The legal wrangling around one of the most horrific mass murders in the history of Bucks County has ended in a private settlement between the families of the victims and the parents of their killer.
Five years after the gruesome killings, the family of Cosmo DiNardo has settled the wrongful death case filed by the relatives of murder victims Mark Sturgis, Thomas Meo, Dean Finocchiaro, and Jimi Patrick with a confidential settlement in Philadelphia’s Common Pleas Court, court records show.
DiNardo, 26, is currently serving four life sentences in a state correctional facility after he pleaded guilty to the murders of the four young men on the DiNardo’s family farm in Solebury in 2017.
Lawsuits filed by the victims’ families had alleged negligence by DiNardo’s parents who provided him access to ATVs, guns, and construction equipment despite his past behavior and commitment to mental health institutions, according to the lawsuits. One of the suits alleged the DiNardo family had provided their son with a “playland for illegal acts.”
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Who is Cosmo DiNardo?
The child of Sandra and cement contractor Anthony DiNardo, Cosmo DiNardo lived in Bensalem and had attended Holy Ghost Preparatory School in the township. He received a scholarship to attend Arcadia University in Montgomery County before he made international headlines in the quadruple murder case.
In a 2020 interview with Philadelphia Magazine, Sandra DiNardo described Cosmo as a “model son” before mental illness. Cosmo had expressed interest in becoming an orthodontist. He played for the Bucks County Bears football team and served on a township alcohol and drug task force.
His father believed Cosmo would one day be elected mayor of Bensalem. Then, everything changed, his family said.
In 2016, Cosmo DiNardo began treatment for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and was on anti-psychotics. He became obsessed with a Mexican drug cartel with a disturbing ritual for disposing of bodies.
A year later, DiNardo would lure four young men to the family’s farm in Solebury and brutally kill and bury each. The search for his victims, Sturgis, Meo, Finocchiaro and Patrick — termed the “Lost Boys of Bucks County” — would attract international attention after a nine-day search.
Who did Cosmo DiNardo kill?
Six years later:Looking back at the disappearance, murder of 4 men in Bucks County
By all accounts, Jimi Taro Patrick, Dean Finocchiaro, Mark Sturgis, and Thomas Meo were struck down in the prime of life.
Patrick was 19 and studying at Loyola University for a career in business. Raised by his grandparents, he likely met Cosmo DiNardo while a student at Holy Ghost Prep. Friends said he loved baseball and was known for having a “mean curve ball.”
Finocchiaro, 18, had graduated from Neshaminy High School. A native of Middletown, he was working as a cook at Richman’s Ice Cream & Burger in Bristol Township at the time of his death.
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Sturgis, 23, was an athlete and guitar player living in Pennsburg. Meo, 21 and a native of Plumstead, worked along Sturgis at his father’s construction company.
The four disappeared between July 5 and July 7, 2017. Their remains were discovered on the DiNardo family farm in Solebury on July 14 after an exhaustive search.
Investigators would determine that on July 5, the same day he went missing, Patrick was fatally shot by DiNardo, and his body buried somewhere on the DiNardo family property. DiNardo and his cousin Sean Kratz then killed Finocchiaro on the night of July 7.
The two then killed Meo and Sturgis and buried them, along with Finocchiaro, in a “12-foot common grave” on the farm property. They had been lured to the property under the guise of selling marijuana.
Kratz is also serving a life sentence.
