Investigators are still retrieving human remains at the Bucks County farm where the disappearance of four men last week had set off the largest search in recent county history, District Attorney Matthew D. Weintraub said Thursday morning.
“They’re down 12 feet deep in a hole that’s getting deeper by the minute,” Weintraub said of investigators.
He spoke to reporters gathered outside the Solebury Township home of Antonio and Sandra DiNardo, just 11 hours after his midnight announcement of the discovery of remains. The prosecutor would not give information about the state of the bodies found or whether investigators knew how many bodies were in the makeshift grave they found on the property.
The victims included one of the missing men, Dean A. Finocchiaro, 19, of Middletown, but others had not been identified, the prosecutor said. He encouraged the public to call an FBI tipline, 1-800-CALLFBI, with information that could help the probe.
Weintraub did not identify any other remains but said “I am very, very pleased, paradoxically, with our progress.”
Prosecutors still had not filed charges in connection with what Weintraub has called a homicide. He would not say how many people could have been involved. Cosmo DiNardo, the 20-year-old son of the property owners, remains a person of interest in the case. He was charged Wednesday afternoon with stealing a car belonging to another of the missing men, Thomas C. Meo, and jailed with bail set at $5 million.
Weintraub had said prosecutors were considering murder charges and added that they had “bought ourselves a little bit of time” by jailing DiNardo on the other charge. DiNardo has not been accused of any violent crimes relating to the missing men.
“This is a homicide, make no mistake about it,” Weintraub said at the midnight news conference.
Finocchiaro disappeared Friday along with Meo, 21, of Plumstead, and Mark R. Sturgis, 22, of Pennsburg. Another young man, Jimi Tar Patrick, 19, of Newtown, went missing two days earlier. All appeared to have some connection to DiNardo.
Neither DiNardo nor his parents, Antonio and Sandra DiNardo, have spoken publicly about the case. In response to allegations from prosecutors at his arraignment Wednesday that DiNardo was “a dangerous person,” his attorneys said he was being shamed for having had mental-health struggles.
DiNardo was charged with stealing — and trying on Sunday to sell for $500 — a car owned by Meo. The car was spotted following a DiNardo family vehicle on Friday night, court records indicated.
Weintraub said Thursday that he knows “more than I’m sharing” about the relationships between the five men. He handed out a biography of Patrick to reporters at the family’s request.
The discovery of the remains — more than three days after the start of an exhaustive search at the DiNardo farm that involved local and state police, FBI agents and U.S. Marshals and saw the men’s families holding vigil in the July heat — was the biggest finding yet in a case that has gripped the region and drawn national attention.
News crews gathered Thursday morning at the Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown in anticipation of a reported appearance by DiNardo’s parents before a grand jury.
Weintraub promised an update at a 3 p.m. news conference Thursday, and said he could release more information about Finocchiaro’s cause and manner of death.
First Published: July 13, 2017, 9:27 a.m.
Updated: July 13, 2017, 4:48 p.m.
