Tom Mayo fell when Cosmo DiNardo's bullet hit the back.
Paralyzed, Mayo lay on the dirt road on DiNardo's remote farm, screaming.
"I can't feel my legs! I can't feel my legs!"
Mayo's friend, Mark Sturgess, came running as the shooting began. He ran only 20 feet before DiNardo shot him with a silver revolver. DiNardo was then enraged by Mayo's screams and jumped onto his father's backhoe. When he turned the earthworks toward Mayo, the screaming stopped.
Seconds later, the backhoe crushed Mayo. He died instantly.
On that fateful day in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, only Mayo was scheduled to meet with DiNardo. Sturgess is not expected to be there.
DiNardo, with the help of his cousin Sean Kratz, committed four murders in July 2017, two of which shocked the nation. Local and federal investigators conducted a weeks-long search for the victim90 acre farmNear Elpida. It is owned by the DiNardo family, who made their fortunes from various trucking and concrete businesses.
DiNardo and Kratz both confessed to police. Dinardoguilty plea on wednesday, but Kratz pleaded not guilty to three counts of criminal homicide.
All four victims were Dean Finocchiaro, 19, of Middletown Township; Sturgis, 22, of Pensburg, Montgomery County; Meo, 21, of from Plumstead; and Jimi Taro Patrick, 19, from Newtown Township, thought they were meeting DiNardo to buy marijuana.
Every drug deal becomes an ambush.
In the confessional tape, obtained exclusively by NBC10, DiNardo and Kratz, both 21, detail the grisly murder and the cousins' attempts to cover their tracks. In nearly four hours of footage, the motives behind these murders seem arbitrary at best.
EXCLUSIVE AUDIO: Hear from Cosmo DiNardo and Sean Kratz about the murders of four men on DiNardo's Bucks County, PA farm that shocked the whole country. Both are serving life sentences.
DiNardo, who has a history of schizophrenia, described calmly and calmly how he shot the men and doused the three of their bodies in gasoline and burned them in a pig roaster. Instead, Kratz, his voice hoarse on the recording, recalls the moment he closed his eyes and shot Finocchiaro, before his cousin shot the dying man again, forever.
Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub said he would seek the death penalty and that prosecutors would use the tapes of Kratz's confession at trial.
Weintraub's officeRefuse to make the recording publicSaid the interview was not part of the public record.
The killing spree began on July 5, 2017, targeting Jimi Taro Patrick. He and DiNardo were classmates at Holy Spirit Preparatory High School in Bensalem. On this day, Patrick is in the market to buy marijuana. DiNardo saw himself as a middleman, selling marijuana for a big dealer he only called himself Carlos.
Before their meeting, DiNardo told Patrick to bring $8,000 to buy a lot of marijuana. DiNardo told investigators he showed up with only $800. DiNardo offered to sell him a gun for the money. Patrick accommodated him. As Patrick was about to fire a 12-gauge shotgun, DiNardo shot him in the back. It fell just 10 feet from where DiNardo would later bury his body.
"I went, I took the backhoe, I dug, I prayed, I put him in the hole," DiNardo said during his guilty plea.
Then he burned Patrick's money.
"I don't want $800 from the kid. I haven't paid more than $800 to kill him. I didn't steal him," he said. "It's not good for me. If I go to him and I don't have money, the guy will shoot me."
Two days later, on July 7, DiNardo was ready for another drug deal. But first, DiNardo took the time to buy nearly $300 worth of steak and fish for his family.
With food in hand, DiNardo drove to his cousin's house in Aboul and then to their grandmother's to deliver food. DiNardo went with Kratz to meet Dean Finocchiaro and sold him a quarter pound of marijuana.
DiNardo is only 2 oz.
Their plan is simple. Cousins would not sell Finocchiaro anything but rob him. Maybe even kill him. DiNardo told Kratz that this is not the first time DiNardo has done this.
"He wanted me to rob Finocchiaro and then shoot him," Kratz said in the recorded confession. "I wanted to go home, but [Dinardo] just made it clear that he wasn't going to take me home."
Cousins are not close friends. DiNardo told investigators the two had only started dating a few months ago. In his confession, DiNardo doesn't even remember the surname Kratz used.
However, both have a history of violence. DiNardo claimed to investigators that he strangled a man in North Philadelphia and shot another in West Philadelphia as a teenager. Philadelphia police said they had no evidence that he committed the crimes.
In recent years, DiNardoforbiddenfrom Arcadia University in Glenside and was escorted off his high school campus. In both cases, officials said, DiNardo made people uncomfortable. Arcadia University school officials told NBC10 they believe DiNardo poses a threat to public safety.
Meanwhile, Kratz was shot19 timesMarch 2017. Kratz was out on bail for two burglaries in Northeast Philadelphia when Finocchiaro was murdered. a neighborHe told NBC10Lawn equipment was stolen from one family and a dog was stolen from another. In June 2016, Montgomery County security cameras showed Kratz breaking into a shed. Court documents show that he stole jewelry in revenge for the woman who reported him.
