Joseph Daniel Casolaro (June 16, 1947 – August 10, 1991) was an American freelance writer who came to public attention in 1991 when he was found dead in a bathtub in room 517 of the Sheraton Hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, his wrists slashed 10–12 times.

This centered on a sprawling collaboration involving an international cabal, and primarily featuring a number of stories familiar to journalists who worked in and around Washington, D.C. in the 1980s—the Inslaw case about a software manufacturer whose owner accused the Justice Department of stealing its work product, the October Surprise theory that during the Iran hostage crisis Iran deliberately held back American hostages to help Ronald Reagan win the 1980 presidential election, the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and Iran–Contra.

They also cited his well-known squeamishness and fear of blood tests, and stated they found it incomprehensible that if he were going to kill himself, he would do so by cutting his wrists a dozen times.

[3] A number of law-enforcement officials also argued that his death deserved further scrutiny, and his notes were passed by his family to ABC News and Time magazine, both of which investigated the case, but no evidence of murder was ever found.

[6] Casolaro's interests included amateur boxing, writing poems and short stories, and raising purebred Arabian horses.

He also dabbled in journalism, looking into issues such as the Soviet naval presence in Cuba, the Castro intelligence network, and Chinese communist smuggling of opium into the U.S. according to his own curriculum vitae (though it remains unclear how much he had published).

Corn writes that the notes show Casolaro was influenced by the Christic Institute and that he had pursued material fed to him by a reporter who worked for Lyndon LaRouche.

[8] Richard Fricker writes in Wired that Casolaro had been led into a "Bermuda Triangle of spooks, guns, drugs and organized crime.

"[6] Inslaw's founder, William A. Hamilton, in a previous position with the U.S. Justice Department, had helped develop a program called PROMIS, short for Prosecutor's Management Information System.

[8] A theory was developed around the case, with allegations that "back doors" had been inserted into the software so that whoever bought a copy of it from the Justice Department could be spied upon.

[4][10] Brian, who was a close friend of then-Attorney General Ed Meese and had worked for Reagan when he was governor of California, denied any involvement in either October Surprise or the Inslaw case.

Because the reservation was sovereign territory where enforcement of U.S. law was sometimes problematic, Riconosciuto further claimed that he had worked on weapons programs there for the Wackenhut Corporation, such as a powerful "fuel air explosive".

On March 29, 1991, eight days after submitting the affidavit, Riconosciuto was arrested for, and later convicted of, distributing methamphetamine and methadone, charges that he said were a set-up to keep him from telling his story.

"[6] On August 5, 1991, Casolaro phoned Bill McCoy, a retired Army CID officer to tell him that Time magazine had assigned him an article about the Octopus.

A few days later, Casolaro showed Mason a 22-point outline for his book and expressed frustration at having been tied up with a literary agent who was unable to sell it for the last eighteen months.

Casolaro said he was leaving for several days to visit Martinsburg, West Virginia, to meet a source who promised to provide an important missing piece to his story.

The day before he died, according to The Martinsburg Morning Journal, he ate at a Pizza Hut, where he told the waitress he liked her eyes and quoted The Great Gatsby to her.

"[1] Under Casolaro's body, paramedics found an empty Milwaukee beer can, two white plastic liner-trash bags, and a single edge razor blade.

"[6] Based on the note, the absence of a struggle, no sign of a forced entry, and the presence of alcohol, police judged the case a straightforward suicide.

There were vague unsubstantiated rumors that the Mafia was somehow involved, and the wildest story even suggested that the undertaker was an employee of the CIA, hired to clean up after an agency assassination."

[1] Further, Casolaro was known to have complained numerous times about threatening or unsettling phone calls directed at him, often occurring late at night, including those received by his housekeeper during his absences from his home.

Frost of the West Virginia state medical examiner's office performed another autopsy; he returned a second suicide verdict, citing blood loss as the cause of death.

In these interactions, Danny shared his knowledge of the "Octopus," revealing information about international intelligence agencies, organized crime, and government corruption.

Journalists, family members, William Hamilton (owner of Inslaw who co-developed PROMIS), Michael Riconosciuto, and an attorney general in the Nixon administration, Elliot Richardson, were interviewed.

[19] In January 2013, Aviation Cinemas Productions and Caliber Media optioned the film rights to the story of Danny Casolaro based on Orlando's play.

[20] On February 28, 2024, Netflix released the four-part docu-series American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders exploring the complex case of Casolaro's death.