Original subtitles

I knew something bad happened to my son.

I felt something was wrong.

It was like intuition.

At that time, I was afraid,

but I didn't realize the magnitude.

A massive search is underway

in a suburb of philadelphia

for four men missing since last week.

As a mother, to find out that your child is missing...

It's terrifying.

It took a small community and kind of rocked them.

I just remember standing up in the inquirer newsroom

and just going like, "holy holy"

The extraordinary events of 2017

in bucks county, pennsylvania,

devastated families and confounded law enforcement.

I want to assure the public that we here are utilizing

every resource to try to find these four missing men.

Then I realize it was, you know,

it was getting bigger.

It was getting bigger.

In this special two-hour event...

What we're looking for

is information that connects these four men together.

Uh-huh.

The harrowing investigation...

We don't know whose blood that is.

We don't know actually how long it could have been there.

And the families who survived it.

I really thought he was maybe in a barn somewhere

or, you know, he was kidnapped or he was being tortured.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think

my son would be involved in anything like this.

It's the day after the 4th of July, 2017,

in newtown, pennsylvania,

a small township within bucks county,

and 19-year-old jimi patrick has plans.

He said, "I'm not going to be out too late."

so, I was sitting at the kitchen table,

and he was just standing there in front of me.

And I felt like, you know,

he was, like, just not saying anything,

and I said to him, "jimi, what are you doing?"

he said well, he was going to meet some friends

at chick-fil-a.

So I got up, and I kissed him goodbye.

I told him I loved him.

He told me he loved me, too, and he'd be home soon.

Hours pass, but jimi doesn't return.

If he came home late at night,

he would come into our room

and wake us up and tell us he was home.

That night, he didn't do that.

He didn't come into our room or wake us up.

We just didn't...

We didn't hear from him, and that was very unusual.

Jimi's never given his grandparents

cause for concern.

He was very successful in life.

We had applied to five or six schools,

and he got very large scholarships

to just about every school he applied to.

So it was just a matter of picking a school he liked,

and loyola, maryland, was his dream choice.

He was very responsible.

He worked, and he always, you know,

tried to contribute, you know, with paying his own gas money.

And he actually bought my car, the prius,

and he was really thrilled after

he was able to spray paint everything black on it.

And I said to him,

"jimi, it's never going to look like a sports car."

jimi, roll your window down.

He said no.

He's not being very cooperative.

Alright, bye-bye.

There he goes.

His grades were excellent.

He got recognized for being... Having terrific writing skills.

First semester, he was on the dean's list,

and second semester,

he was in the business honor fraternity.

And he had developed many, many friendships at school,

and he was just so pleased at all his success.

And we were looking forward to him continuing on at loyola,

graduating, and then going off into the business world.

Things weren't always easy for jimi.

His mother suffers from schizophrenia

and couldn't take care of him.

So sharon and richard patrick

went from grandparents to surrogate mom and dad.

We went home from the hospital

when he was a day old.

It was a new adventure for me

because I was jimi's guardian at age 52.

You know, I was at a full-time job,

so I had to make all these provisions.

But we made it.

We did it, and it worked out great.

And he became my son.

And what do we have here?

A bluegill.

I did everything a dad would do with him.

Okay, I'm ready.

Go to school and, you know, I'd be the parent there.

Did it go in?

And he was a wonderful kid.

I was very proud of him.

The next morning, jimi still hasn't come home.

He responds to me within 10, 15 minutes whenever I text him.

I had 22 text messages to him, like, "jimi, where are you?

I love you. Please get in touch with me.

No matter what happened, I love you.

Everything will be okay."

we started calling all his friends in the morning,

you know, where was he? Did they know where he was?

And we found out he really didn't go...

You know, they didn't go to chick-fil-a.

The boys didn't know anything about that.

It seems jimi has lied to his grandparents

about where he was going the night he disappeared.

The patricks check their home security camera

to see if they can learn anything.

All they see is jimi throwing something in the trash

and walking out of the garage.

It's the last time jimi patrick is seen.

We called the police at noontime,

and they said, "it hasn't been 24 hours yet, so wait."

so we did try and wait until 4:00 and call again.

They say, "oh, he's probably in his car

with his girlfriend."

I said, "his car's in the driveway.

He's not in his car."

It was terribly frustrating.

We wanted some response from the police department,

and they said that they would send somebody around

after the shift change.

So they did.

It was just a patrolman who just made entries in his log,

and that was pretty much it.

Thought was jimi would probably show up.

We gave him his cellphone,

and we gave him a description and a picture of jimi.

It just almost felt surreal, like you were in a fog.

The newtown township police department

traces jimi's cellphone.

And they gave us his last ping.

The location was about 50 miles from us

in springfield, delaware county.

There was a park very close by.

So I walk through it, you know, looking for it.

But we didn't find anything.

So I put up some posters

to please call me if they saw jimi.

But jimi remains missing for a third day,

and the patricks decide

to take matters into their own hands.

We were so frustrated that nothing was happening

with the newtown police that we hired a private investigator.

So I'm just gonna ask a few questions about jimi,

and I want you to answer...

He came around,

and he interrogated all jimi's friends.

I spoke to him on Tuesday.

And he made contact with the county detectives.

All of a sudden, he was getting a text from, I guess,

the middletown police department that another kid was missing.

It seems there is more than one lost boy

in bucks county.

19-year old jimi patrick

of newtown, pennsylvania,

has now been missing for over three days...

And jimi's grandparents have learned

that another 19-year-old boy

named dean finocchiaro is missing in bucks county.

Is it possible the cases are related?

