Facebook/Bucks County District Attorney Cosmo DiNardo, left, in his mugshot after his arrest on a gun charge on July 11, and in a photo with an unidentified woman posted to his Facebook page in 2016.
Pennsylvania man Cosmo DiNardo has now been charged with four counts of criminal homicide in relation to the four missing men in Bucks County. The 20-year-old was arrested on July 10 in Bensalem, about 18 miles northeast of Philadelphia. The Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub says that DiNardo is a “person of interest” in the case of the missing men.
Authorities have not said if DiNardo is considered a suspect in the disappearances of Jimi Tar Patrick, Dean Finocchiaro, Mark Sturgis and Tom Meo in the Bucks County area over the last week. DiNardo is Facebook friends with Jimi Patrick. A source told Heavy.com that DiNardo was also a friend of Dean Finocchiaro. On July 12, Finocchiaro’s body was found in a 12.5 foot grave in the Solebury Township. Other remains were found in the same grave, those remains are yet to be identified.
On July 9, DiNardo was arrested on a firearms charge stemming from a February 2017 incident. His bail was set at $100,000. This was posted on July 11 and DiNardo was released. A day later, DiNardo was back in custody and accused of stealing and trying to sell Tom Meo’s car. His bail was set at $5 million. On July 14, the DA announced that DiNardo was being charged with four counts of criminal homicide, conspiracy, abuse of a corpse and three counts of robbery. It’s been widely reported that DiNardo has confessed to murder.
An alleged accomplice, a man named Sean Kratz, 20, was also charged. Kratz is facing three counts of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, abuse of a corpse and robbery.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Months Before His Arrest, DiNardo Was Left for More Than a Day Stranded in the Woods With a Brain Injury Following a Quad Biking Accident
A friend of DiNardo’s told Heavy.com that “six or seven months” before his arrest, though another source said the injury occurred closer to November 2016, DiNardo suffered a head injury following a quad biking accident. The friend said that DiNardo was stranded in the woods alone for around a day and a half with injuries, including broken bones and bleeding on his brain. As a result of the accident DiNardo had frontal lobe damage. The friend said that sometime after the accident, DiNardo began using K2, a synthetic marijuana drug.
Later, the same friend told Heavy.com that DiNardo had an IQ of around 158. The source said, “[DiNardo] is extremely smart and deceptive and knows his way around forensic data.”
Instagram/Cosmo DiNardo
Speaking to the Trentonian, a neighbor of the DiNardo family in Bensalem described the arrested man as “pretty nutty.” That neighbor said, “He used to walk around her in camouflage with a gun hunting squirrels. He’s a scary kid.” Photos on DiNardo’s now-deleted Instagram page show him to be an avid hunter while Facebook photos show him deep sea fishing.
The Morning Call reports that DiNardo’s gun charge was in relation to a violation of mental health laws. The newspaper says that DiNardo was found in possession of a Savage Arms 20 gauge shotgun and ammunition. Under Pennsylvania law, DiNardo was forbidden from owning the gun because he had once been committed to a mental health hospital.
He had initially been charged in February with the offense being dismissed in May 2017.
2. DiNardo Allegedly Once Bragged About Having Someone Killed Over a Debt
One of DiNardo’s friends, Eric Beitz told Philly.com that he had spoken to DiNardo in the weeks before the disappearances. Beitz said that DiNardo had been selling marijuana and guns while also bragging about having someone killed over a debt.
Beitz said in his Philly.com interview, “I can tell you on multiple different occasions, on multiple different accounts, from multiple different people, including myself – Cosmo has spoken about weird things like killing people and having people killed. Everybody you talk to about this guy, you hear he’s mentally unstable.”
Another of DiNardo’s friends told Heavy.com that DiNardo would regularly “threaten to shoot people” as well as harass girls online.
3. DiNardo’s Parents Are Being Subpoenaed in Relation to the Case
Facebook/Cosmo DiNardoDiNardo pictured with a Mako Shark in Cape May, New Jersey, in June 2015.
The Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub says that “multiple locations” are being searched in relation to the disappearance of the four boys, reports ABC Philadelphia. One of those is a farmland area close to Route 202 in the Solebury Township, around 45 miles north of Philadelphia.
The Courier Times says that the home in Solebury is owned by Antonio and Sandra DiNardo of Bensalem. Cosmo DiNardo is their son. His parents have been subpoenaed in relation to the search. They are expected to be questioned about DiNardo’s whereabouts around the time of the disappearances.
