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During the summer of 2017, after one young man vanished in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, authorities realized that three other young men had also gone missing one after the other. Other than a pair of friends who were missing, the four men were otherwise seemingly not connected & each began with separate missing person reports. As days went by, the common thread between the men would shed light on who was responsible for their deaths.
Bucks County is situated in the eastern portion of Pennsylvania & with a population of about 646,000 in 2020, it is the fourth most populated county in Pennsylvania. It is also one of the three original counties created by William Penn in 1682.
This case began at 6 pm on Wednesday, July 5, 2017 in Newtown, Pennsylvania in Bucks County when 19-year-old Jimi Patrick told his grandmother, Sharon Patrick, that he was going out to meet some friends at Chick-fil-a. He assured her that he wouldn’t be out too late & before he left the house, Sharon kissed him goodbye & they each said that they loved each other. As Jimi walked out the door, he said he would be home soon, but as hours continued to go by, he still hadn’t returned home.
Since Jimi’s mom suffered from schizophrenia & dealt with substance abuse issues since his birth, his grandparents had stepped in to raise him from the beginning despite being in their 50s & working full-time. From the day after he was born, they raised him as their own & he thrived under their care.
According to Jimi’s grandfather, Richard Patrick, anytime their grandson would be out late, he would come into their room & wake them up so they knew he was home safe. However, that night, Jimi hadn’t come home or called, something that was very much out of the ordinary.
Not only was he an amazing student, but he also excelled in both baseball & basketball & he was such an outstanding athlete that he’d been given a scholarship to Loyola University Maryland for over $50,000. Richard & Sharon couldn’t have been more proud of their grandson & the man he was becoming. He had gotten scholarships to nearly every large college he had applied to, so it was basically up to Jimi to take his pick & since Loyola in Maryland had been his dream school, the choice had been an easy one.
By July 2017, Jimi was on summer break, getting ready to start his sophomore year of college where he was studying business. His freshman year had gone wonderfully, his grades were excellent & he’d made the Dean’s list during his first semester. During his second semester, he was a part of the business honor fraternity. That summer, he stayed busy working part-time at a local restaurant & when he wasn’t at work, he was socializing with his friends or spending time with his grandparents.
Jimi was a hard working kid who always strived to contribute to the household, paying for his own gas & he’d even bought his grandma a Prius. Richard & Sharon could only imagine what lay ahead for Jimi after graduation & they were excited to see what his future held.
When Jimi still hadn’t come home by the following morning & their texts to him went unanswered, they were immediately concerned. In total, Sharon had sent her grandson 22 text messages & normally, he would respond within about ten minutes. When they called around to his friends to see if they knew where he was, this was when they learned that there had never been plans to meet up at Chick-fil-a as Jimi had told his grandparents.
Richard & Sharon couldn’t understand why Jimi would have lied about his plans. When they checked their home security camera, they saw him throwing a white garbage bag filled with trash into the bin & walking out of the garage at 5:50 pm on July 5. This was the last time Jimi was ever seen.
When Richard & Sharon contacted the police at noon on Thursday, July 6 to report their grandson missing, they were told that they needed to wait 24 hours. Distraught with worry, they called back at 4 pm & it was clear that their concerns weren’t being taken seriously when they suggested that he was likely just out with his girlfriend. Later that evening, the Newtown Township Police sent a patrolman out to their house where the officer made an entry in his log & suggested that Jimi would likely show up soon.
Richard & Sharon gave the officer Jimi’s cell phone number as well as a picture of him & a description of what he was wearing when he left home Wednesday evening. All the while, they felt they were living in a nightmare. When authorities traced his cell phone, his last ping was from Springfield in Delaware County, a location about 50 miles away.
Learning this information, Richard walked through a park that was near this location, hoping to find a clue, but there was nothing. They began hanging missing person posters, but by day three, there was still no sign of their grandson. Meanwhile, they’d grown so frustrated by the lack of progress on the police’s part that they hired their own private investigator.
The PI spoke with all of Jimi’s friends to get a picture of what his last days entailed. When he touched base with the county detectives, this was when he learned that another boy was also missing in Bucks County, 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro. Immediately, they began to look into the possibility that the cases were related.
When Richard was told that Dean disappeared on Friday, July 7, two days after they last saw Jimi, he didn’t think that his grandson’s case had anything to do with Dean’s since Jimi’s phone last pinged in an entirely different county. Although Dean & his family lived rather close to Richard & Sharon, the boys had gone to two different high schools, each graduating in 2016, & had different social circles.