When we heard dean disappeared Friday,

we didn't think that jimi was involved.

He went missing late Wednesday night,

and we didn't know this boy.

Dean finocchiaro and jimi patrick

live relatively close to each other,

but they graduated from different high schools

and ran in different social circles.

And jimi's phone shows

jimi wasn't even in bucks county when he disappeared.

We said, "oh, I don't think there's a link

because he was last reported in springfield, delaware county."

While the patrick family holds out hope,

several miles away, officer megan freer

of the middletown township police department gets a call.

We've got a 19-year-old missing boy

in middletown.

I need an officer to respond.

I was working my normal patrol shift,

7:00 p.M. To 7:00 a.M.,

and I responded to a radio call in our township

to take a missing-persons report.

And that was bonnie and anthony

reporting their son dean missing.

Dean finocchiaro is a name

officer freer already knows

thanks to joyriding incidents

like this one captured on camera.

So when I went to the house to take the report,

dean's parents and several of dean's friends

were at the house,

and that right away isn't very normal

to have so many people at one location

to take just a missing-persons report.

When megan freer first arrived,

she had some run-ins with my son.

She knew my son.

She brought it up that she did deal with him before.

This worries dean's parents.

They don't want officer freer

to take the report less seriously.

Dean was no angel, and we were dealing with

what teenage boys do, you know, some trouble.

I don't know you. I've never met you before.

You probably have.

No, I don't. I don't know you.

I wasn't an angel, either.

I used to tell my wife, just being a boy.

Had a little bit of a daredevil in him.

He was a little immature, but...

Who isn't?

But recently, dean seemed to be taking

a positive turn.

Well, he had just got a job

with my other son's girlfriend

at their burger and ice cream bar,

so he became a cook, which was great for dean

because he needed a good purpose.

And he felt, really, he had a responsibility

and was wanted there.

I mean, he was put on to do 40 hours,

but it ended up he was always working 50 and 60 hours.

For officer freer, it's not out of the question

that dean's disappearance could be entirely innocent.

Being a holiday weekend,

I kind of felt that he was probably just off somewhere,

goofing off or having fun with his friends.

But bonnie and anthony were extremely concerned.

Dean hadn't been heard from in over 24 hours,

and his cellphone had been turned off.

It put me on a little little bit of a higher alert.

Any detail leading up to his disappearance,

no matter how trivial, could be key to finding dean.

I interviewed dean's family for a few hours

to get a timeline of the last time dean was seen,

last time anybody had heard from him,

where he went.

That Friday, I had a planned girls' weekend at the shore,

so I left Friday afternoon.

It was dean's day off.

I said, "goodbye, I love you."

you know, he'd be home with his dad.

I got home from work

and asked him if he wants to go get something eat.

And sushi was his favorite food,

so we went to a local sushi restaurant and had dinner.

It was just dean and I.

So, it didn't happen too often like that,

so it was a really good time.

Conversation was good.

When they got back home,

dean told his dad he's heading out again.

He said, "I'll be back in 15 minutes."

I asked him who he was going with.

He told me a neighborhood kid.

That was it.

The last time I talked to him.

By 7:30, which was an hour, I started texting him.

I didn't get any response with the texts.

My husband called me later that night and was like,

"dean didn't come back.

I'm trying to call his cellphone,

and it's just going to voicemail."

I'm like, "alright, well, maybe it died."

But that seems less plausible

as the hours tick away.

My husband called me first thing the next morning

and said he never came home.

I started calling hospitals

and police departments.

I must've walked miles on this floor.

You know, it's...

I guess it's intuition.

I guess it's an intuition.

He's done some crazy before that as a parent,

that makes you sit back

and just like you can't believe it.

But he would've just called me and told me

he wasn't going to work or he wasn't coming home.

He had no problem telling me whatever he wanted.

I mean, it was just, you know,

it was the kind of relationship we had.

I got home 5:00 that Saturday.

So I said, "well, it's 24 hours. Let's call the police."

It was obvious that something was not right.

Not hearing from any 19-year-old for 24 hours

who didn't have a fight with anybody,

he wasn't upset about anything, it's kind of unheard of.

We started throwing names around,

getting hold of all the friends,

all the different groups of friends,

so it wasn't just one set.

Dean's friends and social-media contacts

haven't seen or heard from him since he disappeared.

We knew that he wasn't with anyone

in the group that we all knew.

There was one friend that wasn't accountable.

They couldn't get a hold of him.

Was a cosmo.

And my exact answer was, "who the is cosmo?"

In the suburbs of bucks county, pennsylvania,

two mysteries are emerging.

On Wednesday, July 5, 2017, 19-year-old jimi patrick

left his house and disappeared without a trace.

Two days later, a second teenager,

dean finocchiaro, has also vanished.

You don't know what to do. You feel helpless.

I knew something bad happened to my son.

He might have been arrested or in a hospital or an accident.

I just felt that way.

Dean's parents check off

their son's social-media connections

one by one.

We ruled out everyone who my son could be with,

and that's the only name we had... cosmo dinardo.

Dean's friends say the two boys

know each other from riding atvs.

They had the same interest

into riding and things like that,

and he considered him a friend.

Some of dean's friends said cosmo...

He wasn't right in the head.

The kid was loopy.

The only impression I got of dean and cosmo's relationship

was that they were acquainted.

Dean's friends tell officer freer that cosmo

lives in a bucks county township called bensalem.

I called bensalem police department

to just obtain biographical information on cosmo dinardo.

They were able to just give me

his name, address, date of birth,

and the registration number of his pickup truck.

She learns that cosmo is a 20-year-old

from a prominent bucks county family.

