Going West: True Crime - Lost Boys of Bucks County // 321

Episode Date: July 12, 2023

In July of 2017, four young men from a small Pennsylvania farming town mysteriously vanished in the span of just one week. It was soon uncovered that they had all fallen victim to murder, but were they connected? Police would soon find out. These are the stories Jimi Patrick, Dean Finocchiaro, Thomas Meo, and Mark Sturgis. Also known as The Lost Boys of Bucks County. BONUS EPISODES Apple Subscriptions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-west-true-crime/id1448151398 Patreon: patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. Dean's Obituary: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/levittown-pa/dean-finocchiaro-11156214 2. The Philadelphia Inquirer: https://www.newspapers.com/image/517345829/?terms=dean%20finocchiaro 3. Philadelphia Inquirer: https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania/sean-kratz-murder-trial-no-verdict-bucks-county-cosmo-dinardo-20191113.html 4. USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/16/sean-kratz-convicted-pennsylvania-farm-deaths-near-philadelphia/4214043002/ 5. Philadelphia Magazine: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2020/02/25/cosmo-dinardo/ 6. New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/us/bucks-county-pennsylvania-murders-cosmo-dinardo-.html 7. New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/us/missing-men-bucks-county-philadelphia.html 8. New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/us/bucks-county-pennsylvania-murders-cosmo-dinardo-.html 9. Jimi's Obituary: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/inquirer/name/jimi-patrick-obituary?id=9355912 10. Tom's Obituary: https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/batesville/name/thomas-meo-obituary?id=6817926 11. The Lost Boys of Bucks County: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12573452/ 12. Mark's Obituary: https://obits.mlive.com/us/obituaries/grandrapids/name/mark-sturgis-obituary?id=16950176 13. New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/us/sean-kratz-cosmo-dinardo-bucks-county.html 14. Whyy.org: https://whyy.org/articles/kratz-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-after-bucks-da-takes-death-penalty-off-the-table/#:~:text=With%20the%20death%20penalty%20off,the%20impact%20of%20Kratz's%20actions. 15. Philly Burbs: https://www.phillyburbs.com/story/news/crime/2022/07/05/5-years-later-a-look-back-at-disappearance-murder-of-4-men-in-bucks/65356774007/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Teez. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody. Big thank you to Crystal for recommending this case. I can't believe I hadn't heard of this one before, you know, before Crystal sent this one in because it's such a devastating story where multiple young men lost their lives. And it only happened a few years ago in Pennsylvania in 2017. So I don't know how I missed this one in the news, but this story is crazy. Yeah, I missed this one as well. How did that happen? I'm honestly baffled that I did not know about this case before. Yeah, I wonder how many of you guys have heard this one. I actually looked it up.

It looks like it has been covered by some other podcast. So maybe it's familiar to you guys. Maybe it's not. But let's get right into this one. All right, guys. Well, this is episode 321 of Going West, so let's get into it! In July of 2017, four young men from a small Pennsylvania farming town mysteriously vanished in the span of just one week. It was soon uncover that they had all fallen victim to murder, but were they connected?

Police would soon find out. These are the stories of Jimmy Patrick, Dean Finnecaro, Thomas Mayo and Mark Sturgis, also known as the Lost Boys of Bucks County. In the summer of 2017, 19-year-old Jimmy Patrick was living at home with his grandparents in between his freshman and sophomore year, studying at Loyola University in Maryland. On Wednesday, July 5, 2017, Jimmy headed out for the evening, telling his grandparents that he was meeting friends at Chick-fil-A. Now by the time his grandparents were headed to bed, Jimmy still hadn't returned home, but it wasn't entirely unusual that he would stay out late because, you know, he was of course a teenager home for summer break in college.

It was however very out of character for Jimmy because when his grandparents woke up the next morning, they found his bed empty, which meant that he had not returned from meeting up with a friend the night before. Around 7am his grandma, whose name is Sharon, texted him asking him where he was and asking if he was okay and then telling him to check in if he had spent the night at a friend's house. But Jimmy never responded. Over the next few hours, Sharon called him incessantly and texted him 22 times with no response. She and Jimmy's grandfather Richard began frantically calling his friends, asking if anybody had

seen him or if they knew where he had been the night before. This is how they discovered that Jimmy had not gone to Chick-fil-A after all, and actually, his friends didn't even know what his grandparents were talking about. More alarmingly, none of them had seen or heard from him, and as far as the Patrick's knew, the last time Jimmy had been spotted was around 6 p.m. the previous evening on security camera footage in their garage. He could be seen walking a bag of trash to the garbage can and disposing of it before

he left the house, hugging both grandparents and telling them that he loved them. And then he vanished. So let's talk a little bit about Jimmy here. Jimmy grew up in Newtown, Pennsylvania, which is a small township in the farming community of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And it's located about 45 minutes northeast of Philadelphia. He lived with his grandparents from the time he was born as his mom, their daughter, suffered from schizophrenia, and unfortunately she just couldn't care for him, but his grandparents really stepped up to the plate.