When Officer Megan Freer was out on patrol that Friday, she received a call about the missing 19-year-old from Middletown Township so she went to the Finocchiaro home to speak with Dean’s parents, Bonnie & Anthony. Since Dean had gotten in trouble in the past after going out on a joy-ride with his friends on dirt bikes & 4 wheelers, Officer Freer was familiar with him.
According to Bonnie, her son was absolutely fearless. Not only did he love dirt bike riding with friends, but when he played hockey, he never hesitated to take on the bigger opponents. During a vacation to Jamaica, Dean had been the first to jump off the cliffs into the water below.
When Officer Freer took the missing person report, Dean’s parents & several of his friends were at the house. Bonnie & Anthony worried that because their son had a wild streak, Officer Freer wouldn’t take the report seriously. They indicated that in the months leading up to his disappearance, Dean had started to get his life on track & mature. After he’d gotten a Pit Bull he named Ace, they could see how nurturing & caring he was. He was also working more than 50 hours a week as a cook at a local restaurant, Richman’s Ice Cream & Burger Co.
Friday, July 7, 2017 was Dean’s day off & since Bonnie was away for a girl’s weekend, when Anthony came home from work, he asked his son if he wanted to get sushi since it was his favorite food, for dinner. It wasn’t often that they got to spend 1:1 time together & Anthony recalled having a wonderful evening with his son. Meanwhile, Bonnie recalled the last interaction she had with her son; before she left for her girl’s trip that Friday afternoon, she told Dean that she loved him.
When Dean & Anthony got home from their sushi dinner, Anthony headed down to the basement. This was when Dean called down that he was meeting up with some friends, but he would be gone for only fifteen minutes. When Anthony asked who he was going with, Dean told him a neighborhood kid. Looking back, Anthony regrets that he wasn’t upstairs & able to see who Dean was with when he walked out the door.
After about an hour, Anthony began texting Dean to see when he was coming home, but the hours continued to go by & there was no response to any of his text messages. Meanwhile, all of his calls went straight to . voicemail. When Dean still wasn’t back by Saturday morning, Anthony was pacing around the house, worried sick & began calling local hospitals & police departments.
Although Dean had a tendency of being a reckless teenager, he always called when he was staying out. When Bonnie came back from her girl’s trip on Saturday evening, they decided to contact the police to report Dean missing.
Since it was a holiday weekend, Officer Freer initially assumed that Dean was likely off somewhere having fun, but she could see how concerned his parents were. Not only had they not heard from their son in more than 24 hours, but his cell phone had been turned off & none of Dean’s friends had heard from him.
There was one person who Dean’s friends had been unable to reach, a 20-year-old boy who Anthony & Bonnie weren’t familiar with, Cosmo DiNardo. According to his friends, Dean was familiar with Cosmo from riding ATVs, but it was their opinion that something just wasn’t right with him.
Officer Freer was told that Cosmo lived in Bensalem in Bucks County so she contacted the Bensalem Police Department to get information about him. She was given his name, date of birth & the registration number for his pickup truck & came to find that he was from a prominent family that ran two lucrative trucking & cement businesses. Although they owned a home & lived in Bensalem, they also owned 90 acres of land 25 miles north in rural Solebury.
When Officer Freer tracked Dean’s cell phone, she discovered that it was last used at 8:14 pm on Friday night in Solebury Township where Cosmo’s family owned land. Two days after he left home, on Sunday, July 9, she met up with Officer Gary Forrester from the Solebury Township PD & the two headed to the DiNardo’s land, arriving just after 2 am.
The location was isolated, pitch dark & expansive & as they came upon a dilapidated home on the property, it was clear that no one was actively living there. They found a shed situated at the back of the house, but when they found no one there, they left the property at about 2:45 am.
After Officer Forrester went back on patrol, something wasn’t sitting right with him so he let Officer Freer know that he was going back to the property at 3 am. As he peeked through the door of the shed, he was surprised to find a car inside that was in good shape since it was obvious that the house hadn’t been lived in for some time. He immediately suspected that the car was being hidden on the property. Although the backseat was strewn with clothing, no one was inside. As he shined his flashlight along the property, he could see fresh tire impressions that led to the shed.
When the dispatcher ran the 1996 Nissan Maxima’s plates, it was registered to someone named Thomas Meo, a 21-year-old from Plumstead Township. Another officer immediately got on the radio & informed Officer Forrester that Thomas Meo’s mother had been at their station earlier that day to report him missing, making this a third missing young man.
Learning this information, Officer Freer went to Como DiNardo’s family home in Bensalem at 8 am on Sunday morning, July 9 to get some answers. Como’s mom, Sandra DiNardo, answered the door, but she indicated that Cosmo wasn’t home & likely wouldn’t be back until later.
