Cosmo DiNardo, a 20-year-old drug dealer who also sold guns illegally, confessed to his involvement in the brutal, shocking murders of four Bucks County, Pennsylvania, men between the ages of 19 and 22.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, 22-year-old Mark Sturgis, 21-year-old Tom Meo, 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro and 19-year-old Jimi Tar Patrick were found dead last week after all four of them went to DiNardo’s family farm property to purchase marijuana. Patrick and Finocchiaro were arrived separately and Meo and Stugis went to the property together before DiNardo shot them. Meo was reportedly still alive when DiNardo ran out of ammunition, and ran over Meo with a backhoe, crushing him.
As investigators face uncertainty about how and why three seemingly routine marijuana transactions led to quadruple murder, DiNardo’s troubling past is coming into view, raising questions about whether these four young men might still be alive if DiNardo’s behavior had been taken more seriously.
According to the Associated Press, DiNardo has been known to police since he was 14 years old, and had 30 run-ins with the law since then. But court records reportedly show only minor infractions beginning when he was 18 years old, though DiNardo appears to have been selling drug and guns for some time before the murders.
And just one year before the violent massacre, a family member had DiNardo involuntarily committed, which means he was legally prohibited from having firearms in his possession. His violation of the prohibition ultimately led to his arrest on gun charges last Monday, when it now appears that police may have already been suspicious about DiNardo’s possible involvement with the disappearance of the four Bucks County men.
DiNardo was also kicked out of Arcadia University in Glenside after he reportedly made some alarming comments on campus. It is not known what he said, but the university reportedly sent a letter to DiNardo’s parents saying he could face trespassing charges if he came back to the school.
DiNardo’s parents Sandra and Anthony DiNardo own the 90-acre farm where DiNardo and his cousin Sean Kratz allegedly buried the bodies of the four victims. They also own a concrete and trucking company, have real estate holdings valued in the millions.
After his arrest on Monday, DiNardo was released after someone paid $100,000 cash, ten percent of the $1 million bond. He was released on Tuesday and re-arrested less than a day later on charges he stole of the victim’s cars.
Eric Beinz told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he had been in multiple social situations with DiNardo in the weeks leading up to the quadruple homicide.
“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,” Beitz said. “Everybody you talk to about this guy, you hear he’s mentally unstable.”
A member of a private Facebook group devoted to a discussion of the horrific crime posted a screenshot of a text message exchange which includes a photo of DiNardo that he purportedly posted on Snapchat. In the photo, he appears to be covered in splattered blood, and there is a message: Whoever jumped me last night is dead.
The person who sent the photo says in a later text message that DiNardo is “an absolute psycho.”
Feature photo: Bucks County Sheriff’s Office
