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Behind Bucks County Killings, a Young Life Skidding Off the Rails - The New York Times

posted onJuly 17, 2017
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Article snippet: BENSALEM, Pa. — Women blocked him on social media, saying he aggressively stalked them for dates and sex. After he dropped out of a university, he was banned from the campus by school officials who said he returned to harass others. He bragged to friends about seeing people killed, and in a social media post, he posed, bare-chested and crazy-eyed, aiming a revolver. In his 20 years, Cosmo DiNardo has always loomed large — an heir to a real estate and construction fortune in suburban Philadelphia. For close friends, he was flashy but giving, offering clothes, shoes and cash to those from poorer families. But the signs of a volatile, bullying personality became steadily more pronounced over time, especially after an ATV accident last year. Many who knew Mr. DiNardo said that his mood became especially dark. On Thursday, he confessed to the Bucks County prosecutor that he and a cousin, Sean M. Kratz, also 20, were responsible for the brutal killings this month of four young men who sought Mr. DiNardo out as their marijuana connection. Mr. DiNardo and Mr. Kratz have yet to make a court appearance and have not entered pleas. Prosecutors said that Mr. DiNardo lured the victims to a remote family farm in northern Bucks County over two days, and along with Mr. Kratz shot them, ran one of them over with a backhoe and burned three of the bodies. Chris Hellmuth, who people in Mr. DiNardo’s orbit said was close to him, wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday that the two were b... Link to the full article to read more

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