Cosmo DiNardo made a brief appearance, via closed-circuit video from Bucks County Jail, in a courtroom Thursday and spoke in short garbled answers to a judge’s questions.
“My lawyer explained it to me and that’s what I’d like to do, your honor,” he said when Common Pleas Judge Maggie Snow asked if DiNardo would like to waive his preliminary hearing in three separate cases.
All are related to four slayings in early July that DiNardo, of Bensalem, has already confessed to executing or taking part in. His lawyer, Michael Parlow, acknowledged his confession in the days after the deaths July 5 and July 7 on the DiNardo family estate outside New Hope.
A couple dozen family members of the victims in the cases were present at the Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown along with two well-known Philadelphia attorneys representing them in potential future civil litigation against DiNardo and his alleged accomplice in three of the homicides, Sean Kratz.
Those killed during alleged drug deals turned murders earlier in the summer are Dean Finocchiaro, 19, of Middletown Township; Mark Sturgis, 22, of Pennsburg, Montgomery County; Tom Meo, 21, of Plumstead Township; and Jimi Taro Patrick, 19, of Newtown Township.
A preliminary hearing for Kratz, of Northeast Philadelphia, is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. His attorney told NBC10 Wednesday that he does not expect to waive the hearing.
DiNardo and Kratz, both 20, each face multiple counts of criminal homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide, according to court records. DiNardo is charged with all four of the slayings while Kratz is charged on three.
Attorney Thomas Kline, who said after the DiNardo hearing that he is representing the Finocchiaro family, described DiNardo’s appearance and responses on the television screen in the front of the courtroom as “odd and awkward.”
“It was short,” Kline said of the hearing. “Rather than describe it as short and sweet, I would say it was short and bitter.”
He said the Finocchiaros are determined to see DiNardo serve the rest of his life in prison, adding that they remain shocked and saddened.
DiNardo allegedly confessed to the murders in return for the Bucks County District Attorney’s promise not to seek the death penalty. DiNardo also provided investigators with the locations of all four young men’s bodies on the sprawling 70-plus-acre farm in Solebury Township.
Kratz's attorney Neils Eriksen, of Langhorne, declined to comment specifically on the proceedings.
Both men are being held without bail. DiNardo faces a charge of unlawful possession of a weapon, receiving stolen property for allegedly stealing one of his victim's cars and multiple counts of criminal homicide, conspiracy and abuse of a corpse.
DiNardo lawyer Michael Parlow previously said his client gave a "full confession" to police days after an investigation led to DiNardo's arrest after the grim discovery of four bodies at a farm in Solebury.
Investigators believe the victims were killed at the 70-acre property owned by the DiNardo family. It is a few miles outside of the borough of New Hope on the Delaware River.
Patrick was shot to death by DiNardo on July 5 as the two were alone on the farm, according to the affidavit. DiNardo told authorities that he and Patrick had arranged to meet on the farm for a marijuana drug deal, but once Patrick had arrived, DiNardo fatally shot him instead. He said he used a backhoe to dig the hole in which he buried Patrick's body.
The other three victims were killed July 7 in two separate incidents at the farm, both of which were under the guise of a drug deal, according to the criminal affidavit.
Kratz and DiNardo had planned to rob Finocchiaro after luring him to the farm, but instead Kratz shot him in the head, the affidavit said. Later in the day, Kratz and DiNardo met up with Sturgis and Meo and shot them to death in a similarly sudden manner, the charging document said.
After killing Finocchiaro, Sturgis and Meo, DiNardo and Kratz put their bodies into a large container — what DiNardo called a "pig roaster" — and burned them using gasoline, according to the affidavit.
Three of the men's remains, however, were found by law enforcement in a common grave on the property. A fourth, Patrick, was found in a very remote section of the property.
Photo Credit: SkyForce10/ Bucks County DA
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