Twin, 'thick as thieves' with brother, mourns loss in West Manchester crash

Larry Cone drove by his childhood home in the Dover area on Wednesday, where he and his identical twin brother, Garry, and their siblings had grown up.

It wasn't easy.

"It brought back a lot," he said.

His twin brother, Garry William Cone, 47, of the 2800 block of Blossom Road in Dover, died Saturday after his Dodge Ram crashed into a house in the 2000 block of Church Road in West Manchester Township.

The twins have been close their whole lives. They were thick as thieves as kids, and still were seeing each other "two, three, four times a week," and texting each other every day as they closed in on finishing up their fifth decade on Earth.

On Wednesday, after managing to take a drive by the old house, Larry Cone, now of West York, remembered playing with his brother in the front yard. He thought back to many a football game between the brothers and remembered a tree in the yard. They used to break branches off of it, he said, and chase each other around with them when they were kids.

"Last year it was tire irons," joked Larry, who seemed to be trying to keep upbeat.

Sports: He and the twins' mother, Janice Cone, now of Maryland, said Garry loved the outdoors and playing various sports.

"We played softball together pretty much our whole lives," Larry said.

Garry was a big sports fan. He loved the Kansas City Chiefs and the Atlanta Braves, though Larry could not quite remember why he settled on those relatively far-away teams. He was an adamant fan of both, as well as of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"Oh, he was his favorite," said Janice, who was pretty sure Garry had gotten to at least a couple of Chiefs games and a NASCAR race.

Larry said the twins started playing softball for the Stillmeadow Church of the Nazerene team when they were about 12.

Larry said he's still playing, while Garry "retired" a couple of years ago.

He had most recently worked delivering pizzas for the Pizza Hut in the Shiloh area.

'Heart of gold': Above all, Janice Cone remembers her son as a kind and generous man.

"He had a heart of gold," she said.

"He had nothing himself, but he would give his heart and soul to anybody."

Larry remembers his brother as being unafraid to speak his mind and that Garry was "always trying to be funny."

And he was — "most of the time," said Larry with a laugh.

Janice recalled Garry trying to use how identical he and his brother were to his advantage. She remembers they were driving home from somewhere one time when the kids were little, and Garry was misbehaving in the back seat.

"You're gonna get it when we get home," she said their father, Raymond, said.

So when they got home, Garry talked Larry into switching shirts.

"They didn't fool us that much," she said. "But a lot of people could not tell them apart."

Larry said when they grew up they'd try to have slightly different looks so people could know who's who.

"One of us would grow our hair, grow a beard," he said.

Survivors: Garry Cone left behind his wife, Kelly, two biological children and two stepchildren whom he had "raised as if they were his own," according to his mother.

Brothers Jeffrey, Kenneth and Randy Cone and their families, which, from the sound of it, branch out into a wide array of Cones of all generations, also live nearby.

Garry's viewing on Saturday is open to close friends and family; it's at 10 a.m. at the Stillmeadow Church of the Nazarane, 400 Stillmeadow Lane, where they played so much softball.

— Reach Sean Cotter at scotter@yorkdispatch.com.