Pennsylvania man confesses to killing 4 missing men

Crime scene tape.
(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

A Pennsylvania man has confessed to killing four young men who went missing last week, his attorney said Thursday.

The disappearance of Bucks County residents Dean Finocchiaro, 19; Mark Sturgis, 22; Thomas Meo, 21; and Jimi Taro Patrick, 19, transfixed the state, with police, FBI agents, and U.S. marshals joining the search. Attorney Paul Lang announced that his client, Cosmo DiNardo, 20, had confessed to killing the men, and told police where they were buried. Lang also said his client agreed to plead guilty to four first-degree murder counts, and in exchange for his cooperation, prosecutors will not seek the death penalty. On Wednesday, police found a deep grave containing remains on a farm belonging to DiNardo's family, and authorities were able to identify some of the remains as belonging to Finocchiaro.

A person with knowledge of DiNardo's confession told The Associated Press DiNardo is a drug dealer and killed the men in separate incidents after selling them marijuana. He shot them, either in the head or back, and then burned their bodies at the farm. He claimed he felt threatened during the transactions, and the person told AP there was a co-conspirator involved in three of the deaths. He killed one of the men on July 5, and the rest on July 7. Sturgis and Meo worked together in construction, and Patrick, a student at Loyola University in Baltimore, went to high school with DiNardo, AP reports.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.