If you have Netlix and are heavily into true crime, conspiracy theories, and strange circumstances surrounding a decade’s long mystery. This is the story of Joseph Daniel Casolaro.

Danny Casolaro.

As you can already tell just by simply looking at the image above of Danny, you can easily tell that he was a walking poem; with golden hair, a magnetic personality, and the gift of a charismatic man. Those who had the pleasure of being a part of Danny’s life, were truly blessed. He wasn’t just a writer, he was a brave man on pursuit of the truth that would ultimately lead to his very mysterious demise.

Joseph Daniel Casolaro was born on June 16, 1947 in McLean, Virginia, he was the eldest son of an successful obstetrician in suburban Virginia, Danny grew up in a world that couldn’t contain him. Athletic and introspective, he searched for something more than what the cul-de-sac and traditions of his upbringing could offer. His brother, Tony, remembers a young Danny deciding almost impulsively, to go down to Peru in search of buried treasure- the literal kind.

His journey took him all the way to Ecuador, where he ran into a “rich guy” who pulled him into a bizarre scheme involving corvina fish. That was Danny; always chasing something bigger, stranger, freer.

He graduated from Providence college in 1968, a time when the world was cracking open artists, thinkers, and wanderers like Danny were trying to catch the pieces. He began his writing career shortly after, drifting between fiction and nonfiction, always in motion, always reinventing himself. By the late 1970s, his path twisted again.

Danny and his son, Trey.

His divorce from Terrill, the woman he deeply loved, marked quite a fracture in his life. In grief, he wrote a book for her-titled Pursuit. It’s unclear whether he ever finished or published it, but that title alone feels like a window into his psyche.

For a time, Danny stepped away from journalism, throwing himself into entrepreneurship. He acquired and managed several computer and data processing trade journals, finally making good money. But despite material success, there was still a hint of melancholy in his orbit-like he knew that money didn’t matter as much as the meaning.

Danny & his brother, Tony.

His ex-girlfriend Ann once described him as magnetic, charismatic, and charming. That tracks. He painted a tin foil hat gold. He quoted poetry. He felt things deeply and said what others wouldn’t. He was a rare blend- skeptical but spiritual, logical yet intuitive. A golden boy with a mind like a prism.

And yet, tragedy was never far.

Danny Casolaro

His younger sister died under suspicious circumstances in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district in the late ’60s. Her death was never ruled definitively-accident or suicide- but to Danny, it was a defining wound. As a Catholic, it shook his worldview. It also cemented something essential: he did not believe in suicide. He rejected it, wrote against it, and carried that conviction with him for the rest of his life.

So when Danny was found dead under mysterious circumstances, with cuts to his forearms and no weapon in sight, questions were bound to follow.

And that’s where The Urine Files begins..