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Background: The Koppel, Pa. neighborhood where Dylan Bish allegedly left threatening notes (Google Maps). Inset: Dylan Bish (Koppel Borough Police Department).
A Pennsylvania man allegedly sent his neighbor graphically violent notes that had police calling him a “potential serial killer.”
Dylan Bish, 19, was arrested by Koppel Borough Police on March 13 following an investigation into a series of notes that a woman reported to law enforcement. In a Facebook post announcing the arrest, police said that Bish was allegedly the sender of a handwritten note addressed to a female neighbor who lived near him. According to police, the note mentioned Bish’s alleged desires, including wanting to “dismember” her body “with a chain saw” as well as “sexual desires with her corpse.” He also allegedly wrote that he had already killed 20 women and that she was his “next victim.”
Police said in their statement that Bish’s alleged fantasies were not limited to just his handwritten notes. In their Facebook post, police said that when they interviewed Bish after reading him his Miranda rights, he reportedly stated that he was obsessed with the woman to whom he’d allegedly sent the notes and did not intend to “stop his obsession until she is ‘dead.”” Bish also described to police “in detail” how he “wished to dismember her this summer in the woods.”
During his interview with police, Bish reportedly said that he was studying criminal justice and forensic science “for the sole reason” of knowing how law enforcement, including the FBI, operates so he wouldn’t get “caught.”
According to police, Bish allegedly left the woman the first note in November 2024. The details of that note were reportedly less graphic and seemingly an attempt to get the woman to contact him. The note mentioned the woman by name and included a phone number that was later discovered to be Bish’s. The alleged target of Bish’s note found the note at her home address and reported it to police.
The next note allegedly written by Bish was also placed at her home’s door and included graphic, violent language. Court documents obtained by WPXI, a local NBC affiliate, stated that the second note allegedly included the writer’s desire to dismember her body and “eat her brain.”
The writer also said in the note, “I’ve been watching you from my POV [in] front of your apartment [your] room is filled with CDs.” WPXI reported that the alleged victim had vinyl records displayed in her home.
The violent nature of the second note caused state police to begin their investigation into who was writing the notes.
WPXI reported that on March 10, police received a text from the phone number they tried to contact from the first note. In court documents, police said that the text was intended for the alleged victim and said that she was going to be his next victim among other “gory details,” including the desire to “smash her skull.” Police also received a graphic video of someone being skinned and tied up.
At this point, police notified the alleged victim and contacted Beaver County detectives. Using the phone number as well as email and IP addresses, officers finally identified Bish as the alleged writer of the notes and the text. During his interview with police, Bish allegedly confessed to sending the notes, but told police that he never hurt anyone despite his claims of killing 20 women and reportedly admitted that he was “lonely and hoping for a relationship of friendship” with his alleged target.
Police said that they and other agencies believed that a “homicide as well as the spawning of a potential serial killer may have been prevented in this arrest given the numerous homicidal details during Bish’s interview.”
The Koppel Borough Police stated that Bish was arrested and booked into Beaver County Jail, where he is being held on $1 million bond. A magistrate judge ordered that he undergo a mental health evaluation before being released. Bish was charged with stalking, making terroristic threats, harassment, and harassment while communicating anonymously. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on March 28.
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