As Officer Freer got in touch with other police departments, trying to learn as much as she could, she was told that Tom Meo’s friend, 22-year-old Mark Sturgis, was also missing.
They were now dealing with four missing young men in Bucks County: 19-year-old Jimi Patrick, who was last seen on Wednesday, July 5 at 6 pm, 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro, who was last seen on Friday, July 7 at 6:30 pm & 21-year-old Tom Meo & 22-year-old Mark Sturgis, who were last seen on Friday, July 7 at 7:30 pm. So, other than Jimi, who vanished on Wednesday, the other three boys were all last seen on Friday.
According to Melissa, Tom Meo’s mom, her son was an affectionate boy who grew up to be incredibly selfless, always putting time aside to spend with his family. He was always there to protect his younger sisters, who were nine years younger. After graduating from Bensalem High School & attending East Stroudsburg University for a year, Tom decided to start working at a construction job & in the months before he vanished, he also got a second job, working at a local gas station.
While he worked his construction job, Tom had his best friend, Mark Sturgis, by his side. Mark had recently moved into an apartment that was set up at his dad’s home in Pennsburg. According to his parents, he had always been the peacemaker of the family, stepping in to help anyone in need, diffusing any kind of issues between his loved ones.
Melissa last saw her son when she woke Tom up before she went to work on Friday morning. She gave him a kiss goodbye before she left & he was getting up to meet Mark for work that day. After work, Tom came home & shared a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream with his sister, Gabriella, who was the last family member to see him alive.
When Melissa got a call from Tom’s girlfriend on Saturday morning, she asked Melissa if she knew when Tom would be coming to see her in Philadelphia. This was news to Melissa, who believed that Tom was already there.
When Mark & Tom had been at work on Friday with Mark’s dad, also named Mark, they’d talked about hanging out later that night. When Mark went outside a few hours after they left work, he noticed that both his son & his car were gone & just assumed that Mark & Tom had gone out. He didn’t worry until the next day when he was unable to reach Mark after he & Tom didn’t show up for work later that Saturday.
According to Mark’s mother, Aimee King, her son met Tom in 9th grade & the two quickly became very close friends. They bonded over their love of the guitar & spent much of their time together. Mark was the type of kid who always stood up for people that he thought needed him. When Aimee last heard from her son on Friday, he let her know that he was still at work & he told her that he loved her.
When Aimee wasn’t able to reach Mark the next day, she wasn’t worried because he was notorious for not charging his phone. She indicated that unlike many young people, her son wasn’t into social media, so he would be fine not touching his phone for days. She just made the assumption that he was hanging out with friends.
By 9 am on Sunday morning, Bucks County had formed a multiagency task force to find the four missing boys. Officers were dispatched back to the DiNardo property to conduct a more thorough search of Tom’s car. They found the car in the shed, unlocked with no signs of a struggle. Strangely, they found both the title for the car as well as the keys up against the wall of the shed. They also found Tom’s diabetes supplies in the car, a very concerning discovery since he would have been without his medication for 48 hours by that point.
The four boy’s families began doing their own investigation, trying to find a connection to the other missing boys. Aimee King, Mark’s mom, called Dean’s family to see if they had any ideas as to where the boys could possibly be. Anthony, Dean’s father, also got a call from a private investigator who was looking into the disappearance of Jimi Patrick. This was the point it dawned on him how big this horrific situation had gotten.
However, Sharon Patrick was adamant that Jimi didn’t know the other boys that had gone missing, however, she was familiar with Cosmo DiNardo, who graduated from Jimi’s high school one year before Jimi had
When Officer Freer was sent back to speak with Dean’s parents, Anthony & Bonnie, she asked them if they had any security cameras & although they didn’t, their neighbor up the street did. When the neighbor reviewed the footage from Friday night during the timeframe when Dean left the house, they saw footage of a silver pickup truck leaving the neighborhood that matched the one that Cosmo drove.
Investigators went back to the DiNardo family home & arranged a voluntary meeting with police that was held on Sunday, July 9 at 2:30 pm. Cosmo maintained that he didn’t know where the boys were or what happened to them, but he admitted that he had been with Dean on Friday evening. He said they were headed to a nearby house in Langhorne & during the ride, he & Dean had gotten into an argument. He claimed that he stopped the truck & left Dean on the side of the road. From there, he said he went fishing at a local park until about 9 pm. Because they didn’t have enough evidence against him at that point, Cosmo was allowed to leave the police station.