The family owns a construction company that focuses on cement named Cosan LLC.
Fox Philadelphia’s Dave Schratwieser reports that the DiNardo family has hired defense lawyer Fred Perri Jr. In 2005, Perri made national news when he defended rapper Beanie Sigel on an attempted murder charge.
That area is thought to be connected to a search that took place in a home along Aquetong Road in the same area on July 9. The Bucks County Courier Times reports that there is another search going on in the 900 block of Wayland Circle in Bensalem. That’s where DiNardo was arrested, reports ABC Philadelphia. Sources told CBS Philadelphia that the arrest “could” be related to the disappearance of the four men.
You can read the documents pertaining to DiNardo’s initial arrest here:
Philly.com reports that Tom Meo’s car had been found in a garage Aquetong Road in the Solebury Township. A neighbor told the Trentonian about the significance of that find, “There’s no way there’s a car left in that garage by someone who’s not familiar with this property. It’s so dense in there. There’s tree stands in there for hunting. There’s an old, abandoned car back there from the 40s. It’s as thick as mud in there and I’ve been through it.”
Screengrab via CBS PhiladelphiaDiNardo being led into Bucks County Jail.
District Attorney Weintraub told the media on July 10 that his office believes that foul play is involved in the disappearance of the four men. Weintraub said after Dean Finocchiaro’s remains were found on July 12, “We are not done yet. This is a homicide, make no mistake about it. We just don’t know how many homicides.”
At a search scene in Solebury. @KYWNewsradio
DA Weintraub told NBC Philadelphia when asked about a possible connection between the DiNardo family and the disappearances, “We have reason to believe that there might be fruitful information that can be gained from them. I can’t say specifically.”
4. DiNardo Planned to Become a Biology Major at Arcadia University
Instagram/Cosmo DiNardo
According to an article on Arcadia University’s website, DiNardo planned to become a biology major at the school. The piece lists him as being a member of the class of 2019. DiNardo told the site, “I’m going to go overseas, hopefully to Italy and the rest of Europe.” The article adds that DiNardo had been planning to commute to the Glenside campus from his home in Bensalem. One of DiNardo’s friends told Heavy.com that DiNardo has since dropped out of school.
Cosmo DiNardo.
A Flickr page appearing to belong to DiNardo shows him to be an avid sneaker, specifically Air Jordan, fan.
5. Sturgis’ Father Described His Son & Tom Meo as ‘Just Really Good Kids’
Screengrab via NBC Philadelphia
Mark Sturgis was last seen with Tom Meo. ABC Philadelphia reports that Sturgis’ car was found in Peddler’s Village, 6 miles east of where Sturgis and Meo were last seen. The pair are friends on Facebook.
NBC Philadelphia reports that Sturgis and Meo became friends while they worked for Sturgis’ father, Mark Potash’s, construction company. Potash told the Philadelphia Inquirer that when his son didn’t show up for work he “thought maybe they had a night of drinking and slept somewhere. That was my hope.”
Potash went on to describe his son and Meo by saying, “They are just really good kids. I can’t even begin to imagine. At this point, as the hours pass, it seems more and more grim.” A former colleague of Meo’s echoed those statements to the Inquirer, “He was like an easygoing person, he was a really nice dude. He’d get along with any single person.”
Sturgis mother, Amb Ro Clark, has been frantically updating her Facebook page with updates about the search for her son. Clark says that her family is offering a reward for information and that Tom Meo is a diabetic. Potash told the Inquirer that Sturgis had grown up living with his mother but was living with his father at the time of his disappearance.
NBC Philadelphia reports that the alarm was first raised for Jimi Tar Patrick on July 5 when he didn’t show up for work. The station, citing family members, said that his absence without calling was extremely unusual.
WBAL-TV reports that Patrick is a student at Loyola University in Maryland.
The NBC Philly story adds that there are reports that all four of the men knew each other.
Everybody please keep your eyes and ears open for dean we all want him home
Fox Philadelphia reports that Dean Finocchiaro has been arrested multiple times in the past. Those charges include assault, driving under the influence and drug possession.
Finocchiaro is shown on his Facebook page to be a motorcycle riding enthusiast. He is a native of the Middletown Township. His social media page offers no evidence of a relationship with the other four missing men. NBC Philadelphia reports that Finocchiaro was an acquaintance of Sturgis and Meo.
Anyone with any information about the disappearances is asked to call 215-297-8201. You can contribute a tip online here.