And while they initially, you know, considered giving him up for adoption, Sharon explained that they had fallen in love with him so quickly that it became impossible for them to do that. When he was two months old and she told Richard that she thought that they should raise him themselves, he replied, quote, how could we give him up? So they became Jimmy's guardians for the rest of his life and they relished their role as born again parents. Sharon even called Jimmy her soulmate. He was very kind and well behaved as a, and quickly grew into the funniest one in

his friend group. One college friend remembered how Jimmy disassembled his roommates bed and rebuilt it in their kitchen as a joke. Another remembered quote, if there was going to be a party and Jimmy Patrick was invited, you were going to have a good time. But as much as he loved being the class clown, he also took his academics very seriously. He excelled so much in high school that he was even offered a scholarship to Baltimore's Loyola University that totaled over $50,000 in aid per year.

After graduating from Holy Ghost Preparatory School, Jimmy spent both semesters of college on the Dean's list. In addition to his class load as a business major, he worked part-time at a restaurant, even saving enough money to buy his grandma a new car, and that was basically just Jimmy. He was just a caring and loving soul. He was really looking forward to becoming a husband and a father, but he did want to put his degree to good use first. Just hoping to work with underprivileged families. Sharon said, quote, he would have been a good husband and a good father, and he would have made a difference in this world. Around noon on Thursday, July 6, 2017, so the day after Jimmy had

last been seen, his grandparents called the police. With no look from his friends, they really feared that something was wrong, so they wanted to report him missing as soon as possible. The Patrick's remember police suggesting that he had just run off with his friends or his girlfriend, because it was the week of the 4th of July after all, but they knew that Jimmy, who was responsible and mature beyond his years, would never have done that without consulting them for at least, you know, sending them a quick text to say where he was. And also, he left his car behind.

An officer came by their house to take down the report, but again suggested that it was more likely that 19-year-old Jimmy had, you know, just taken off on his own. His last cell phone ping was at a park in Springfield, Pennsylvania, which is about an hour from Newtown, so that automatically just felt, you know, kind of odd. Sharing and Richard walked the park themselves, but neither found nor saw anything. So they hung posters to circulate the news of Jimmy's disappearance, but no one seemed to have seen or heard from him at all. So on Friday, when their search entered its third day, they took matters into their own

hands and hired a private investigator. The private investigator picked up where the Patrick's left off and spoke to anyone who is known to have seen him or talked to Jimmy in the day's prior to his disappearance. He also bade her detectives to take the disappearance more seriously and investigate it with the possibility of foul play in mind. As words spread among the small community, the Patrick's discovered that Jimmy wasn't the only young man missing from Bucks County. Another 19-year-old, Dean Finnecaro was also missing.

He was last seen on Friday, July 7, so two days after Jimmy disappeared. But police originally thought that the disappearances were not related. Which feels so weird, but basically the boys did live near each other, but they weren't friends, they didn't know each other, and they didn't go the same high school. More than anything else, Dean Finnecaro loved spending time outdoors. He was fearless and naturally athletic, and he spent days on-end outside, perfecting tricks on his bike, his skateboard, or his dirt bike, the latter of which was his favorite. He also competed on his high school's ice hockey team and for multiple hockey teams around his community.

His parents were aware that he had a wild streak, especially when he was riding his dirt bike because his mom, whose name is Bonnie, described him as a daredevil and a little bit immature, remembering quote, Dean was no angel and we were dealing with what teenage boys do, some trouble. And his dad added, quote, my son wasn't a goody two shoes kid, but he was a good person, just an honest loyal kid. Bonnie also remembered her son as being kind and warm with a big heart, explaining that he just needed some structure and direction in his life. Dean graduated from the Shamanie High School in 2016, and afterward was living at home while

he narrowed down what he wanted to do with his next few years. He got a job as a cook at a local restaurant in ice cream parlour called Richman's, and he was well known and beloved by employees and regulars alike. His manager remembers that, beginning as a cook, he quickly rose through the ranks. He worked overtime often often and he also became the liaison for customers with complaints because he handled conflict with such grace. After Dean disappeared, a little girl who he had met at the restaurant saw his picture on the news and requested to go to Richmond's just to let them know how much she loved

getting to see Dean when she ate there. According to his parents, Dean lived by the quote, "'Live the life that you love, love the life that you live.' His dad Anthony says quote, "'He just enjoyed himself and he didn't care what anyone thought. He did love the life that he lived.' That Friday July 7th again, this is 2017, Dean had dinner with his dad at a local sushi restaurant.

