011, according to the affidavit.

When asked, Canazaro's fiancée told investigators that she did not know Thomas Delgado and that no one in her family owned a black mask like the one found in the stolen pickup truck.

Online court records show Delgado was arraigned on nearly three dozen charges -- including murder, sexual assault, kidnapping of a minor, and robbery -- on Wednesday afternoon. He was denied bail.

The records don't name an attorney who could comment on Delgado's behalf.

While Delgado is in custody, police continue to investigate the incident.

"Delgado's arrest is only one piece of the puzzle and the investigation is still ongoing," a Hilltown Township Police spokesperson wrote.

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

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.