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The Murderous Descent of Cosmo DiNardo
In 2017, the news in my part of Pennsylvania was buzzing with the disappearances of four young men from Bucks County. One by one, these young men — kids, really — vanished from the face of the earth, and their families and the police struggled to connect the disappearances.
It would eventually emerge that the men were connected by one person with a long history of mental illness, police run-ins, and unsettling behavior, who, over the course of about ten days, carried out a reign of terror that would haunt Bucks County forever.
The First Sign of Trouble
Bucks County is not a small area. In 2010, it was home to 625,249 people, making it the fourth most-populous county in Pennsylvania, according to Wikipedia. Big cities including Philadelphia are nearby, but the violent crime rate in Bucks County is low — 9.6 on a scale of 100, with the national average being 22.7. [1]
Like any county, there are areas that are safer than others, but overall, it was a decent place to live. It’s the kind of place where the disappearance and murder of four people in a span of days would make headlines and strike fear in the hearts of locals and rattle nerves for years to come.
On July 5, 2017, Jimi Patrick was a 19-year-old living with his grandparents in Newtown Township. [2] He…
