VIDEO: 1975 Murder Solved Thanks to DNA on Airport Coffee Cup

Amy Furr

A man from Pennsylvania has been accused of killing a 19-year-old woman nearly 50 years ago after investigators were finally able to get a sample of his DNA.

Sixty-eight-year-old David Sinopoli was not named a suspect after the 1975 killing of Lindy Sue Biechler, Today reported Tuesday.

That is, not “until a genetic genealogy researcher used DNA from the crime scene to determine that the likely killer’s ancestors were from a town in southern Italy, the researcher, CeCe Moore, told reporters Monday.”

After gathering clues and developing the man as a person of interest in the case, according to Moore, she eventually handed the information in to officials in Lancaster County.

The Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office announced the news on Monday, stating Sinopoli was arrested at his home on Sunday. He was then arraigned and remanded to prison without bail.

Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said, “This arrest marks the beginning of the criminal process in Lancaster County’s oldest cold case homicide and we hope that it brings some sense of relief to the victim’s loved ones and to community members who for the last 46 years had no answers.”

Biechler’s aunt and uncle discovered her body at her apartment on December 5, 1975. Blood was found on the inside and outside of the door, the carpet, and a wall.

There was also a knife in Biechler’s neck, and it was determined the young woman suffered 19 stab wounds.

DNA from semen in the woman’s underwear was eventually submitted to a law enforcement database in the 1990s, but there were no matches at the time.

A few years ago, Moore’s company, Paragon NanoLabs, began working to identify persons of interest for officials, and she finally determined the person associated with the DNA sample was connected to an Italian village called Gasperina.

Although Sinopoli had not been on officials’ radar, they surveilled the man, and earlier this year, grabbed a coffee cup he threw away at an airport.

The DNA on the cup matched the sample found on the young woman’s clothing.

David Sinopoli, 68, of East Hempfield Township, is under arrest and charged with Lancaster County's oldest cold case homicide, the 1975 murder of Lindy Sue Biechler. https://bit.ly/3yMsfIU

Posted by WGAL News Channel 8 Susquehanna Valley, Pa. on Monday, July 18, 2022

“A possible motive in the killing remained unclear. Adams said only that Sinopoli appeared to have lived in the same apartment complex as Biechler in 1974,” the Today report continued.

In a social media post on Tuesday, Parabon said it was proud to have helped officials in the case:

“This arrest would not have been possible without the assistance of CeCe Moore and Parabon NanoLabs,” Adams concluded.

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