"That was the first goal: to get all these boys back to their families."
A week after the search for four young men who went missing earlier this month in Bucks County, District Attorney Matt Weintraub reflected on a the tragedy.
The face of the search for Dean Finocchiaro, 19; and Tom Meo, 21; Jimi Taro Patrick, 19; and Mark Sturgis, 22, at a sprawling farm belonging to the family of suspect Cosmo DiNardo and the man investigating the murders sat down for an exclusive interview with NBC10’s Deanna Durante.
"If I had to do it again, I would do it all over again," Weintraub said.
Weintraub, who was appointed district attorney less than a year ago, became the public face of the investigation – delivering news conferences at least twice a day during the week of searching on the Solebury Township farm.
Throughout it all, Weintraub tried to respect the hopes of the loved ones of the missing men.
"Hope can be very complex, and when I talk about hope, people hope for different things. Some people hoped that we find their boys alive – of course that's No. 1 – but they may be wrestling in their mind that 'if I can't have my boy alive at least I can have him back.'"
A midnight news conference announced that bodies were found in a 12-plus foot hole on the DiNardo estate.
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"We dug in a lot of different sites, and when we're digging and digging six feet, seven feet, eight feet down, we feel pretty confident that we are going to find someone — but we don't know, who and we don't know how many," Weintraub said.
In the hole they found the bodies of Finocchiaro, Meo and Patrick. Once the death penalty was pulled off the table and with the permission of the men’s families, DiNardo allegedly confessed to the killing and gave investigators the location of where Patrick’s body could be found.
DiNardo, 20, along with accused accomplice Sean Kratz remain jailed in Bucks County.
Tune into NBC10 News throughout the weekend for more from Weintraub's exclusive interview.