The dinardos run two successful trucking and cement businesses.

I was able from there to just google the dinardo name,

which produced two properties.

There is the dinardos' primary residence in bensalem

and then two neighboring properties

in the rural area of solebury.

It's possible dean could be with cosmo at one of these places,

so officer freer tracks dean's phone.

So I contacted the phone carrier

and asked them if they can give me a location

of where the phone was last used.

And they were able to tell me that the phone was last used

up in the area of solebury township, bucks county.

This is where

cosmo dinardo's family owns their land.

Maybe dean and cosmo are there together.

It was definitely a surprise moment.

Officer freer meets up

with a solebury township police officer,

and the two head to the dinardos' land.

I met with officer forrester

and explained to him I have this young man missing.

His cellphone was last used up in this area.

I could tell just by talking to her

that she had that police instinct

and she recognized

that this could be something more than just a missing person.

It's just after 2:00 a.M.

When the two officers arrive at the dinardos'

family property near where dean's phone was last used.

It's kind of hidden,

but the size of that dinardo property is extensive.

They soon come across a dilapidated house

in one area of the dinardos' land.

It was in a state of rehab.

There's obviously nobody living there at that time.

When we got there,

the house looked extremely old and run down.

Paint was chipping off the outer part of the house.

The front door... The screen was coming off.

There were no vehicles on the property

that were visible to us at the time.

And then in the back portion of the property,

it was just a little shed that was just sitting by itself.

And it is a very eerie kind of property.

So we went to the house itself

because we were expecting just to find some kids there...

Hanging out, but we didn't find anybody.

We circled the property, checked it out,

and there was no sign of anybody there.

You have to understand that

solebury township is very, very dark.

It's in a rural area.

So we left that property about 2:40 a.M.

she was headed back to her township for patrol.

I resumed my patrol.

While I was patrolling for approximately 15 minutes,

something was just eating at me that that shed wasn't checked.

I just had a feeling about this.

Something was just telling me to go back and check it.

Approximately 3:00 a.M.,

I advised officer freer that I was going back there.

I walked up to the shed...

And I opened it up just a little bit...

Just to peek in.

When I looked inside,

the hairs on the back of my neck just stood up.

Officer forrester is searching for

19-year-old dean finocchiaro,

and something about the property he just visited

is bothering him.

I walked up to the shed.

I opened it up just a little bit just to peek in.

And when I looked inside,

I could see that there was a vehicle inside.

I'm like, "okay, this doesn't seem right,"

because the house...

You could tell wasn't lived in for several years,

and that car was not in bad shape.

It wasn't dirty.

There were no spiderwebs. There were no bugs on it.

There were no leaves on the roof.

So in my mind, the car was being hidden

and nobody wanted that to be found.

I was like, "this isn't good."

I just knew it.

At that point, my main concern

was making sure there was nobody in there.

The backseat... It was it was disheveled.

You could see inside.

There was a lot of clothes, and I was like, "oh, my god,

is there a body underneath there or not?"

and after a close inspection,

I could tell that a body wouldn't be under there.

Officer forrester continues to search for clues

as to why this car is here.

I shined my flashlight.

I could see tire impressions

leading from the beginning of the property

and lead right up into the shed.

They were still visible.

And I didn't like that feeling

because I could tell that they were fresh.

I knew that we had just missed somebody being at that property.

Someone just slipped through their fingers.

Could it be dean or cosmo?

I asked the dispatcher

to run the vehicle's registration for me.

Dispatch, I've got a 1996 nissan maxima

that I'd like you to run plates for.

She advised that it came back to a thomas meo

out of plumstead township.

Dispatch, this is plumstead police.

Just to clarify, you said thomas meo, over?

Soon as she said the name thomas meo,

a police officer immediately got over the radio

and advised me that that individual's mother

was at their station earlier in the day

and reported him missing, also.

Yet another missing boy?

This case has just widened.

Was at that moment that I knew this was...

Most likely more than just a missing-person's case

and that it was worse.

When I heard that that car was found in the shed,

I kind of just stopped my car in the middle of the road,

and I want, "holy crap.

This isn't happening."

I don't believe in coincidence,

and the fact that there were two reported missing young men

connected to the same person was unbelievable.

The only thing I wanted to do was find cosmo dinardo.

As the sun rises, officer freer rushes

to cosmo dinardo's family home in bensalem to get answers.

My husband had called me because I honestly had not called him.

It was a normal thing for me to contact him

if I was going to be late, and I hadn't.

And so he called me and said, "are you coming home?"

I said, "well, yeah, I'm coming home.

Just I don't know what's going on.

It's either I have a whole lot of something

or a whole lot of nothing,"

and I didn't know what I had at that point.

Really, I was really just hoping to find three kids there

hanging out for the weekend.

So when I went to the dinardo residence in bensalem,

sandra dinardo, cosmo's mother, answered the door.

I explained to her just to talk to cosmo very briefly

because there was a local young man missing

and cosmo may have last seen them.

So I just wanted to see if he had dropped them off anywhere

or where he may have last seen dean.

Sandra told me that cosmo wasn't home.

And she says cosmo isn't due to be back

until later.

Sandra seemed more concerned

that there was a police officer at her door looking for her son,

but I didn't allude at all that he was in trouble.

Officer freer leaves,

not knowing what to think of the situation.

Where is cosmo dinardo?

Could he be another missing boy?

I didn't want to assume the worst.

But at the same time, the worst may actually happen.

I started contacting all of these other departments

to gather all the information that everybody had.

And that's when officer freer

discovers something even more shocking.

