Man gets life sentence for killing and burying four men on farm
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — The scene repeats again and again in Aimee King’s mind: She sees her son Mark Sturgis in his last moments on an upper Bucks County farm last July.
“I hear the bullets, I watch the shock in his face as he falls to his knees in slow motion, I watch his eyes, once sparkling with youthful joy turn wideeyed with terror. Sometimes I hear a scream,” King said Wednesday in a Doylestown courtroom.
Sturgis’ mother and the parents of three other young men arrived in the morning at the county courthouse expecting closure in one of the region’s more haunting crimes: the gruesome murders and burial of their sons on that remote Solebury Township tract.
They didn’t get it. Hours after the lead defendant, Cosmo DiNardo, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four life terms in prison for the killings, his cousin and alleged co-conspirator Sean Kratz balked at his own chance for a plea deal.
Kratz’s last-minute change of heart not only stunned the families, but it also appeared to shock his attorneys. And it left prosecutors pledging to move ahead with a death penalty trial at which DiNardo could become a central witness.
“We’re undaunted as we continue to seek justice,” District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said.
The unexpected turn of events came after DiNardo, 21, of Bensalem, had accepted responsibility for his part in the July deaths of Sturgis, Thomas C. Meo, Dean A. Finocchiaro and Jimi Patrick.
On three separate trips, he lured the young men to his family’s property with a pledge to sell them marijuana, but instead shot them and buried them in makeshift graves. Their disappearances, and the discovery of their bodies after a multiday search, drew a national spotlight.
Dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, DiNardo showed little emotion in pleading guilty to four counts of first-degree murder, along with charges of robbery, abuse of corpse, possession of an instrument of crime, and possession of a weapon. “I just want the poor families to know that I am so sorry and that if there was anything I could do to take back what occurred on those days, I would,” he said.
But Judge Jeffrey L. Finley told him his words sounded insincere and false.
“I have no doubt in my mind that should the day ever come that you should find yourself released into the community and had an opportunity to kill again, you would do it,” the judge said, imposing the consecutive life terms. “To you, human lives are disposable. They have no value.”
The victims’ relatives filled several rows of the courtroom. Some sobbed loudly as a prosecutor read the facts of the case during DiNardo’s plea hearing, then stood before the judge to describe their lingering pain and lash out at their sons’ killer.
Jimi Patrick’s grandmother, Sharon Patrick, who said she had raised him because his mother has mental health problems, asked DiNardo to say a prayer every morning in prison.
“Please pray for me,” she said, “that someday I’ll be able to forgive you for what you did to our dear Jimi.”
Sturgis’ mom said the pain was indescribable.
“My heartache transcends language itself,” King told the judge. “How do I describe emotional pain so strong, so intense, so all-consuming that it manifests as actual physical pain?”
Dean Finocchiaro’s father, Anthony Finocchiaro, directed his fury at DiNardo: “I pray that Dean’s spirit haunts you the rest of your miserable life.”
After the hearing, DiNardo’s lawyers told reporters that they hoped everyone involved could find closure.
“What’s lost in all this is that he (DiNardo) has family as well,” said lawyer Michael Parlow. “Cousins, sisters, brothers, mother and father are here. It’s tragic for everyone.”