Dean's mom Bonnie was at a town for the weekend and they enjoyed having some time just the two of them. When they returned home that night, Dean's dad Anthony headed down to the basement to do laundry. While he was doing this, Dean shouted downstairs that he was briefly meeting with her friend and that he would be back in just 15 minutes. Now he told his dad Anthony that it was somebody in the neighborhood, but he didn't elaborate on what he was doing. And because it was supposed to be so quick,

like his dad probably didn't even think to ask who it was and why he was meeting them, like this was supposed to be a very simple meetup. But after an hour, Anthony texted Dean just to check on him and he didn't hear back. As time ticked by with no response, Anthony really started to worry, so he called Dean's mombani to alert her of what was going on, but, deciding that he was likely still out with his friend, they decided to wait until the next morning to really start to raise the alarm. They just wondered if maybe his phone had died and he'd been having fun with friends and decided to stay out. So they let the evening pass, staying up late hoping to hear from him, and then waking up early to keep calling. But the next morning arrived with

no sign of deen, and he even missed a scheduled shift at work which is something that he never did. So Bonnie rushed home early from her trip and Anthony called the police to report Dean missing. Dean had a little bit of history with the police department already just because of run-ins that he had had while he was outriding his dirt bike. It wasn't anything past that it was just about him riding his dirt bike, it wasn't anything past that it was just about him riding his dirt bike. So racked with fear over his disappearance, Dean's parents worried that the authorities

maybe wouldn't take the disappearance seriously enough because he had this very minor history with them. And while they did take down the report, they told the Finnecarrows the same thing that they had told Jimmy's grandparents. It was a holiday weekend, and Dean had probably run off with friends. But by that time, it had been nearly 24 hours without a word, and it's phone by this time had either died, or it had been turned off. So this didn't look good either, because they're saying, well, if he did, go off.

I mean, first of all, he said he was going to be gone for 15 minutes. So 15 minutes versus 24 hours is incredibly different. And then for his phone to be dead or off, and within that time, not having texted or called either of his parents to explain where he was like, this is just really concerning. Yeah, I mean, I definitely get where the police are coming from here. I mean, it is summer and he's a young man. But the fact that he said he was going to be gone for 15 minutes, I agree with you, seems

a little bit, a little bit weird. So friends and family gathered at the house, just trying to piece together a timeline, and unanimously, no one had seen or heard from Dean. His parents poured over his social media connections and interactions, and they talked to all of his friends, but they just couldn't find anything out of the ordinary about the last few days. But then, a name came up, who the parents were unfamiliar with, which is pretty strange, as the Finnecarrows knew all of Dean's friends.

The name of the new friend began to emerge from one friend group, and it happened to be someone they couldn't get a hold of. A young man by the name of Cosmo Denardo. It rang a bell for Bonnie, remembering that Dean had hitched a ride home from work two weeks prior, with someone named Cosmo. And that's not really a common name at all, so gotta be this guy. Yeah, and she probably remembered that it wasn't a very common name. Yeah, I'm sure she was like, okay, that's one that I'll remember. Exactly.

So, he was a newer friend, and the boys had bonded over their love of dirt biking. As the Finnecarrows talked to more of Dean's friends and acquaintances, they learned more about Cosmo, and that his mental health had been faltering recently. So Dean's parents Bonnie and Anthony canvassed the neighborhood, asking if anybody had seen Dean in the past day, and they came across security camera footage from multiple homes that showed Cosmo Denardo's truck departing the neighborhood at the same time

that Dean supposedly left to meet friends. And on top of this, Dean's phone last pinged at the Denardo family's massive farm property in Solbury Bucks County. And a bunch of different reports that we had seen, the farm has been described to encompass as few as 68 acres and as many as 100. So Bonnie spent the day walking the property, looking for any sign of her son, but she didn't find one. So either way, this is a huge property, but just from what Bonnie walked, she didn't find anything, but we're going to get back to that. But first of all, let's talk a little bit more about Cosmo.

