DNA advances credited in arrest in 1975 cold-case murder

LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — Authorities have announced an arrest in the stabbing death of a 19-year-old woman in Pennsylvania almost a half-century ago, crediting advances in DNA technology and genetic genealogical research.

Lancaster County prosecutors and Manor Township police said Monday that a criminal homicide charge had been filed against 68-year-old David Sinopoli in the December 1975 murder of Lindy Sue Beichler.

"Lindy Sue Beichler was 19 when her life was brutally taken away from her 46 years ago in the sanctity of her own home," District Attorney Heather Adams said. She said she hoped the arrest "brings some sense of relief to the victim's loved ones and to the community (who) for the last 46 years have had no answers."

Biechler, a flower shop clerk who had gotten married about a year earlier, was killed in the living room of her suburban Lancaster apartment after she returned from grocery shopping. She was stabbed 19 times; prosecutors said evidence at the scene suggested a sexual motive and investigators believed the killer knew her.

In 2019, prosecutors released composite images of a man they said left DNA evidence at the scene. The following year, prosecutors sought further genetic analysis that pointed to Sinopoli, who previously lived in the same four-unit apartment complex. In February, investigators "surreptitiously obtained DNA from Sinopoli from a coffee cup he used and threw into a trash can before traveling at the Philadelphia International Airport," authorities said.