The task force reached out to the media in hopes of getting more information & soon, the case had gained national attention. When word leaked that investigators were focusing on Cosmo Dinardo, the media tried to dig up as much as they could about him. He lived a nice, upper-middle class life & although he had run-ins with the police in the past, most instances had not resulted in charges. However, according to the Bensalem PD, over the years, they had more than two dozen contacts with him, many of which involved Cosmo getting aggressive or combative with his family members. Months before the boys went missing, he had been charged with possessing a firearm, something he was not allowed to have due to the mental health issues he struggled with.
It was Dean’s family’s opinion that Cosmo had never faced charges in the past because of his family’s wealth & prominence, something that disgusted them.
Cosmo was a frequent user of social media who often voiced his angry thoughts or threats toward others online. He and Jimi Patrick were Facebook friends. When authorities spoke to Cosmo’s friends, many indicated that they had distanced themselves from him because of his odd, aggressive behavior. He was known to harass women online, act generally aggressive & if he was selling something online, for example, a pair of shoes, ammunition would be depicted in the photo for no particular reason. A friend of Cosmo’s shared a photo of him; his eyes were wild, he was shirtless & holding a revolver that had a laser attached to it.
Investigators focused on Friday night, July 7, the night that Dean, Tom & Mark went missing & looked at automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) which are attached to patrol cars. The readers around the Solebury area were scanned, looking for Cosmo’s truck & Tom’s car & they were able to determine that Cosmo had been in a very specific general area of Tom & Mark on the Friday they both went missing. Not only that, but his truck was within a quarter of a mile of his family’s farm.
This information was in direct contrast to what he told investigators, that he had been out fishing when some of these boys went missing. Tips & investigative leads allowed investigators to learn that Cosmo had been trying to sell a car that was consistent with Tom Meo’s Nissan Maxima. With this, they were convinced that he had either kidnapped or harmed the four missing young men.
The District Attorney had Cosmo DiNardo arrested on a refiled weapons case that was originally dropped & he was held on a high bail. With the stacking evidence against him, investigators were able to obtain a search warrant for the DiNardo’s Solebury properties. Since the 90-acre property is expansive & surrounded by dense woods, cornfields, hills, a valley & a pond, investigators broke up into groups.
When the team entered an old barn on the farm property, they noticed blood spatter & pooling inside that was consistent with a very critical injury, but they were unsure whose blood it was or how long it had been there.
In the midst of the search, Anthony Finocchiaro, Dean’s father, got a text message from Verizon that his son’s phone number had dialed 911. When he contacted investigators to let them know, he was notified that they had found Dean’s cell phone & it was they who had called 911 in order to identify whose phone it was.
On Monday, Richard & Sharon Patrick were told that Jimi’s last cell phone ping hadn’t actually been in Springfield in Delaware County as they initially thought, but it was actually from Solebury. This was when they finally started to believe that their grandson was likely associated with the other missing boys. According to investigators, cell phone towers sometimes trip up & show the wrong location.
The D.A. soon informed the families that Cosmo DiNardo had posted 10% of his $1 million bond ($100,000), allowing him to walk free. They were stunned that amidst a quadruple suspected homicide, he could be released while community members were highly concerned with this information.
During the third day of the search, on Wednesday, July 12, the team began to focus on a pile of large rocks & disturbed dirt on the property. As they started to dig, they detected a strong odor of gasoline. At this point Cosmo was re-arrested for stealing Tom Meo’s car & his bail was set at $5 million.
As the team continued to dig into the darkness of night, their shovels suddenly struck metal as they came upon an oil tank, otherwise used as a pig roaster. Just below the roaster, they noticed a piece of blue tarp sticking out through the dirt.
On Thursday morning at midnight, July 13, investigators found human remains twelve feet underground. Based on the tattoos as well as the clothing the victims wore, they were sure they had just found Tommy Meo, Mark Sturgis & Dean Finocchiaro. Each victim had significant, traumatic injuries as well as burns to their bodies, some more significant. While three of the four boys had been found, Jimi Patrick was still missing.
Through his attorney, Cosmo agreed to a deal with Bucks County detectives that he would tell them where Jimi’s body was for a life sentence without the death penalty. They agreed & Cosmo began cooperating with investigators.
Sitting down with detectives, he coldly explained that his killing spree had begun with Jimi Patrick. He said he was the middle man for drug deals & in this case, he was giving Jimi such a good price for marijuana that he wasn’t even making any money. When he picked Jimi up, he expected to be given $8,000, but instead, Jimi gave him $800. Cosmo offered to sell Jimi a shotgun instead & when they got out of his truck at his family’s property, he handed him the gun. While Jimi was distracted, looking at the gun with his back to Cosmo, Cosmo suddenly shot him dead. He got the backhoe, dug a hole & buried him.