So 20-year-old Cosmo was kind of a local heir, like his family owned two successful companies in the area. One of them was in trucking, and the other was in cement. So the detective assisting the Finnecaro family obtained Dean's phone records and found that it had been in the vicinity of the Denardo family farm in Solbury, like Heath told us, the last time it pinked. So with this information, the police descended upon the farm and started searching for anything out of the ordinary or anything that could point them in the right direction.

At this point, there was not sufficient evidence to tie Cosmo to either disappearance, but the investigator suspicions were definitely raised. The family's farm, like we said, was a very large property, and there were many structures within this property, some of which were being used, and some that were not. One structure that they happened upon was a dilapidated old house that was definitely in disrepair, and it was pitch black inside. And then there was an adjacent shed as well.

So after searching the entire property, the police left empty handed, but while they were driving away, one detective had this instinct about that pitch black house, which they for whatever reason had not searched inside. So police returned for a closer look in case it held something important, and thankfully they did because concealed within this house or this shed, they found a vehicle that appeared to have been in use recently with fresh tire tracks leading outside. Police ran the plates of the car,

which was a 1996 Nissan Maxima, by the way, and the registration came back to a 21 year old man named Thomas Mayo. And get this, earlier the day prior, Thomas Mayo's mother had been in the police station reporting her son missing. So the fact that three young men from this relatively quiet farming community were missing was surprising, but having two of them already tied to Cosmo de Nardo was downright shocking. So Thomas Mayo or Tom, as he was known by friends and family, was characterized by his very

sweet and selfless nature. The oldest brother to two younger sisters, he was gentle and protective and remembered for his soulful personality and depth. Grogarius and outspoken, Tom enjoyed engaging with strangers, just asking questions and getting to know people better. And just as an example, the last shift that he worked at the local gas station before he disappeared, he asked everybody what makes you happy. And his mom Melissa remembered, quote, he never judged people and he was so curious.

After graduating alongside his best friend at Ben Salem High School in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania, Tom ventured off to East Stroudsburg University in, you guessed it, East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Following the completion of his freshman year, Tom kind of felt unfulfilled and he left school with the intention of figuring out what he really wanted to do with his life. He wound up getting into construction and was fortunate enough to work alongside his best friend, 22-year-old Mark Sturgis. Tom and Mark had met in ninth grade and there were very fast friends, and according to their moms, they did absolutely everything together. Mark was described by his mom as a quote teddy bear,

tall and solid from a young age, but kind, sensitive, and emotionally mature. All these boys just seem amazing. Yeah, they do. Are these young men? And because of this, his parents recall him as the voice of reason and the peacemaker among his peers, often breaking up fights and desglating tense situations.

His mom Amy remembers quote, Mark was always standing up for people and taking people under his wing that he thought needed him. Though he was shy, Mark could talk to anyone about anything and made a point of introducing himself to people and making them feel included. Love people like that. Yeah. So his mom Amy claims that he didn't care about the things that most teens and young adults cared about.

Like he just lived in basketball shorts and mismatched sandals and he stayed off of social media and he also barely used his cell phone. His dad, who was also named Mark, remembered quote, if you would have met him, you would have instantly loved him. According to their parents, he and Tom Mayo had a beautiful friendship where they could share and talk about anything, and that they really just enjoyed trying to answer unanswerable questions

and enjoyed deep discussions about life. So after graduating from Ben Salem, Mark took a year off to move down to Florida to live with his grandparents. And while he was there, he passed the time by playing guitar in a band. When he returned home, he started working construction, and he absolutely loved the creative aspects of the job.

So when Tom moved back to Bucks County and was looking for a new career venture, the two friends jumped at the chance to work together. As usual, on the evening of Friday, July 7, the boys were hanging out for the night. Their moms last spoke to them that evening, and Mark texted Amy on Friday, letting her know that he was headed to work and that he loved her. The next morning, which was Saturday, Amy tried to get in touch with Mark and she couldn't,

but as Heath just said, he wasn't the best at using his phone. So knowing it wasn't very unusual for him to go a few days without a phone call, Amy didn't pan it quite yet. But then on Saturday afternoon, so later that day, when the boys missed a scheduled shift that they were supposed to be working together, both families knew that there was something wrong. Amy said that Mark loved his job and was always punctual and reliable. She knew he would never even have been late for work let alone missing a shift altogether with no notice. Melissa, whose Tom's mom, was also in panic mode as Tom was diabetic and