I learned that tom meo's friend mark sturgis

was missing, as well.

That's now four boys

reported missing in bucks county,

and this mystery is about to narrow to one place...

The farmland owned by the family of 20-year-old cosmo dinardo.

It's been less than 24 hours

since officer megan freer began investigating

the disappearance of 19-year-old dean finocchiaro.

In that time, she has discovered two other reported missing boys

tied to her case...

21-year-old tom meo and 22-year-old mark sturgis.

It's very rare to have so many missing people

in a very, very small timeframe.

I've never seen a thing like that.

Bucks county investigators

form a multiagency task force to track down the missing boys.

We decided to have a meeting in solebury township,

along with bucks county detectives,

where everyone laid out who was missing from where,

when they were last seen.

Detective corporal jonathan koretzky

of the solebury township police department

is one of the investigators assigned to the case.

The priority was to try to locate the missing boys.

Maybe there was a connection between people.

So there was a possibility that all of them

could have been together that weekend.

So we looking into that to see if there were out and about

just having a good time.

The task force is briefed

that tom meo and mark sturgis are best friends

who were last seen together on Friday, July 7th,

the same night dean finocchiaro disappeared.

Mark and tom were incredibly close.

Mark met tom in high school,

I believe somewhere around ninth grade,

and they very quickly hit it off,

became very close friends.

I think they bonded a lot over the guitar.

They spent a lot of time together...

I mean, almost all of their time together,

especially when they started working together, too.

Mark was always standing up for people

and taking people under his wing that he thought needed him.

The circumstances of mark and tom's disappearance

is eerily similar to dean's.

The last I spoke with mark was on a Friday.

He had texted me that he was at work and that he loved me.

But the next day, mark wasn't answering his phone.

Mark was notorious for not charging his cellphone.

He was a down-to-earth kid.

He was not into facebook and social media

and always being on his phone.

His phone could be dead for days,

and it wouldn't bother him at all.

So when I wasn't able to get a hold of him on Saturday,

it wasn't unusual.

He's probably away for the weekend,

maybe with tom.

His phone's dead, and he doesn't care.

When the boys failed to show up

at their job later that Saturday,

both mark and tom's parents became concerned.

When it came to mark's job, he was incredibly reliable.

He was never late.

He never missed days.

He loved his job.

He enjoyed going to it genuinely,

so I knew instantly something was very, very wrong.

As a mother...

To find out that your child is missing...

It's terrifying.

I went into panic mode,

and all I wanted to do was find my son.

As worried as mark's mother is,

tom meo's mother has an extra reason to panic.

Tom is diabetic.

Tommy meo needed his insulin.

He would keep it with him all the time.

He would never leave it behind or forget it.

He always had it on his person.

So he knew tommy could have been in distress.

In light of this, detective corporal koretzky

and crime-scene investigators return to the shed

to do a more thorough search of tom's car.

There they find the car unlocked

with no signs of a crime or struggle.

I notice the title to the vehicle

and the keys to the vehicle up against the wall...

Which as an investigator kind of struck me as odd and strange.

Why would the title of the vehicle be sitting there,

and why would tommy, you know, any person

just leave that sitting there?

Inside the vehicle,

investigators discover something else.

We notice that tommy meo's diabetic kit

is still in the vehicle.

He had diabetes, and he had his medical kit.

And it was left behind.

Obviously, that's not good.

You're looking at...

You know, almost 48 hours now that he's been missing,

and he doesn't have his medicine.

If tom meo is still alive,

his hours are numbered without his insulin.

With that not being on his person,

we knew that was an issue

and we needed to step up our game

and redirect ourselves

to more of foul play being involved.

As the task force's investigation intensifies,

the four boys' families

begin looking for their own connections.

I started poring over social media, facebook.

I saw one of the other boys that was missing.

It was actually dean.

I looked through the yellow pages and white pages

and every facebook thing I could find

until I located his phone number.

I got a phone call from aimee king,

which is mark sturgis' mother, and she was hysterical.

And it was really strange because I'm talking to a woman

that I never... I didn't know this woman.

She was hysterical, and at the same time, so was I.

It was just... we were in the same place together.

I asked if he had any guess

as to what it could possibly be.

When he told me how dean had disappeared...

I was very, very worried.

I knew it wasn't good.

After I spoke with her,

I had a private investigator call me up.

He was looking into the disappearance of jimi patrick.

Then I realize it was, you know, it was getting bigger.

It was getting bigger.

Jimi patrick's grandparents

aren't completely convinced

jimi is tied to these other young men.

When I heard that there were three other boys

that were missing

and he was tying jimi in maybe with this whole group,

I just couldn't believe that.

I kept saying, "I don't think that's right.

You know, I don't think jimi knew these other kids,"

because I didn't recognize any of their names.

Apart from one... cosmo dinardo.

Jimi knew him because when he was in high school

at holy ghost prep,

cosmo was one year ahead of jimi.

Jimi graduated 2016, and cosmo was 2015.

It's a small school,

and almost all of the students know everyone.

It's looking more and more

like all these boys are linked,

and soon, dean's family makes another connection.

I was called back to bonnie and anthony's house

because they felt that they had more information for me

about dean's whereabouts.

I had asked bonnie if they had security cameras

at the house, anything that faced the street

to see if dean had left in a car or not,

and she told me that they didn't have any cameras,

but she knew of a neighbor that did.

I went up the neighborhood

looking at all my neighbors' homes

who had cameras

and came across one up the street

and asked him if he could please review his camera

on Friday night at that specific time.

The neighbor's camera

catches sight of a silver pickup truck

that matches cosmo's

leaving the neighborhood at the exact time dean disappeared.

