Cops: Man charged in slayings of 4 Pennsylvania men claimed other killings

PHILADELPHIA -- A pot dealer who confessed to killing four men on his family's Pennsylvania farm last week also claimed to have killed two people in Philadelphia, but the city's police commissioner called the information "sketchy."

Police Commissioner Richard Ross says Philadelphia detectives are looking through their files to check on the claims made by 20-year-old Cosmo DiNardo but that Philadelphia detectives have not had a chance to question him.

DiNardo was charged last week in Bucks County with four counts of first-degree murder in the case of four missing men. Jimi Patrick, Dean Finocchiaro, Tom Meo and Mark Sturgis were each shot and then buried after police say DiNardo lured them to this family's property under the guise of a marijuana transaction. DiNardo told investigators where to find Patrick's remains, and agreed to plead guilty to four counts of first-degree murder. In exchange, he will be spared the death penalty. 

Ross says DiNardo also claimed that he killed a man and a woman in Philadelphia years ago but did not know their names. Police sources told CBS Philadelphia he claimed the killings happened in the past five years.

Philadelphia police say Bucks County authorities are still investigating DiNardo's statements. The Bucks County district attorney declined to comment beyond court papers released last week, which don't mention the Philadelphia claims.

Police found the men's remains on a farm in Solebury Township last week. A county prosecutor said the remains of Meo, Finocchiaro and Sturgis were found buried 12-feet-deep in a common grave.  The three victims were shot, placed with a backhoe into an oil tank that had been converted into a cooker that DiNardo called a "pig roaster," and then lit on fire, according to court documents. He buried the drum deep under the ground on his family's farm.

The remains of Patrick were recovered from a separate location. Patrick had also been shot. 

His cousin, Sean Kratz, is charged in the killings of the three men who were found in the same grave.

DiNardo has a history of mental illness that includes the involuntary commitment, a schizophrenia diagnosis and repeated contacts with police. He also suffered a head injury last year in an ATV accident. 

According to court papers, DiNardo, who graduated from a Catholic prep school two years ago, said he killed Patrick, a former schoolmate, when he arrived with $800 to buy $8,000 worth of marijuana. He said he shot another man in the back as he tried to run away.

DiNardo pinned one of the deaths on Kratz, 20, although Kratz told police that DiNardo shot all four.

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.

In a statement given to reporters after a vigil Sunday night, Patrick's grandparents, Sharon and Rich Patrick, thanked investigators "who worked so long and hard to bring our boys home."

They also thanked the other parents of the missing men.

"We, as a group, made the decision to forgo the death penalty for the defendant in return for locating our grandson. Our deep thanks to this strong group of friends," the statement said.