Cosmo DiNardo and Sean Kratz.
Cosmo DiNardo, a troubled son of privilege who turned his family’s Solebury Township property into a killing field for four young area men, pleaded guilty to the slayings Wednesday in Bucks County Common Pleas Court.
DiNardo, 21, of Bensalem, entered the pleas this morning before Bucks County President Judge Jeffrey L. Finley, who sentenced DiNardo to four consecutive sentences of life in prison.
“I have no doubt in my mind that, should the day ever come that you were released again into the community and had the opportunity to kill again, you would do it,” Finley told DiNardo.
DiNardo’s cousin, Sean Kratz, 21, of Philadelphia, who is charged with three of the murders, rejected a plea deal Wednesday. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty at Kratz’s forthcoming trial.
“Unexpected outcome,” said Kratz’s lawyer, Craig Penglase.
DiNardo admitted luring the victims to a sprawling, unoccupied Solebury property owned by his parents under the pretense of selling the young men marijuana, and then killing them.
DiNardo pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder, along with additional counts of robbery, abuse of corpse, conspiracy, possession of instruments of crime and illegal firearms possession.
He now stands convicted of murdering Jimi Taro Patrick, 19, of Newtown Township; Dean Finocchiaro, 19, of Middletown Township; Thomas Meo, 21, of Plumstead Township; and Mark Sturgis, 22, of Pennsburg, Montgomery County.
Prefacing his plea was a prosecutor’s grim, courtroom recitation of the July 2017 killing spree, followed by wrenching statements of grief and anger from the loved ones of those he murdered.
When it came DiNardo’s time to speak, he offered no reason for the murders, only apology.
“Your Honor, I want the four families to know I am so sorry,” DiNardo said. “If there was anything I could do to take back what occurred on those days, I would. I hope that they find some peace in knowing that I’m just genuinely – I can’t even come to terms with what occurred. I’m sorry. Sorry.”
Deriding DiNardo’s statement as “false and insincere,” Finley ordered the defendant, at DiNardo’s request, sent immediately to state prison.
“You think you’re savage?” asked Mark Potash, the father of 22-year-old victim Mark Sturgis. “You’ve lived your whole life protected. In prison, you’ll meet savage. And I promise you, it won’t look like you.”
I think Kratz made the right decision to go to trial. There is so much about this horrific crime that we don’t know about. The DA can go after the death penalty but its the jury that decides that. Throwing around the fear of the death penalty is pathetic. The death penalty is on its way out nationally and yet our DA goes after it. He is very much an outlier.
They put death row inmates down all the time. What they stopped doing is putting the executions in the paper.
No, Kratz screwed up thinking he was going to do better with a TBJ (trial by jury). DiNardo’s conviction pretty much seals Kratz’s fate. He’ll be strapped down on a gurney watching the drip.
It’s too bad. Both DiNardo and Kratz should be beaten to death with shovels…