Police start Day 4 of farmland search for 4 missing men

SOLEBURY, Pa. — Police were back Wednesday for a fourth day searching a large farm for evidence in the disappearance of four young men believed to be victims of foul play.

Aerial TV footage on Tuesday showed investigators crowded around a deep trench dug up with a backhoe as officers gathered up dirt and ran it through sifters.

“We want to be careful not to miss the tiniest piece of evidence,” Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said.

The missing men are 22-year-old Mark Sturgis, 21-year-old Tom Meo, 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro and 19-year-old Jimi Tar Patrick. Patrick disappeared last Wednesday; the other three vanished Friday. At least three of them were friends.

Weintraub has described the son of the farm property’s owners, Cosmo DiNardo, 20, as a person of interest in the case but did not call him a suspect.

As investigators zeroed in Monday on the farm property, DiNardo was arrested on an unrelated gun charge. He was released Tuesday night after his father, Antonio DiNardo, posted 10 percent of his $1 million cash bail. The prosecutor said high bail had been sought because he was considered a flight risk.

Neither DiNardo’s parents nor his lawyer has commented.

The farmland being searched is in the town of Solebury, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Philadelphia.