needed daily medication. So as suspicions against Cosmo de Nardo mounted, detective searched Tom's car again it was the one that was abandoned on the Soulbury farm, and they were really just looking for any evidence of foul play. His car had been left unlocked with no sign of a struggle, but the title to the vehicle and the keys had been discarded loose in the shed, and his diabetic kit was inside the car. And obviously again, like not just the fact that he's missing but really coupled with the fact that he's missing and now his car is just in this pitch black shed on somebody else's property and the person whose property it is can he been can't even be found

sorry is just really freaky yeah and also the fact that these other two families are now starting to make this connection to Cosmo as well. It's like everything is kind of tying together now. So it's really, really, really, so early the next morning, which was Sunday morning, they stopped by the DeNardo's primary residence looking for Cosmo. This is the police, but his mom said that he was out for the day.

Like Dean's parents, Mark's mom Amy scoured his social media for any sign of what may have happened to him, and it was there that she discovered that Dean was also missing. She looked up Dean's parents' phone number in the phone book and called them right away. Dean's dad, Anthony, remembers receiving that harrowing call from Mark's mom Amy on Sunday morning July 9th as suspicions rose that the disappearances of the four young men were connected. Anthony said quote, I'll never forget the conversation because she was hysterical. I didn't even know this woman and we just sat there and cried. Shortly after the call from another panicked parent, Dean's parents received yet another call, this time from the private investigator for Jimmy's family, who now thought that Jimmy's disappearance may have been tied to the other three boys.

Jimmy's grandma Sharon was surprised as she didn't know any of the other boys and didn't think that Jimmy did either. But Jimmy did know Cosmo Denardo. They had graduated from the same high school year apart and were even friends on Facebook. So with Cosmo's name now being this like reoccurring theme in the investigation, the parents, police, and the private investigator were growing more and more convinced that he was involved.

But there was no proof of that yet. Then finally, police were able to locate Cosmo and bring him in for questioning. Cosmo claimed that he knew of the missing boys, but didn't explain the nature of his relationship with them. I mean, he even admitted to spending time with Dean on the night that he disappeared. Police recall that he was flippant, but mostly cooperative.

According to his account of Friday, July 7th, Cosmo had picked Dean up in his truck to hang out for a little bit in Langhorn, which is another borough of Bucks County. Police and Dean's parents were later able to confirm this via surveillance footage from a neighbor's house that captured the two boys driving by and Cosmo's pickup truck. On the way, Dean and Cosmo had apparently gotten into an argument, and Cosmo said that he had kicked Dean out of the car, leaving him on the side of the road. And remember, Dean is the one who was supposed to be gone for only 15 minutes.

Yes. So Cosmo explained that he then went to a nearby park to go fishing by himself, and that he stayed there until about 9 p.m. But he denied having anything to do with Dean's disappearance, and his story didn't involve Jimmy, Tom, or Mark at all. But something was missing. Well, the Bucks County Sheriff's Department was well aware of Cosmo Denardo. In fact, in his 20 years on this earth, he had dozens of run-ins with the police. He was known by police and even by his friends and family members for being aggressive and combative.

After one particular altercation, Cosmo spent time in an inpatient mental health facility. He also illegally acquired a gun that he was not entitled to because of his history of aggression and was known to steal guns from his parents as well. As it kind of a side business, he sold his guns online and seemed to be in no short supply of them.

However, frustratingly, he evaded any repercussions for his actions because of his family's local influence. Like I said, they had two very successful businesses in the area, so he was kind of this like local air, and because his family was so well-known, for some reason he was just able to get away with being an asshole. So he was just a spoiled little bitch. Exactly, yeah.

And according to Dean's dad, he said, quote, it's basically the wealthy doing what they want and getting away with it. Even Cosmo's social media presence was volatile. He was often getting in fights and making threats online. And in a search of his accounts, police also unearthed conversations on Facebook Messenger of Cosmo pressuring young women to sleep with him, and he continued to do so even though multiple women asked him to stop. Oh, gross.

