DA Pens Letter To Community Following Murders Of Four Young Men

Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub has penned a letter to the community following the murder of four young men earlier this month.

Weintraub, a longtime prosecutor who became the top lawman in Bucks County when David Heckler resigned last year, has been a pillar of strength for many in the community as he briefed the public on the search for the bodies of  Dean Finocchiaro, 19, of Middletown,Tom Meo, 21, of Plumstead, Mark Sturgis, 22, of Pennsburg, Montgomery County, and Jimi Patrick, 19, of Newtown Township.

Below is Weintraub’s letter:

Dear members of our Bucks County community, and all of our prayerful supporters across the country,

We’ve experienced a great and tragic loss with the deaths of Jimi Patrick, Dean Finocchiaro, Tom Meo, and Mark Sturgis. Our community will need time to heal and to recover from our grief over losing these four young men.

But we will heal. I know it.

I know it because of the immeasurable outpouring of support and prayers from all of you – for the boys, for their families, for our first responders and for me. It has touched my heart. Your prayers kept us all going during that first week’s struggle to recover the boys and to investigate their murders.

Just as our first responders persevered through the heat and the dust and the rain and the mud, you all stayed with us on our course to find these boys and bring them home to their families. Your outpouring of support in the form of food and drinks, as well as your thoughts and prayers, sustained us around the clock.

I forever will be grateful to have worked with the hundreds of men and women who dedicated themselves to this recovery effort and the concurrent search for the truth of what happened on that Solebury farm. They are too numerous to mention individually, but it is important to let you know that they included people from not only local and state police and the FBI, but from the Network of Victim Assistance (NOVA), public works, the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army, as well as many businesses, churches and individual citizens. I wish I could name them all here, but suffice it to say we are truly blessed to be a part of this community.

We live in a community that rallies around its own.  I believe in Bucks County’s exceptionalism. When the eyes of the nation were upon us, we rose to meet the challenges thrust upon us, and we shone.

Many of you have been gracious and generous in your praise of how we handled this terrible tragedy. Unfortunately, I can’t personally answer each of your calls, letters, emails or notes posted on our websites. I wish I could. But this doesn’t mean that we don’t appreciate your support and the faith that you put in law enforcement every day. We do. I have relayed that outpouring of support to as many of the men and women who assisted in this recovery and investigation as I could, and I will continue to do so.

Now, with Mark, Tom, Dean and Jimi returned to their families, and with the major part of this criminal investigation completed, we in law enforcement have returned to the normality of keeping you safe every day. But you all know, now more than ever, that we are here for you when you need us.

Thank you,

Matthew D. Weintraub
Bucks County District Attorney