THE brutal murder of a teen went unsolved for 47 years – until detectives got their hands on a piece of evidence discarded at an airport.
Police retrieved a coffee cup thrown away by suspect David Sinopoli, who is now charged in the 1975 murder of 19-year-old Lindy Sue Biechler.
Biechler's aunt and uncle found her body 47 years ago with a knife sticking out of her neck.
She had been stabbed 19 times, in her back, chest, and neck, while at her Pennsylvania home on December 5, 1975.
There were grocery bags still on the counter as she had just returned from the store, investigators said.
The Manor Township Police Department conducted investigations and followed leads for years after the crime, but the DA's office was not able to find a compelling suspect.
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The Lancaster County District Attorney's Office submitted evidence from the crime scene for DNA analysis in 1997 and a male DNA profile was identified from Biechler's underwear.
The profile was submitted into the national database known as CODIS three years later but it didn't net any results.
Then in January 2019, the District Attorney's Cold Case Unit and Parabon NanoLabs teamed up to analyze the DNA.
ZEROING IN ON A SUSPECT
Investigators learned that Sinopoli lived in the same four-unit building as Biechler and the pair shared lobby, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said.
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Investigators used DNA genealogy to identify Sinopoli as a potential suspect.
This new technology uses a DNA sample in combination with family trees, public archives, databases, and court records to pinpoint a suspect, WGAL reported.
"It's remarkable to think that in 1975, DNA didn't exist, at least in the criminal court system," Adams said.
Officials with Parabon NanoLabs used the DNA collected from Biechler's clothing to determine the ethnicity of the suspect.
They found the suspected murderer was from a small town in southern Italy called Gasperina.
"These restrictions further narrowed the scope of the subsequent research because there were very few individuals living in Lancaster at that time of the crime that were the right age, gender, and had the family tree consistent with these origins," CeCe Moore with Parabon said.
COFFEE CUP CLUE
Police were keeping tabs on Sinopoli and followed him to the Philadelphia airport after they identified him as a suspect.
Once there, the suspect threw away a coffee cup that police recovered in order to collect a DNA sample and confirm the Parabon NanoLabs tip, investigators said.
"It's a highly scientific tip, but a tip just the same," Moore said.
Moore announced on Monday that officials had arrested David Vincent Sinopoli, 66 of East Hempfield Township.
"Lindy Sue Biechler was 19 when her life was brutally taken away from her 46 years ago in the sanctity of her own home," Adams said.
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"The arrest of David Sinopoli marks the beginning of the court process and we hope that it brings some sense of relief to the victims' loved ones and to the community, who for the past 47 years have had no answers."
Sinopoli faces one charge of criminal homicide.
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