Yeah, he's just like all around. A shit bag. Yeah. And conversations also emerged from Snapchat of Cosmo calling Dina junky and telling his friends that the boys had probably gone to his family's property to use drugs and overdose by accident. Now this group on Snapchat actually had the missing boys in it and it was comprised of mutual friends of theirs from around town

Just trying to help the families, but Cosmo is using it to place blame elsewhere and just kind of be little the missing for which is Obviously a really bad sign if he's the only one that's saying, oh, I bet I bet that this happened and this is what they did and This is where they are and like if if you're saying all this is if it's a fact, like you're obviously trying to get people off your own back and to act like something else entirely happened when you know it didn't. Yeah, and you're saying it in a negative way. Yeah, which is also so rude. Yeah, you're not saying like, oh, they may be in this area, they're like, he's like, oh,

they're probably just drug addicts like overdose somewhere. Yeah, like what? And also, just the fact that he is involving himself in these conversations in such a negative way is something that we know about perpetrators in general that they want to be in the know. They want to be a part of the conversation, but he's doing everything to not help, which is very suspicious. Yeah.

So by Monday, July 10, 2017, reporters and police had descended upon the Solberry Farm, where all signs continued to point to Cosmo, of course. Even more so, when it was discovered that Cosmo had been trying to sell Tom's car online, when police canvassed the dozens of acres on the Denardo farm property, investigators also began to fan out, scrambling to put together a timeline of the boys' final movements.

Shortly before 8 p.m. on the evening of Friday, July 7, 2017, a Bucks County Sheriff's License Plate Reader captured Cosmo's car near where Tom Mayo and Mark Sturgis disappeared, which poked a hole in the theory that Cosmo had been fishing by himself in the park that night. With concerns mounting that Cosmo would flee, police served him with the charge of illegally obtaining a weapon, and on July 10th he was finally arrested. And while all of this was happening, police located blood spatter, consistent with a fatal injury in a barn on the family's property.

This discovery rocked the four families, who were still hoping that the boys would be found alive. Mark's mom Amy said quote, as a mother, you're always going to cling to any hope that you can hold on to. That they're going to be found alive, that they're going to find them, that things are going to be okay, that you're going to get the opportunity to hold them again, and kiss them again, and talk to them again. I knew was the days progressed, that if you 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 for very long.

I was hopeful of course, but I think I knew that it was false hope. Amidst the search, Dean's dad received a report from Verizon that a phone on their phone plan had dialed 911, and it was an outgoing call from Dean's number. So Anthony excitedly reported this, hoping that Dean was potentially alive out there looking for help, but it had actually been the police who had located Dean's phone in some brush on the farm, and they were contacting their operators to determine whose phone it was. Now unfortunately, the prognosis was very grim for Dean, Tom, and Mark. But Jimmy's family continued to maintain that they didn't think that Jimmy had been with

Cosmo and the other boys because his last phone ping had been so far away from the others. He had also disappeared two days earlier so it didn't really seem to match up. But, when a closer look at his phone records determined that his last location had been in Soulbury and not Springfield where they originally thought, it definitively tied Jimmy to the other three missing boys. The parents of the missing four walked the grounds of the farm in a total days, just hoping to come across any evidence of where they were and whatever tragic fate had met them. Bullet casings littered the ground and the smell of gunpowder hung in the air and Mark's

dad said sadly about this quote, we were just in a days in a fog. You go through moments of sadness and you can't even believe it's going on. And then you find yourself having casual conversations and laughing momentarily. It's just an up-and-down roller coaster. And Mark's mom Amy remembers quote, days on that farm were torturous. So investigators set up camp at the farm because they were completely convinced that it was their link to the boys. And meanwhile, although Cosmo had been arrested, he was unsurprisingly released on bail, posted by his daddy shortly thereafter. Then, on July 12, 2017, investigators happened upon a large pile of rocks and dirt that looked fresh

and out of place. So they began digging beneath the rocks and about six feet down started smelling gasoline. Convinced that they were going to come across evidence of the boys' remains, police scrambled to get Cosmo back behind bars to prevent him from leaving town because they still felt like he was going to flee. He shouldn't have gotten out of jail in the first place. But of course, his dad got him out, and now they're just really hoping that he doesn't leave for good. But here's kind of the best part.

So this time, they actually arrested him for attempting to sell Tom's car and set his bond for $5 million. Thank God. So beneath the rubble, police came across an empty oil tank with a pack of cigarettes and a discarded boot inside. And below the tank, they spotted Blue Tarb. And inside, they found three bodies. The remains of Dean Finnecaro, Tom Mayo, and Mark Sturgis. All three had been gravely injured and burned, although at this point their causes of death

were not yet known. But Jimmy was still nowhere to be found. So at this point they appealed to Cosmo and his newly secured attorneys and told him that they would eliminate the possibility of the death penalty if Cosmo would tell them where to find Jimmy's body. So Cosmo agreed, and actually willingly spilled the entire story of his crime spray against these four innocent victims.