Two days after Jimi’s murder, on Friday, July 7, Cosmo brought his cousin, 20-year-old Sean Kratz, to the farm. Sean, who lived in Philadelphia, had some previous non-violent run-ins with police. They came up with a plan to rob Dean & when they picked him up, Dean was under the impression that it was to buy a quarter pound of marijuana. When they went into the barn on Cosmo’s property, Dean was looking at a Vespa inside when Sean began to shoot him until he fell to the ground. Despite the fact that Dean was clearly dead, Cosmo took the gun from his cousin & fired more shots at Dean.
After Dean’s murder, Cosmo left Sean at the farm to meet Mark & Tom at a nearby shopping center for a drug deal. Mark parked his car, got into Tom’s car & followed Cosmo back to the farm. Cosmo told investigators that they could sense that something wasn’t right & when they turned their backs to him, he shot Tom in the back. Mark began to run away as Cosmo told investigators, He was such a big kid, I unloaded the gun into him. At this point, Tom was still alive, laying paralyzed in the driveway, screaming, I can’t feel my legs! Cosmo realized that he was out of bullets so he got the backhoe & ran him over.
Cosmo & Sean placed three bodies into an oil tank that had been converted into a pig roaster, lit it on fire & left the farm. On their way home, they stopped off to eat cheesesteaks.
Investigators could see that reality began to set in during his confession when Cosmo, who had been previously detailing the crimes in an eerily calm way, began to sob & say he didn’t know why he had done what he did.
As part of his deal, he told investigators that Jimi’s body could be found buried ¾ of a mile further back from the other three victims. With this, four families were left utterly shattered, unable to comprehend how their beloved children could have been so callously taken from them.
Investigators began searching for Cosmo’s cousin & accomplice, Sean Kratz. When he was brought into custody, the task force interviewed him & Sean admitted that although he witnessed the three murders of Dean, Tom & Mark, he denied shooting Dean as Cosmo said he did. According to Sean, when Cosmo brought Dean to the farm under the guise of selling him marijuana, he told Sean to wait in the car. After Dean & Cosmo went into the barn together, Cosmo came back out alone. He said he had been sitting in the truck the entire time & he never fired any shots, something that authorities didn’t believe.
Although Sean continued to insist that he never fired any shots, he was able to tell investigators where the murder weapon was hidden. Other than saying that his cousin has issues, he was unable to offer a motive as to why Cosmo would have killed four innocent young men.
Over the course of nearly nine months, authorities continued to pressure Sean for the truth when he finally admitted his role in Dean’s murder. Based on their initial plan, Cosmo wanted Sean to come upon Dean in the woods on a four-wheeler, but when he wouldn’t do it, Cosmo got frustrated. While they were in the barn together, Cosmo gave Sean a signal & he told investigators that he closed his eyes & fired the gun. He claimed that he hadn’t come forward sooner because he was afraid of his cousin.
Authorities believe that Cosmo killed these four boys simply because he could, because he had a sick & twisted mind & wanted to murder people for sport. On Friday, July 14, 2017, nine days after his killing spree began, Cosmo was charged with the four murders & pleaded guilty to four-counts of first-degree murder as well as robbery & abuse of a corpse. He was given four consecutive life sentences.
Sean Kratz went to trial & in November 2019, a jury found him guilty of the first-degree murder of Dean Finocchiaro & of voluntary manslaughter for the deaths of Tom Meo & Mark Sturgis. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In 2020 a documentary was released about this case, The Lost Boys of Bucks County.
Five years after the horrific murders, Cosmo DiNardo’s family settled a wrongful death case filed by the relatives of the four victims with a confidential settlement. They alleged negligence by Cosmo’s parents, who provided their mentally unstable son access to ATVs, guns & construction equipment, in what they described as a playland for illegal acts.
According to Sandra DiNardo, before Cosmo began struggling with mental illness, he had been a model son. He wanted to become an orthodontist, he played for the Bucks County Bears football team & served on a township drug & alcohol task force. However, in 2016 he began treatment for bipolar disorder & schizophrenia & was prescribed anti-psychotics. He became obsessed with a Mexican drug cartel that had a disturbing ritual for disposing of bodies. Only one year later, he would go on to murder four innocent young men.
Regardless of the fact that justice has been served, life will never be the same for four deeply grieving families. Jimi Patrick, Dean Finocchiaro, Tom Meo & Mark Sturgis had been sons, brothers & young men with their entire lives ahead of them. Each day, their loved ones are left with an empty void in their lives that will never go away.
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