As soon as I got that picture, I knew it was cosmo's truck.

Authorities now know for certain

that dean was with cosmo the night he disappeared.

So where were they heading that night?

Investigators need to track down the one individual

who may be key to cracking this case, cosmo dinardo.

But where is he?

Cosmo wasn't home

when officer freer first attempted to locate him,

so the investigators go back to the dinardo family.

Once we learned

that dean was picked up by cosmo dinardo,

bucks county detectives went out to obtain information from him

in regards to these boys and what cosmo knew of them.

Cosmo and his family

arrange a voluntary meeting with police.

Officer freer was in contact with cosmo's mother,

so the parents were aware of this investigation

into missing persons.

So they were in contact with law enforcement

to assist us with cosmo's information.

Investigators are in a tricky spot.

There's no proof that a crime took place,

so they have to tread lightly

not to lose the family's cooperation.

We're trying to establish his timeline

and what he was doing and where he was going,

if he was at any of the properties,

and if he had any connections with the other boys

that he would admit to at that point.

Cosmo tells detectives he doesn't know

where the missing boys are or what happened to them.

Cosmo was somewhat cooperative.

He did admit that he was with dean

the Friday evening he went missing.

Cosmo says he and dean were heading to a house

in nearby langhorne, bucks county.

During the ride in the truck with cosmo,

cosmo reported some type of issue between him and dean,

and they got in an argument.

Cosmo claims he kicked dean out of his truck,

leaving him on the side of the road.

After dean exited the vehicle,

cosmo told us that he was going fishing at a local park.

Cosmo says he was at this park

until almost 9:00 p.M.,

there was no other background provided by cosmo

at that point in time.

It's a shaky alibi at best.

But one thing in particular stands out to the detectives.

He was trying to separate himself from the missing boys.

He was trying to get himself as far away

from that situation and that property

and those missing boys that he possibly could.

During that interview.

Investigators don't necessarily believe cosmo's story,

but they can't keep him in custody, either.

Based off of that initial interview,

we knew that we had to push further and get more evidence.

We wanted to elicit information from the public.

Did they see these boys anywhere?

Were they out traveling?

Are they still alive? Have you seen them?

So, the task force reaches out to the media.

What we're looking for is information

that connects these four men together.

By Sunday evening, the case is all over the national news.

For four men missing since last week.

My husband was home, and he told me

"I saw all of this on abc news," and I just couldn't believe it.

Solebury is a small area in bucks county.

Bucks county is a small area in pennsylvania

that is now grabbing national attention.

And it absolutely floored me.

Police are beginning to suspect foul play

in the case of the four young men

outside of philadelphia.

What happened to these four young men?

Immediately, this case blew up.

It was all over social media.

It was all over crime-solving blogs and websites,

cable news channels, "the new york times."

I want to assure the public that we here are utilizing

every resource to try to find these four missing men.

How did these four young men... How did they all fit together,

and how did they end up together,

and what happened to them?

Four boys have vanished

from bucks county, pennsylvania.

Fear and speculation

across this philadelphia suburb is running rampant.

Bucks county native

and "levittown now" reporter tom sofield

has been following the story from the very beginning.

So, as a community journalist,

we knew some of the people who were involved.

We knew the police officers who were involved.

We knew the detectives who were out there.

We really felt it was important to cover the story responsibly

without sensationalizing it because, in a case like this,

it really can get out of hand.

When word leaks

that investigators are focusing on cosmo dinardo.

That's exactly what starts happening.

There were some news organizations that were hinting

that cosmo may have been another boy who was missing.

But we had known that detectives were developing him

as a person of interest

due to his family's connection to the farm in solebury.

The media goes into overdrive,

trying to find out everything they can about cosmo dinardo.

So, cosmo dinardo... In our reporting,

we kind of developed this profile of him.

He came from a prominent family in the lower end of the county.

He lived a nice, upper-middle class life.

And also we learned that police in bensalem...

They had had previous run-ins with him.

Most of them didn't lead to arrests or any charges,

but the police director had said that they had

more than two dozen contacts with him over the years.

We were aware of aggressive-nature type incidents

involving his family.

Cosmo became combative

and/or aggressive towards his family members.

We learned through court documents

that he had a mental-health commitment,

and he had also suffered from mental-health issues.

And months before the boys went missing,

he had actually been charged with possessing a firearm,

which he wasn't allowed to be due to his mental health issues.

He was in a vehicle, and they found a gun on him.

For dean's family, cosmo's history

with the local police sits in stark contrast to their own.

It makes me feel sick to my stomach,

knowing that my son never got a break

from our police department, which is fine.

But yet cosmo's running around with all these occurrences

and things going on,

and there was never a charge against him.

If my son was caught with a shotgun in my car.

He would have been in jail.

He would've been in jail.

And all that is basically the wealthy

doing what they want and getting away with it, you know?

Cosmo's disturbing online posts

only add fuel to the fire.

Cosmo dinardo had a kind of prolific online profile.

He was on a lot of social media.

Actually, him and jimi patrick were friends on facebook.

One thing that was a common theme was

he wasn't afraid to get angry,

and he didn't really care about the repercussions.

We had learned of threats he had made to people.

I was at "the philadelphia inquirer" at the time

as an intern, and my editor just told me to see

if I could find any contacts or connections with dinardo.

21-year-old colt shaw has an advantage

that other journalists and even the police don't have.

I'm from bucks county, not far from bensalem.

And being the exact same age as some of these kids,

I think they were more open to talking with me,

they started getting back to me with, like,

huge information that wasn't being reported anywhere else.

