Lindy Sue Biechler.Photo: Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office
When David Sinopoli grabbed a cup of coffee at the Philadelphia International Airport before catching a flight last February, he had no idea his mundane purchase would lead to his arrest in a decades-old, history-making cold case.
On Monday, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams announced that Sinopoli, 68, of East Hempfield Township, had been arrested at 7 a.m. the day before and charged in the 1975 murder of 19-year-old Lindy Sue Biechler in Manor Township — thanks to advances in DNA.
David Sinopoli.Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office
Adams said during the press conference that she hopes his arrest “brings some sense of relief to the victim’s loved ones and to community members.”
The newlywed was found on the floor near the living room with a knife “wrapped with a tea towel” sticking out of her neck, Adams said. She had been stabbed 19 times with two different knives and sexually assaulted.
“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 during the press conference.
The break in Biechler’s case came when investigators teamed up with CeCe Moore, chief genetic genealogist at Parabon Nanolabs.
In 1997, as DNA technology advanced, detectives with the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office submitted Biechler’s underwear for DNA analysis, which yielded a male DNA profile based on the semen found on the underwear, Adams said.
In 2019, the District Attorney’s office and Manor Township police began working with Moore and Parabon to create a composite sketch of Biechler’s alleged killer based on the DNA evidence they had.
Speaking during the press conference via Zoom, Moore said in 2020 she used DNA and the unknown subject’s family tree to track down a potential suspect in Biechler’s murder.
She found that the suspect had “deep roots” in the local Lancaster community.
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She also found that the family tree of this unknown subject contained many recent immigrant families from the tiny town of Gasperina, Italy in the Calabria region of southern Italy.
That led her to a potential suspect — Sinopoli.
Sinopoli “was not on our radar,” Adams said. “None of the tips over the years suggested him as a suspect.”
Investigators would ultimately learn that Sinopoli had lived in the same apartment complex as Biechler.
To ensure that it was his DNA that was left at the crime scene, authorities began surveilling Sinopoli, who didn’t go out much in public, Adams said.
On February 11, 2022, investigators were able to obtain Sinopoli’s DNA from a coffee cup he drank from and threw into the garbage at the airport.
DNA found on Sinopoli’s coffee cup was compared to DNA identified from the semen on Biechler’s underwear.
In June, investigators learned that two spots of blood found on Biechler’s pantyhose was consistent with the DNA profile obtained from Biechler’s underwear, Adams said.
“Detectives had long believed that the suspect had cut himself during the attack,” she said
Sinopoli is charged with one count of criminal homicide. He remains held in Lancaster County Prison without bail.
It is unclear whether he has retained an attorney or entered a plea.
source: people.com
