A Pennsylvania man was arrested Monday in the cold murder case of 19-year old Lindy Sue Biechler, who was found stabbed to death in her Lancaster County apartment in 1975. The break in the case came from the cunning use of genealogical records and DNA technology to identify the suspect.

Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams appeared before a news conference Monday evening to announce criminal homicide charges against David Sinpoli, 68, for Biechler's murder. He previously was not on the radar of investigators until new DNA evidence connected him to the crime.

“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,” Adams said.

On Dec. 5, 1975, Biechler was believed to have been killed between 6:45 PM. and 7:05 PM after returning to her home in Manor Township following a trip to the grocery store. At about 8:46 PM, Biechler was found in a pool of blood by her relatives with 19 stab wounds in her neck, chest, upper abdomen and back. The knife was left protruding out of her neck.

Police collected forensic evidence and interviewed dozens of potential suspects, but none could be connected to the crime. By 1997, the Lancaster County police gave the FBI a sample of DNA extracted from a semen stain on Biechler’s underwear, but there was no hit on the database at the time.

Twenty-two years would pass before cold case detectives resubmitted unknown male DNA samples to Parabon NanoLabs, a Virginia-based company that specializes in providing phenotyping services. A year later in December 2020, Parabon utilized a novel genealogical analysis to identify a person of interest based on their ancestry that could be traced back to southern Italy.

They also were able to produce a name; David Sinopoli. He had not appeared before on investigators’ radar and it is unclear what motive he possessed to kill Biechler. It was soon learned that Sinopoli resided in the same apartment complex as Biechler at the time of her killing. According to Biechler’s loved ones, she believed someone was stalking her in the weeks leading up to the killing.

Police began to surveil Sinopoli after Parabon was able to identify him as a possible suspect. Last February, detectives observed Sinopoli discard a coffee cup at a Philadelphia airport, which they then recovered for DNA collection. It came back as a match to a blood sample extracted from Biechler's pantyhose four decades ago.

Sinopoli was arrested at his home around 7 a.m. Monday without incident. He was arraigned and remanded to Lancaster County Prison without bail.

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