A number of cosmo's close friends were saying that...

He was strange growing up.

I didn't talk to anyone that felt genuinely close to him.

They all felt some sort of disconnect from him,

some sort of unease around him.

I talked to some girls

that he had just harassed relentlessly online.

You know, just asking them to have sex with him.

He was constantly trying to fight people, selling guns,

selling shoes with like big rounds right next to it...

Just posed for no reason other than to show off.

Then a source shares a disturbing private group chat

dated shortly after dean, tom, and mark disappeared.

The name of the snapchat message group chat

was "tom wya"... "where you at?"

and at one point the friends were saying,

like, "tom, where you at?

Mark, where you at? Dean, where you at?"

and dinardo was in that group chat.

One of them called him out and said, like,

"are you worried about your buddy, dean?"

and he's like, "nah, he's he's got, like priors or whatever.

He's probably just running off somewhere,"

throwing it back on dean.

Someone in this group chat sends the young reporter

something else even more ominous.

He sent me a photo of dinardo brandishing a revolver,

it had a little laser mounted on it...

You know, shirt off, wild eyes, you know?

I just remember standing up in the "inquirer" newsroom

and just going, like, "holy

holy"

Aware of cosmo's troubling behavior,

investigators race to piece together his movements

on the night dean, tom, and mark went missing.

One of the things in modern policing that's cropped up

the past few years

has been these alprs... Automatic license plate readers.

And they're stuck to the tops and the trunks of police cars,

and they pick up every passing license plate,

and they run it against a national database

that's updated regularly for stolen cars,

people on different wanted lists.

And they also store that data for a period of time.

Detectives scanned these readers

around the solebury properties,

looking for cosmo's truck and tom meo's car.

That's when they catch their next big break.

We're able to determine that cosmo dinardo

was in a very specific general area

of tommy meo and mark sturgis the Friday evening,

they both went missing.

And we were able to determine that cosmo dinardo's truck

was within a quarter mile of the dinardo farm.

Cosmo dinardo, at the time, had told investigators

that he was out fishing when some of these crimes

were happening and leading up to it.

And that kind of blew apart part of his story, his alibi.

Soon, there's more incriminating information

we learned through through tips and other investigative leads

that cosmo dinardo was trying to sell a vehicle

consistent with that of tommy meo's car

after tommy was reported missing.

Investigators are convinced

cosmo has either kidnapped or harmed the missing boys.

The district attorney then takes an unorthodox action

to get their main suspect off the street.

Cosmo dinardo was arrested on a refiled weapons case

that was originally dropped, and he was held on a high bail.

Between the license plate reader,

dean's last phone call, and tom meo's car.

Investigators are able to obtain an extensive search warrant

for the dinardos' solebury properties.

We had reason to believe that the boys were on that farm.

It's a big property.

You have densely wooded areas.

You have hills. You have valleys.

There's a little waterway through it.

There's a little pond.

It's 90-some acres, and we're going through it

with the equivalent of a fine-tooth comb.

We designated separate groups

to search different areas of the property

since it was so large.

Each group was assigned a certain house

or dwelling on a property.

And then sections of the property itself,

like the cornfields, the woods, the trails.

We were looking for any signs of anything...

Clothing, shoes, personal effects,

anything that we could find to indicate

where any of these young men could be.

When the team enters an old barn

on the farm property, they spot something alarming.

We located blood within the barn.

The pooling of the blood on the main level of the barn

was consistent with a critical or very serious injury.

We don't know whose blood that is.

We don't know at all, actually,

how long it could have been there.

Blood but no bodies

and no other sign of the four missing boys.

Based off of the blood within the barn,

we knew that we had an active crime scene...

Not only a crime, but a crime of horrific nature

being a potential homicide or multiple homicides.

The four families watched the search unfold with bated breath,

desperate for any news.

As a mother, you are always going to cling

to any hope that you can hold onto...

That they're gonna be alive, that they're gonna find them

and things are gonna be okay

and you're gonna get the opportunity

to hold them again and kiss them again and talk to them again.

I knew as days progressed,

that if he were alive...

He would have been bleeding out somewhere

or held hostage.

And with the heat,

I just didn't think that he could survive that very long.

I was hopeful, of course.

But I feel like I knew inside

that it was false hope.

In the midst of the search, something amazing happens.

I get a text message on my phone from verizon

stating that there was a number...

That one of my numbers dialed 911,

which was my son's phone.

It took the breath out of me.

Could it be, dean is calling for help?

While police search every inch

of the dinardos' solebury property for the missing boys,

dean finocchiaro's phone places a call to 911.

I thought he was all right...

Not that I thought he was all right.

I thought he was alive. I thought he was alive.

Dean's father calls the investigating team.

After I talked to police to tell him

that I received this message...

They responded by telling me that they found this phone

and they dialed 911 to actually identify whose phone it was.

When the phone was located, they made a 911 call

to our 911 center from the phone

to identify the caller-I.D. Information.

That was the little bit of the sliver of hope that we had,

and within five minutes, it was gone.

As the massive search continues,

jimi patrick's grandparents arrive at the farm,

still unsure if jimi is even associated

with the other missing boys.

I kept saying, "I think jimi is someplace else.

I don't think he's with those kids."

jimi was last reported in springfield, delaware county,

which was 50 miles from solebury farm.

It was Monday when we were at the farm.

The county detective said, "no.

His last ping wasn't springfield, delaware county.

It was solebury."

so, that's when I thought jimi was associated

with the other missing boys.

It's devastating news.

On occasion, when we receive that data,

we notice that cell phones

are actually not where they're showing to be.