Despite his background, Kratz doesn't consider himself a murderer. When it comes to killing Finocchiaro, he hesitates.
"He wanted me to rob him in the woods, shoot him, take his money," Kratz said in the recorded confession. "I just can't do it."
DiNardo and Kratz picked up Finocchiaro in Bensalem and drove him to DiNardo's property in the town of Salbury, where Patrick's body was recently buried. Once there, the three hopped on a four-wheeler and followed a dirt road into the forest. Both told investigators that Kratz intended to shoot Finocchiaro there.
When he didn't, DiNardo became agitated. Under the guise of a Vespa motorcycle, he leads Kratz and Finocchiaro to a barn. Kratz was nervous. Light a cigarette. Finocchiaro fiddled with his phone.
"[Dinardo] gave me a signal — a gesture as a weapon," Kratz said in the recorded confession. "I hesitated a bit. I drew my gun. I aimed in the air, closed my eyes, and fired."
Finocchiaro fell to the ground. DiNardo snatched the gun from Kratz and shot the dying Finocchiaro.
Kratz rushed out of the barn and threw up. Kratz said DiNardo followed, mocking the cousin he had never seen dead.
"His head was blown badly," DiNardo said in his guilty plea. "Half his brain is in the barn."
After DiNardo cleaned the dead man's pockets, he covered Finocchiaro's body with a tarp. A wad of cash, a mobile phone and other items that could help identify Finocchiaro were taken. DiNardo rolled the body onto a backhoe and hoisted it to a grill outside the barn.
At the same time, Kratz said, DiNardo's father suddenly drove into the property. Young DiNardo went to meet him, but the older DiNardo reversed and drove away. A woman who was not DiNardo's mother sat in the front seat, Kratz said. DiNardo "transformed" for another woman. According to the transcript of Kratz's confession, he swore to kill them both.
Shortly thereafter, DiNardo got a call from Tom Mayo asking him to arrange a drug deal that day. This should be another setting. DiNardo and Kratz robbed Mayo, then let him go. Instead, he appeared with Mark Sturgess, a deal that quickly turned into a bloodbath.
A few meters away, Finocchiaro's body was dumped into a metal pork oven, and Taro was a few feet below the ground. The bodies of Mayo and Sturgis would soon be placed in a roaster with Finocchiaro before being doused with gasoline and set on fire. DiNardo torched Mayo's cellphone and car license. He said he tried to offer his cousin "a dead man's cigarette," but Kratz refused.
It's time to take a break.
DiNardo drove to a nearby gas station and bought Kratz about $30 worth of root beer, cream soda, water, iced tea and cigarettes. After making sure everything was in place, he took Kratz into the barn. The cousins hopped in DiNardo's car and traveled along Interstate 95 back to DiNardo's home in Bensalem.
But they stopped for cheesecake first.
"I didn't eat mine," DiNardo said. "I did such a horrible thing. I have no appetite".
That night, Kratz stayed at Dinard's house. They showered and changed into clean clothes. They fell asleep. Meanwhile, the carcass simmered in a pig roaster.
Composite image: AP/Bucks County District Attorney
Early the next morning on July 8, the cousins made further preparations to hide evidence. They washed DiNardo's truck before driving to the Northeast Philadelphia home of Kratz's mother, where DiNardo later hid the gun used to kill the victim. They also visited Kratz's sister and her newborn baby. During that visit, Kratz told investigators, DiNardo made lewd remarks about the young mother.
The cousins then drove to a barbershop owned by Uncle Kratz. DiNardo wants a haircut and a shave. There, Kratz threw the victim's ID card down the drain.
After leaving the barber shop, Kratz and DiNardo headed to Franklin Mills for a commercial car wash.
DiNardo gets a frantic phone call from his mother. Kratz later described her as "hysterical" in an interview with police. She drove to meet her son and nephew and cried until she arrived. News of Finocchiaro's disappearance spreads, and DiNardo is the last to see him.
"I told her I didn't know anything about it," DiNardo said. "He said they were always trying to put everything on me."
During his guilty plea, Kratz told investigators that DiNardo was appalled by the encounter.
"He was so emotional right now that he said he had to go back to the farm ... and dispose of the body," Kratz said in his affidavit.
Kratz asked to take it home, but DiNardo took him to the farm and disappeared into the woods with the hoe. DiNardo hastened to bury the remains that burned during the night. DiNardo also seized two guns, which police later determined were used in the murder. The weapons were taken to Kratz's mother's house to be hidden, but Kratz eventually removed them.
When asked why he was carrying the evidence, Kratz told investigators:
“Like the reason I shot Dean — I was worried that DiNardo would not only hurt me, but my nephew, who was a month and a half old, and I had a brother, a mother. He did it like, “ Say anything and I will hurt you. "Knowing what he's capable of, I worry about the others."
Kratz never spoke to his cousin again.
After more than an hour of questioning by Bucks County detectives, DiNardo finally broke down. He was short of breath and burst into sobs in moments of extreme distress.
"I lost my life for nothing. Everything I did was meaningless," he cried. "I ruined people's families."