Lancaster, Pa. — Authorities have introduced an arrest within the stabbing loss of life of a 19-year-old girl in Pennsylvania virtually a half-century in the past, crediting advances in DNA know-how and genetic genealogical analysis.
Lancaster County prosecutors and Manor Township police say a legal murder cost has been filed in opposition to 68-year-old David Sinopoli within the December 1975 homicide of Lindy Sue Beichler.
"Lindy Sue Beichler was 19 when her life was brutally taken away from her 46 years in the past within the sanctity of her own residence," District Lawyer Heather Adams mentioned. She mentioned she hoped the arrest "brings some sense of reduction to the sufferer's family members and to the neighborhood (who) for the final 46 years have had no solutions."
Biechler, a flower store clerk who had gotten married a few yr earlier, was killed in the lounge of her suburban Lancaster condo after she returned from grocery buying. She was stabbed 19 instances; prosecutors mentioned proof on the scene instructed a sexual motive and investigators believed the killer knew her.
In 2019, prosecutors launched composite pictures of a person they mentioned left DNA proof on the scene. The next yr, prosecutors sought additional genetic evaluation that pointed to Sinopoli, who beforehand lived in the identical four-unit condo complicated. In February, investigators "surreptitiously obtained DNA from Sinopoli from a espresso cup he used and threw right into a trash can earlier than touring on the Philadelphia Worldwide Airport," authorities mentioned.
"This case was solved with the usage of DNA, and particularly DNA family tree, and fairly actually with out that I do not know that we might have ever solved it," Adams mentioned, including that the suspect was "simply not on our radar" earlier than the brand new proof pointed to him.
Cece Moore of Parabon Nanolabs mentioned on the information convention she used "a novel, nontraditional" technique utilizing the DNA to slender down candidates via their familial descent from a selected space and city in Italy and following up with public information, social media and different assets. Such analysis, she pressured, solely offers a lead or tip - "a extremely scientific tip however a tip simply the identical" - for investigators to comply with up on, she mentioned.
Sinopoli was arrested at his Lancaster house Sunday and was being held with out bail on a cost of legal murder. Court docket paperwork do not checklist an legal professional representing him; a message looking for remark was left at a quantity listed in his identify.