Sometimes, the towers trip up,

which means it sends a signal to a wrong location.

The bad news keeps on coming

when the d.A. Informs the families

cosmo dinardo is no longer in police custody.

Last night, around 6:30 p.M.

He was released from the bucks county jail.

He posted 10% of $1 million, which is $100,000.

The bail was set at $1 million,

and we're confident that, you know.

All right, they feel that they got him.

He's not getting anywhere.

The worst part about it is,

as they continue to look for the boys,

his father bailed him out for $100,000 bail.

It was just..

It was bewildering to me.

It was bewildering how someone could do that as they look

for bodies on on your land...

That you bail him out.

People in the community were worried

this guy may have been involved

in the death of four young men...

At least the disappearance of them.

And he was out on the street,

and people were worried about that.

The task force is feeling the pressure,

especially when a second search day

ends with no signs of the missing boys.

Days on that farm were torturous.

We had to stand back.

They kind of sectioned off a little portion of the farm

that we were allowed to stand on as they searched,

and we had to stay behind that.

And we waited, and we waited for any update.

On Wednesday, July 12th,

the third day of the search, the team zeroes in

on a large pile of rocks and disturbed dirt.

It looks like it was recently dug up,

and then he took stone and covered it over

to make it look like nothing ever happened there to us.

So, we know it was of interest to us.

Authorities are focusing on this area

within the dinardo property.

As we started digging, we started finding vegetation

that was lower than any normal vegetation would survive.

So, it as if the area was tilled up.

Investigators become more convinced

something was intentionally buried there.

We don't want to disturb any physical evidence.

So, we have to do a lot of this by hand.

And at six feet down,

that's when something pungent hits them.

As we kept digging deeper,

the smell of gasoline became overpowering.

Digging in the ground, smelling gasoline

is not something you would normally come across,

so it was indicative of something

that was not supposed to be there.

If investigators are about to uncover some major evidence,

they aren't taking any chances with cosmo out on bail.

We knew that we needed to get cosmo dinardo off the streets.

We are aware that cosmo dinardo attempted to sell

a vehicle consistent with tommy meo's.

Authorities rearrest cosmo dinardo...

This time for stealing tom meo's car.

Cosmo dinardo was ultimately taken into custody.

He was secured in bucks county correctional facility.

Cosmo's bail is set at $5 million

to make sure he's not going anywhere.

With cosmo back in custody,

the dig on the dinardo family's property continues.

In the dark of the night, the search team's shovels hit metal.

After hours and hours of digging,

we recovered an oil tank,

which people later referred to as the pig roaster.

Someone has gone to great lengths to hide this oil tank.

What is in it? Is there anything in it?

We were able to put in cameras to look within the tank

to see if we found anything in there.

Once we got the cameras in there,

we did notice a cigarette pack in there and a boot in there.

Just below the pig roaster, they spot something else.

Once the tank was removed from the hole,

investigators did continue with the dig and with the process.

During that point in time, we uncovered a partial blue tarp

sticking from the dirt.

What's underneath changes the entire scope

of the investigation.

Investigators have been digging

for hours at the dinardo family property.

12 feet underground,

their darkest suspicions are confirmed.

At that point in time, we identified human remains.

Based off of clothing that was on the remains,

tattoos,

we were able to have a presumptuous idea

that it was tommy meo, mark sturgis,

and dean finocchiaro.

All three had significant injuries, traumatic injuries.

All three had burns on them...

Some more significant than the others.

They called and said they wanted to come by.

And when they came by, they told us

that they had found dean.

I honestly was standing in the kitchen.

I was in the drawer for something,

and I slammed the drawer, and I'm like... I just yelled.

I'm like, "he freakin' murdered my son!"

it's just unbelievable.

You know, your faith is challenged.

What do you do? Where do you go?

How do you live? My kids were everything to me.

My legs just buckled.

And I knew my son was gone.

I couldn't even stand.

I remember sitting on the ground in the grass...

Trying to come to terms with the fact

that my child was dead.

Three lost boys are found,

but jimi patrick is still missing.

I said, "what are the chances of jimi being alive?

You know, is jimi alive?"

'cause I really thought he was maybe in a barn somewhere

or, you know, he was kidnapped

or he was being tortured or, you know,

all these crazy things went through my mind.

I don't think anybody would ever hurt him.

The task force isn't optimistic.

We knew jimi patrick was either in extreme danger

or deceased at that point.

They couldn't find jimi patrick's body.

Nobody knew where he was.

Cosmo dinardo wasn't saying,

so cosmo and his attorney ended up striking a deal

with bucks county detectives...

"we'll tell you where the body is

if you promise a life sentence without the death penalty.

With a deal in place, cosmo dinardo

finally begins cooperating with the investigation.

Dinardo recounts a story so disturbing,

detectives can hardly believe what they are hearing.

He coldly states his killing spree began

with an unsuspecting jimi patrick.

Jimi patrick was picked up by cosmo

for the reason of purchasing marijuana.

Jimi had turned around after inspecting the shotgun

and cosmo dinardo shot him and killed him right there.

Cosmo's confession moves on to the fate of the other three

and adds another character.

So, two days after jimi patrick gets murdered,

cosmo brings his cousin sean kratz up to the farm.

And sean's a kid from philly,

and he had some minor run-ins with the police,

but nothing extremely violent that would lead anybody to think

that he would be involved in this horrible tragedy

that left, you know, multiple young men dead.

Cosmo says, that Friday the two cousins came up

with a plan to rob dean finocchiaro.

Cosmo dinardo told detectives that they ended up in this barn

on the family property.