He explained that he had been involved in selling marijuana locally, and that Jimmy had actually been his first victim. On the night that he disappeared, Cosmo had agreed to meet up with him to sell him some weed. He picked Jimmy up in his pickup truck and according to Cosmo, he wasn't supplying the marijuana but was middlemaning deals with drugs. Cosmo were called that Jimmy had been purchasing $8,000 worth of marijuana, but that when

Cosmo took him out to the farm to exchange, Jimmy had brought only about $800 in cash. Cosmo then offered to sell the gun instead, though it's unknown why this was like his backup plan. If that's even true. Right. So he handed Jimmy the shotgun, and while Jimmy was looking down at it, Cosmo shot him suddenly. He then dug a hole to conceal Jimmy's body, saying in his confession quote,

so after I shoot him, I go get the backhoe, dug the hole, set a prayer, put him in the hole. I personally just don't believe that at all, like that just doesn't sound. So you were handing him a gun, it went off, and then you just dug a hole and buried him there, no problem. Like that's no. Completely bullshit. He definitely murdered him, and it was was not an accident and he has no remorse. Especially because there's three others, right? So two days after this, which was Friday, July 7, 2017, Cosmo's cousin, 20-year-old Sean Crats, visited him from Philadelphia, which remember is about 45 minutes away. Now knowing that Cosmo was meeting with some boys that evening for sales, the two apparently

decided to rob their customers for fun. Cosmo picked up Dean, who was planning on buying a quarter pound of weed, and he picked him up in his truck and then drove him to the farm. When they arrived there, the boys brought Dean into the barn and Cosmo handed his cousin Sean a gun and shot Dean in the back of the head. In Cosmo's taped confession, he recounts, quote, �Dene turns around to go walk out. When I went to turn, I just hear a bunch of shots go off.

Dean goes down, face down, dead. I took the gun from Sean and I shoot Dean, you know, I think once or twice. I don't know how many times I shot him. Like why? Why did you do that? So the officer then asked if Dean was dead at this point and Cosmo responded, quote, no, he was dead, but I just just to finish, you know, I just shot him. I'm not lying, he was dead.

His head was split the hell open. His brain, you know, I just shot him. I'm not lying, he was dead. His head was split the hell open. His brain, you probably found it. Half his brain was in the barn. Cosmo even bragged that Sean had gotten sick after murdering Dean, and that he had made fun of Sean for it. They later confirmed that the blood and brain matter in the barn did belong to Dean. Leaving Dean's remains there, right there in the barn, Sean and Cosmo went to meet Mark and Tom, who were also planning to purchase some weed at the parking lot of a local mall.

Sean and Cosmo led the way back to the farm in Cosmo's car, and Mark and Tom trailed behind them in Tom's car, convening at the farm. And according to Cosmo, he shot them because one of them said something that was, quote, not right. And Cosmo shot Tom in the back, and then he fell to the ground, and Cosmo then described how he unloaded the gun on Mark. Somehow Mark was still alive, but he was paralyzed at this point. He collapsed in the driveway, telling Sean and Cosmo that he couldn't feel his legs. Cosmo remembered,

quote, I went and grabbed the machine because he's screaming now. I mean, I'm surprised the neighbors didn't hear us. I'm at a bullets. He's screaming, going crazy. Sean's like, God, it's head in his hands. I grab the backhoe, he, Mark, sees that coming. Just shut the fuck up and I just run him over. Sean and Cosmo then loaded all three bodies in the oil drum that had been converted into a meat smoker and left the bodies burning while they went to pick up sandwiches at a local Philly cheese steak shop. Yeah, like that just screams remorse.

You just carry on and go get some lunch. And literally leaves them to burn. So after describing the gruesome, senseless murders in great detail, Cosmo then started crying, saying, quote, I don't know why I did this shit. I threw my life away for nothing. So as promised, Cosmo led them to Jimmy's body, telling them

that Jimmy was about three quarters of a mile or 1.2 kilometers from the burial site of the other three boys. Now the hunt for Sean began. Though he'd returned to Philly by then, police tracked him down pretty quickly and brought him in for questioning. He did admit to having been there with Cosmo that night, however, he denied having shot Dean, telling police that he had stayed in the car while Cosmo carried out Dean's murder, and that later he had stood by while Cosmo shot Mark and Tom. But investigators really didn't believe this, and they attempted to get a confession out of him believing that he was in fact involved. Sean maintained that he had no reason to shoot any of them.

