Man in custody admits to killing 4 missing men in Pennsylvania
Attorney: Cosmo DiNardo confesses to killing Bucks County men (WTXF-Philadelphia/Inform)
July 13, 2017 - 3:34 am
Updated July 13, 2017 - 3:20 pm
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Young women listen to Matthew Weintraub, District Attorney for Bucks County, Pa., speak during a news conference in New Hope, Pa., Thursday, July 13, 2017. Authorities said they've found human remains in their search for four missing young Pennsylvania men and they can now identify one victim. (Matt Rourke/AP)
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A woman listens to Matthew Weintraub, District Attorney for Bucks County, Pa., speak during a news conference in New Hope, Pa., Thursday, July 13, 2017. (Matt Rourke/AP)
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Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub, center, holds a press conference Thursday, July 13, 2017, in New Hope, Pa., to announce that bodies have been found on a Solebury Township farm belonging to the DiNardo family, and have identified one victim as Dean Finocchiaro. (Clem Murray/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
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Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub, center, holds a press conference Thursday, July 13, 2017, in New Hope, Pa., to announce that bodies have been found on a Solebury Township farm belonging to the DiNardo family, and have identified one victim as Dean Finocchiaro. (Clem Murray/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
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Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub, left at microphone, ends a press conference Thursday, July 13, 2017, in New Hope, Pa. Weintraub said they've found human remains in their search for four missing young Pennsylvania men and they can now identify one victim. (Clem Murray/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
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Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub, center, holds a press conference Thursday, July 13, 2017, in New Hope, Pa., to announce that bodies have been found on a Solebury Township farm belonging to the DiNardo family, and have identified one victim as Dean Finocchiaro. (Clem Murray /The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
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Gregg Shore, First Assistant District Attorney for Bucks County, Pa., walks down a driveway, Wednesday, July 12, 2017, in Solebury, Pa., as the search continues for four missing young Pennsylvania men feared to be the victims of foul play. (Matt Rourke/AP)
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People walk at the entrance to a blocked off drive way, in Solebury, Pa., as the search continues Wednesday, July 12, 2017, for four missing young Pennsylvania men feared to be the victims of foul play. (Matt Rourke/AP)
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Investigators gather under tents as they search a property, Wednesday, July 12, 2017, in Solebury, Pa., for four missing young Pennsylvania men feared to be the victims of foul play. (Clem Murray/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
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A man looks up a blocked off drive way, in, Solebury, Pa., as the search continues Wednesday, July 12, 2017, for four missing young Pennsylvania men feared to be the victims of foul play. (Matt Rourke/AP)
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Matthew Weintraub, District Attorney for Bucks County, Pa., second from right, departs from a news conference, Wednesday, July 12, 2017, in Solebury, Pa., as the search continues, for four missing young Pennsylvania men feared to be the victims of foul play. (Matt Rourke/AP)
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Matthew Weintraub, District Attorney for Bucks County, Pa., arrives for a news conference, Wednesday, July 12, 2017, in Solebury, Pa., as the search continues for four missing young Pennsylvania men feared to be the victims of foul play. (Matt Rourke/AP)
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An officer walks up a blocked off drive way, in, Solebury, Pa., as the search continues Wednesday, July 12, 2017, for four missing young Pennsylvania men feared to be the victims of foul play. (Matt Rourke/AP)
![](https://develop.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/8888693_web1_ap17193523314066.jpg)
Investigators walk up a blocked off drive way, in, Solebury, Pa., as the search continues Wednesday, July 12, 2017, for four missing young Pennsylvania men feared to be the victims of foul play. (Matt Rourke/AP)
![](https://develop.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/8888693_web1_ap17193521575803.jpg)
An officer walks down a blocked off drive way, in Solebury, Pa., as the search continues Wednesday, July 12, 2017, for four missing young Pennsylvania men feared to be the victims of foul play. (Matt Rourke/AP)
![](https://develop.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/8888693_web1_ap17193518987221.jpg)
Men walk down a blocked off drive way, in, Solebury, Pa., as the search continues Wednesday, July 12, 2017, for four missing young Pennsylvania men feared to be the victims of foul play. (Matt Rourke/AP)
![](https://develop.reviewjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/8888693_web1_ap17191836581032.jpg)
This photo provided by the Bucks County District Attorney's Office in Doylestown, Pa., shows Cosmo DiNardo, who was arrested Monday, July 10, 2017. DiNardo was arrested on a charge of possession of firearms by a person prohibited from possessing a firearm. His arrest comes as the FBI uses heavy equipment to search his family's sprawling farm property in Solebury Township during a search for four men who are missing. (Bucks County District Attorney's Office via AP)
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This undated photo provided by the Bucks County District Attorney's Office on July 10, 2017, shows Mark Sturgis, one of four young men who went missing last week. (Bucks County District Attorney's Office/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
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This undated photo provided by the Bucks County District Attorney's Office on July 10, 2017, shows Jimi Tar Patrick, one of four young men who went missing last week. (Bucks County District Attorney's Office/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
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This undated photo provided by the Bucks County District Attorney's Office on Monday, July 10, 2017, shows Tom Meo, one of four young men who went missing last week. (Bucks County District Attorney's Office/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
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This undated photo provided by the Bucks County District Attorney's Office on Monday, July 10, 2017, shows Dean Finocchiaro, one of four young men who went missing last week. (Bucks County District Attorney's Office/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — A jailed man who has been the focus of an investigation into the disappearances of four men admitted on Thursday that he killed them and agreed to plead guilty to four murder counts, his attorney said in a surprise development.
