Nation & World Glance

Papers reveal pot dealer’s grisly confession to 4 slayings

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — A marijuana dealer gave police a grisly account of killing four men on his family’s farm, saying he crushed one of them with a backhoe after shooting him and tried to set three of the bodies on fire in a metal bin with the help of his cousin, according to court papers filed Friday.

Cosmo DiNardo, who graduated from a Catholic prep school two years ago, said he killed a former schoolmate when he arrived with $800 to buy $8,000 worth of pot. DiNardo, who’s charged along with his cousin, said he shot another man in the back as he tried to run away.

DiNardo, 20, pinned one of the deaths on his cousin, who was charged Friday, although the cousin told police that DiNardo shot all four of the victims.

The only motive disclosed by investigators was that DiNardo said he wanted to set the victims up when they went to the farm to buy marijuana. One man vanished July 5, and the others vanished two days later. Three of the men were buried at the farm, in Solebury, in an oil tank that had been converted into a cooker.

Growing sinkhole swallows 2 houses, 1 boat in Florida

MIAMI — A sinkhole that started out the size of a small swimming pool and continued to grow in Florida swallowed a boat, destroyed two homes and prompted officials to evacuate residents from about a dozen homes Friday.

Dramatic video showed the home in Land O’ Lakes, north of Tampa in Pasco County, collapsing into the hole Friday morning. It quickly engulfed one home and a boat and then consumed about 80 percent of another home, said Kevin Guthrie, Pasco County’s assistant county administrator for public safety.

By Friday afternoon, the hole stretched up to 250 feet (76 meters) wide and 50 feet (15 meters) deep, and threatened to damage a third home, Guthrie said. Pasco County Fire Chief Shawn Whited told reporters that no one was home when crews responded to a call about a “depression” under a boat in the backyard of a house in Lake Padgett Estates in Land O’Lakes. Within minutes, he said, “the hole opened up” and the boat fell in. Firefighters were able to get two dogs out of the home before the first home started collapsing into the quickly expanding hole.