And while he wouldn't elaborate on his involvement, he was able to reveal to them where the murder weapon, the gun that Cosmo used to shoot the boys, was hidden. Yeah, but like Cosmo didn't have reason to either. This was just senseless murder, like definition senseless murder. So it would take nearly 9 months of the men being behind bars before Sean revealed what apparently actually happened that night. Now according to him, Cosmo had been like bragging about how easily he could rob the boys, that he could even kill them if he wanted to.

Sean said that this had scared him, and he claimed that he tried to go home at this point but Cosmo had threatened him and then he said that he would hurt Sean's family if he didn't play along. Even though this is his cousin, remember. Yeah, his own family. Like just tell your parents. So Sean, who was apparently terrified for his baby nephew, his little brother and his mom, had taken the gun, closed his eyes, and aimed it at Dean. Dean's family's attorney agreed that while Sean had pulled the trigger, Cosmo was the master mind, and called Sean Cosmo Denardo's tool.

The Finnecareo family's attorney said, quote, I don't think we'll ever know why he did it. My instincts say he just wanted to do it. On Friday, July 14, 2017, so one week after the murders of Dean, Tom, and Mark, and nine days after Jimmy's murder, Cosmo Denardo was charged with four counts of first-degree murder, along with robbery and abuse of a corpse.

Sean, on the other hand, was charged with first-degree murder for shooting Dean and voluntary manslaughter for being present at the murders of the two other boys, Mark and Tom. Mark's dad, who was also again named Mark, has made it his mission to push for more answers as to how this was able to happen, and how someone with a criminal record and a history of mental instability was so easily able to obtain his son's murder weapon. He said, quote, I get at a bed for Mark because he wouldn't want me to give up. I want to just accomplish as many dreams and goals that he shared with me for him.

Cosmo denardo was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. At a sentencing, he addressed the families by saying, quote, �You're honor. I want the four families to know I am so sorry. 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. Sean Cratz was charged with first and second-degree murder for Dean's death and voluntary manslaughter for the deaths of Mark and Tom. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 18 to 36 years.

By the instruction of Dean's family, the Bucks County District Attorney announced that prosecutors were not seeking the death penalty. The Bucks County District Attorney announced in a statement, quote, I am odd by the grace demonstrated by the Finnecaro family and helping me to make this difficult decision to not pursue the death penalty against the defendant. But I am reminded that we do this not for the defendant's benefit, but for our own. It is the right thing to do, and now this criminal saga is over. I hope that the families can take solace that both Denardo and Crats will die in prison for what they did to their boys.

And the judge actually tacked on the additional 18-36 years to Sean's life sentence after hearing the heart-wrenching statements made by the four families. One small glimmer of hope for the families was the promise of not having to navigate the horrors of the situation by themselves. They have said that they have relied heavily on each other for commiseration and emotional support. They were members of a club that no one wants access to. Amy said, quote, we watched each other and sat with each other and comforted each other

and cried with each other and waited with each other and prayed with each other. We went through everything together. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. Just such a truly despicable case. I mean, the fact that he did this and then he allegedly had remorse in court to say, I'm sorry, I don't even know why I did this. I believe he doesn't know why he did it, but obviously that doesn't take away from what he did.

Like, so horrible and it wasn't like he did them all, bam, bam, bam, bam. It all took place on the same night at the same time. Like, these were separate crimes. Like, you had time to think about how you felt after you killed Jimmy and after you killed Dean before you killed Mark and Tom. You know what I mean? Like, there was so much space in between these crimes.

Well, it's very clear that this kid grew up to be, you know, he grew up just being a prick, had a huge ego, thought that, you know, he could do anything to anyone without consequences. There's a lot of people out there in the world like that, sadly, and this kid is one of them. See, but that's what is so sad is that he had committed other crimes in the past and was not punished. And then he thinks that he can just do whatever he wants after that. And that is the problem with the way that he was treated for his other crimes.

That maybe if they had done more than give him just a little slap on the wrist, this wouldn't have happened because he would have said, oh, I do bad things, bad things happen to me. Right, yeah, he just never had to deal with any sort of consequences. And the shitty thing is that none of these guys did anything to Cosmo.

They didn't do anything. They were just showing up to buy some weed. That's it, and he killed them for no reason. It's just so sad, and again, I just cannot believe that it didn't hear the story until it was recommended to us. So again, thank you so much to Crystal, and thank you all for listening to this story, and we will see you again on Friday. All right, guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. Thank you. you