After dean's murder, cosmo leaves sean at the farm

and goes to meet tom meo and mark sturgis

at a nearby shopping center.

It's another drug deal.

Mark parks his car, gets in with tom,

and they follow dinardo back to the farm.

Tom meo was paralyzed on the driveway, alive and screaming.

He's detailing step by step how him and his cousin did it,

and it's almost like... it almost sounds like bragging.

He's running it down and almost laughing at some of the points

when he actually has to kill someone.

At that point in time, cosmo and sean kratz,

prepped the bodies for removal from the driveway and the barn,

placed them into this oil tank

that was converted into a pig roaster.

Once the pig roaster was lit on fire.

Both cosmo and sean kratz left the farm.

They stopped for food and had cheesesteaks.

It was a game for cosmo dinardo.

Every action by cosmo dinardo proves

that what he was really thinking in his twisted mind

was that these young men were really disposable trash.

But then, within the confession,

it seems the gravity of the situation

starts setting in for cosmo dinardo.

There's a point in the confession

where he's just weeping,

and I think, at that point, the reality set in.

It's no longer just like, "I'm this tough guy that, like...

Don't mess with me.

I'll kill people."

like, "you're going away forever."

As demanded by the plea deal,

cosmo tells the investigators

where they can find jimi patrick's remains.

His body was buried on the farm

approximately 3/4 of a mile further back

from the main burial site.

I just have no... I just don't understand it.

I just... I still don't understand why he did this,

why he would murder four boys...

Murder jimi?

I just... it just beyond comprehension.

I mean, jimi's life was so valuable,

and he was our world.

The case is far from closed.

There are still two final mysteries.

Why did cosmo do it?

And where is his accomplice and cousin, sean kratz?

Investigators scramble

to locate 20-year-old sean kratz,

not only to arrest him for his crimes,

but to have him fill in one missing piece to cosmo's story.

Any criminal investigation, we try to look for a motive...

Why did they do it?

Was it because of money? Was it because of fame?

Was it because they didn't like that person

and they wanted to kill them or injure them?

But the motive for cosmo dinardo is not 100% known.

The task force brings sean kratz into custody.

Marty. Sean.

Pleasure.

You know this room is being audio-video recorded, right?

Did they tell you that? Yes.

Sean admits... he tells the detectives that he was there,

he is... He witnessed what happened,

but denies shooting dean.

Kratz claims he was in the truck

the whole time cosmo was in the barn.

Investigators aren't buying

all of sean kratz' version of events.

Despite the pressure, kratz sticks to his story,

but does reveal where the murder weapon is hidden.

As to what motive cosmo had to kill the boys,

all kratz offers is this.

Investigators keep pressuring sean kratz,

and finally, almost nine months later,

kratz ultimately comes clean to his exact role in dean's murder.

Okay.

When he didn't shoot dean in the woods as ordered,

kratz says cosmo grew frustrated.

Okay.

Despite everything, for dean's family,

sean kratz's involvement with cosmo only supports one thing.

It just proves to me that cosmo dinardo is a coward

and always will be a coward.

He felt that he can do what he wanted and get away with it.

And his stupid little sidekick's, you know...

Hey, they're saying that he shot my son first

and then cosmo shot him.

Without cosmo, this wouldn't have happened.

Kratz, to my eye was a tool of cosmo dinardo.

Sean kratz was cosmo dinardo's tool.

He was the weakling in the relationship.

This murder never would have taken place

with sean kratz at the helm.

The case of the four missing boys of bucks county is over.

The sheer violence of it all

leaves a shaken community wondering why.

Cosmo's a hard person to wrap your head around.

I don't think we'll ever know why he did it.

My instincts say...

He just wanted to do it.

I think that his motive was just the thrill.

I think, like, since jimi was killed first,

I think he got this big high from it.

You know, it was great.

And then he lured these other three boys up

and he did the same thing again.

The finocchiaros' attorney, tom kline,

has a similar theory.

You have a bunch of working-class kids

who were lured to a rich kid's parents' farm

and ended up being prey

to a twisted, torturous, murderous mind

of cosmo dinardo, a young man who made a decision

that he was going to, for sport,

murder people.

Cosmo dinardo is officially charged

in the bucks county courthouse on Friday, July 14th, 2017,

only nine days after his killing spree began.

He pleads guilty to four counts of first-degree murder

and related crimes, including robbery and abuse of a corpse.

He is sentenced to four consecutive life sentences.

I'm sorry.

Sean kratz elects to take his case to trial.

In November 2019, a jury finds kratz guilty

of the first-degree murder of dean finocchiaro

and of voluntary manslaughter

for the deaths of mark sturgis and tom meo.

He is sentenced to life without parole.

Despite the convictions, the families of jimi patrick,

dean finocchiaro, tom meo, and mark sturgis

will never come to terms

with what happened to their sons.

I miss him every day. Every day, I think of him.

I still have trouble watching those videos,

I still have trouble talking about him.

I'm still going for counseling.

And I just...

I can't wait till I die and I see him again

because I know I will.

We'll never be the same.

We expected him to carry on for us,

to help us in our old age

and take care of his mom, our daughter,

when we're not around anymore,

and that won't be the case.

We miss my son.

It's hard. Times are hard.

Every day is hard for us.

For our family, it's hard.

He was a character.

He was a character to have around, you know?

And you miss that.

You miss it.

There's a void, an emptiness...

That just consumes us.

There's a missing part to this family now.

And it can never come back.

I miss him so much every second of every day.

I miss our conversations,

and I would give anything... I'd give anything

just to pick his dirty socks up off the floor again.