Cosmo DiNardo, 20, confessed to the commission or participation in four murders, attorney Paul Lang said outside court, where DiNardo had met with investigators. DiNardo also told investigators where the bodies are.
“I’m sorry,” a shackled DiNardo said as he left the courthouse.
In exchange for the cooperation, Lang said, prosecutors were taking the death penalty off the table. There was no immediate comment from prosecutors.
The mystery of the four men’s disappearances has transfixed the Philadelphia area over the past week, taking a grisly turn when human remains were discovered in a 12½-foot-deep grave on a farm. But what sort of evil befell them, and why, had remained shrouded in secrecy.
The prosecutor, who has held twice-daily briefings, made it clear Thursday he knew a lot more than he was saying, citing the need to protect the investigation. That only added to the speculation and rumors before DiNardo’s confession.
“It’s been very unnerving. It’s very spooky,” said Laura Hefty, who lives a few miles from the gravesite in Solebury Township, where farms bump up against new residential developments.
Many people, she said, were trying to convince themselves this is nothing that could ever happen to their kids.
“They feel incredibly sad. Some people are pretty angry, too,” and are asking, “How did it get this bad?” she said.
The four men, all residents of Bucks County, disappeared last week. At least three knew each other. The remains of only one, 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro, have been identified, though authorities said other remains were found in the hole as well.
DiNardo, the son of the farm property’s owners, was being held on $5 million cash bail before his confession, accused of trying to sell one of the victims’ cars.
District Attorney Matthew Weintraub parried one question after another by saying he couldn’t — or wouldn’t — answer.
Police were back at the farm Thursday, digging away in the dust and the 90-degree-plus heat and using plywood to shore up the deep, tent-covered trench that they excavated at the spot where Weintraub said dogs managed to “smell these poor boys 12½ feet below the ground.”
For days, TV news helicopters trained their cameras on the excavation, creating an unsettling racket but allowing the public to follow the forensic work from their office computers. On one day, viewers could watch investigators haul up buckets of dirt and sift it through handheld screens in what looked like an archaeological dig.
When the prosecutor held a dramatic midnight Wednesday news conference to announce the discovery of remains, Claire Vandenberg, of neighboring New Hope, gathered around a TV with a group of friends to hear developments on what she said is “all we talk about.”
“It seemed almost like a horror film or something, just unraveling before our eyes,” she said.
Authorities have not revealed any details about how the victims found in the grave may have died or how they got there. The prosecutor had said he thought a backhoe may have been on the property.
Susan Coleman told news outlets that she and her husband were in their backyard last Saturday afternoon when they heard several rounds of what they believed was shotgun fire coming from the direction of the DiNardo farm.
“This person was going bananas,” she told phillyvoice.com.
Eric Beitz, who said he had hung out with DiNardo in recent weeks, told philly.com that DiNardo routinely sold guns and on multiple occasions had talked “about weird things like killing people and having people killed.”
DiNardo, whose parents own construction and concrete businesses in the Philadelphia area, has had a few brushes with the law over the past year.
He was arrested on Monday on an unrelated gun charge dating from February, accused of illegally possessing a shotgun and ammunition after being involuntarily committed to a mental institution.
His father bailed him out, but he was jailed again later in the week on the stolen-car charges, and bail was set much higher, after a prosecutor said he was a danger to the community because he had been diagnosed as schizophrenic.
His social media posts suggest an avid interest in hunting, fishing and Air Jordan sneakers, which he appeared to sell online. He had enrolled in a nearby college as a commuter student, with hopes of studying abroad in Italy, according to an article on the college website.
The other missing men are Mark Sturgis, 22, and Thomas Meo, 21, who worked together in construction, and Jimi Taro Patrick, 19, a student at Loyola University in Baltimore. Patrick and DiNardo had attended the same Catholic high school for boys.
It was the discovery of Meo’s car on a DiNardo family property a half-mile from the farm that led to Cosmo DiNardo’s re-arrest.
An attorney for DiNardo’s parents said they sympathized with the families of the men and were cooperating in the investigation.