Man arrested in Delray in 2017 Boynton body-dumping case
DELRAY BEACH — A chance sighting at a Delray Beach restaurant last Friday afternoon ended the months-long search for a man who failed to appear at a court date three months ago on a charge that he allegedly dumped a woman’s body in a Boynton Beach park.
Relatives of the deceased woman’s fiance recognized Sean Patrick Durkin as he appeared to be working that afternoon at Ocean One Bar and Grille on Atlantic Avenue, they said.
Within hours, Delray police arrested 24-year-old Durkin at the restaurant on a failure to appear charge. Numerous calls to the restaurant Monday went unanswered.
In court Saturday morning Durkin pleaded not guilty to a first-degree misdemeanor charge of unlawfully disposing of a body in December 2017.
He was released late Sunday from the Palm Beach County Jail on a $10,000 surety bond. Judge Sara Willis ordered that Durkin be released under supervision, meaning he must undergo random testing to ensure he isn’t consuming alcohol or taking non-prescription drugs.
Durkin’s then-girlfriend, Caileigh Manifold Stoops, is serving a one-year sentence along with mandatory drug treatment. Stoops admitted she dumped KellyAnn DiPietro’s body in the overgrown brush at Barton Memorial Park after the 29-year-old DiPietro, who Stoops and Durkin met at a drug treatment facility, fatally overdosed.
Stoops told authorities that she and Durkin took drugs with DiPietro on Dec. 15, 2017, at Stoops’ father’s home in Boynton Beach.
After DiPietro became unconscious, Stoops said that she and Durkin tried to revive her with no success. They went to bed, she added, hoping DiPietro would sleep it off.
When Stoops and Durkin woke up the next afternoon and found DiPietro dead, Stoops told police they wrapped her body in a urine-soaked blanket, loaded her in the trunk of Stoops’ car and threw her in the overgrown brush at the park east of Interstate 95.
No one called 911 until five days later, when a man saw feet sticking out from the brush.
DiPietro’s aunt, brother and fiance, as well as Boynton police, argued that Durkin and Stoops should face manslaughter charges for not helping DiPietro and then abandoning her body in a park.
However, Florida, like most states, doesn’t have a law requiring people to help someone who’s dying unless they either caused the deadly ailment or have a special relationship, like a parent-child or spousal relationship, with the person in distress.
So instead of the manslaughter charge police recommended, the State Attorney’s Office pursued the misdemeanor offense of unlawfully disposing of a body, which carries a maximum sentence of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
“Sean has continued to run away from his responsibility and participation in this matter,” DiPietro’s aunt and brother said in a statement Monday. “He has not shown any remorse at all for his actions.
Relatives of Mark Bavosa, who was engaged to marry DiPietro, said they were at lunch at the downtown Delray restaurant this past Friday afternoon and saw Durkin carrying food from the kitchen to customers. One relative, who asked not to be named, said she and her husband had seen Durkin at the restaurant months earlier with Bavosa.
She called Bavosa that afternoon and asked if Durkin had a tattoo on his inner arm. She thought she had seen him.
Bavosa alerted the State Attorney’s Office and Boynton police and within hours Delray authorities had Durkin in custody.
A warrant for his arrest had been issued in May when he didn’t appear for a May 2 hearing.
Jail records indicate Durkin is living in Lantana.