This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/13/pennsylvania-missing-men-body-found

The article has changed 8 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Pennsylvania: body of one of four missing youths found buried on farm Pennsylvania missing youths: one body found and person of interest named
(about 7 hours later)
Investigators have found the body of one of four missing young men along with other human remains buried on a Pennsylvania farm, and vowed to “bring each and every one of these lost boys home to their families”. When helicopters started buzzing around Solebury on Sunday night, most local residents assumed the action concerned a rescue on the Delaware river. In high summer, it is not uncommon for tourists to get into trouble in the currents.
Cadaver dogs led them to the spot on the 90-acre farm in Solebury Township where they discovered human remains inside a 12ft-deep common grave. When it became apparent that the focus of activity was a couple of miles inland, over the bucolic rolling farmland of Solebury itself, the mood became more uneasy. And when the activity was linked to the hunt for first two and then four local young men gone missing, curiosity turned to concern.
“I don’t understand the science behind it, but those dogs could smell these poor boys 12ft below the ground,” the Bucks County district attorney Matthew Weintraub said at a midnight news conference. Parents began interrogating their teenagers, sharing knowledge and Facebook rumors and calling local police to see if they should lock their doors or cancel backyard camping sleepovers.
The body identified was that of 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro. Weintraub did not say how he died. The other remains have not yet been identified. Reassurances from the authorities had a curiously valedictory feel – there were few warnings to remain on guard. The investigative focus quickly and visibly moved to the aftermath of events whose scale is only now emerging.
The missing men are 22-year-old Mark Sturgis, 21-year-old Tom Meo and 19-year-old Jimi Tar Patrick. Patrick, who attended a Catholic high school for boys with the man authorities consider a suspect, was last seen on Wednesday last week, while the other three vanished Friday. At midnight on Wednesday, investigators announced that they had found the body of one of the four young men, along with other human remains buried on a farm, and vowed to “bring each and every one of these lost boys home to their families”.
“This is a homicide, make no mistake about it. We just don’t know how many homicides,” Weintraub said. Cadaver dogs led searchers to the spot on the 90-acre farm in Solebury where they discovered human remains inside a common grave, Bucks County district attorney Matthew Weintraub said.
Authorities said they were looking at pursuing homicide charges against a 20-year-old man who was taken into custody earlier on Wednesday and whose parents own the farm. “I don’t understand the science behind it,” he said, “but those dogs could smell these poor boys 12ft below the ground.”
Cosmo DiNardo was being held on $5m cash bail after he was charged with trying to sell a victim’s car after he disappeared. The car was found on the DiNardo family’s property. The body identified was that of 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro. Weintraub did not say how he died. The other remains were not immediately identified.
DiNardo also had been arrested Monday and held on $1m bail on an unrelated gun charge before his father paid $100,000 to bail him out on Tuesday. The charge stems from accusations that DiNardo was caught with a shotgun and ammunition in February despite a prior mental health commitment. The missing men are 22-year-old Mark Sturgis, 21-year-old Tom Meo and 19-year-old Jimi Tar Patrick. Patrick, who attended a Catholic high school for boys with the man authorities consider a person of interest in the case, was last seen on Wednesday last week. The other three vanished Friday.
The back-to-back arrests bought investigators time as they scoured the farm and other spots across the county for clues to the men’s disappearance, Weintraub said. “This is a homicide, make no mistake about it,” Weintraub said. “We just don’t know how many homicides.”
DiNardo’s parents, Antonio and Sandra DiNardo, own the farm in upper Bucks County, a bucolic area with rolling hillsides, new housing developments and historic sites. They also own a nearby farm parcel that was also searched and a concrete company near their home in Bensalem, closer to Philadelphia. Solebury, with the adjacent river town of New Hope, is home to an affluent mix of multi-generational farmers, wealthy commuters to New York or Philadelphia, and young families drawn to excellent schools. The rolling plains above the river are full of horse farms, preserved land, old-growth forests and expensively refurbished stone farmhouses.
An attorney representing the couple issued a statement earlier on Wednesday saying they sympathized with the families of the missing men and were cooperating “in every way possible with the investigation”. New Hope has a reputation as an artsy town that goes back almost a century to when it became a popular second home for writers, musicians and artists from New York. Ironically, that reputation was burnished when the trial in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case took place in nearby Flemington, New Jersey in 1934. Drawn to the area for an extended period, many writers and journalists retained permanent links.
The FBI had been using heavy equipment to dig a deep ditch on the farm property, and then sifting through each bucket of dirt by hand. A thriving playhouse and independent bookshop still operate in the town, as well as a strong gay community with a popular annual Pride festival. Each weekend the population swells with tourists drawn to its river views, bars and restaurants. If there is disquiet about local teenagers sneaking into some such venues, it’s generally tempered with the sense that the area is a safe place to raise kids.
At least some of the missing men are friends, but it’s unclear how well they knew DiNardo, if at all. Some of those kids were being quizzed by anxious parents this week, as locals and authorities scrambled to make sense of the links between the young men, the local teenage scene and Cosmo DiNardo, the man named as a person of interest.
DiNardo, 20, was being held on $5m bail for allegedly stealing the car of one of the missing men, Thomas Meo, and trying to sell it. His parents, who own the farmland on which the remains were found, were subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury. They were said to be co-operating.
At the Wednesday night press conference, Weintraub said he was weighing more serious charges but stopped short of calling DiNardo a suspect. The DA parried one question after another, saying he could not or would not answer.
Police were back at the farm on Thursday, digging in the dust and the 90F-plus heat, using plywood to shore up the deep, tent-covered trench. For days, TV news helicopters have trained their cameras on the excavation, creating an unsettling racket but allowing the public to follow the forensic work from their computers. On one day, viewers could watch investigators haul up buckets of dirt and sift it through hand-held screens in what looked like an archaeological dig.
“They’re tenderly, painstakingly, reverentially recovering the remains of people they do not even know,” Weintraub said.
A local resident, Susan Coleman, told news outlets she and her husband were in their back yard last Saturday afternoon when they heard several rounds of what they believed was shotgun fire coming from the direction of the DiNardo farm.
DiNardo, whose parents own construction and concrete businesses in the Philadelphia area, was arrested on Monday on an unrelated gun charge dating from February, accused of illegally possessing a shotgun and ammunition after being involuntarily committed to a mental institution.
His father bailed him out, but he was jailed again later in the week on the stolen-car charges and bail was set much higher, after a prosecutor said he was a danger to the community because he had been diagnosed as schizophrenic. On Thursday his attorney, Fortunato Perri Jr, would not comment.