DNA from coffee cup helps cops unlock 1975 murder of 19-year-old girl

DNA from an airport coffee cup helps cops unlock 46-year-old cold case: Detectives arrest neighbor of woman, 19, who was stabbed 19 times with a kitchen knife in her Pennsylvania apartment

• Lindy Sue Biechler, 19, was killed in December 1975, with her case never solved
• Now her ex-neighbour David Sinopoli, 68, has been arrested with help of DNA
• Cops secretly took Sinopoli’s disposed coffee cup from airport trash, testing it
• It matched DNA found on Biechler as DA heralds ‘never-ending pursuit of justice’

Police in Pennsylvania have made an arrest in the unsolved 1975 murder of a 19-year-old girl after tracing the suspect’s DNA to a thrown-out airport coffee cup. 

Lindy Sue Biechler was murdered in her own home in Lancaster County in December 1975. Her aunt and uncle found her with 19 stab wounds to her chest, neck, back and upper abdomen.

She had returned from a trip to the grocery store just minutes before a violent struggle took place in her kitchen.

One of Biechler’s own knives was sticking out of her neck, with a tea towel wrapped around the wooden handle, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Despite a decades-long search for answers, police were unable to make a breakthrough until DNA testing in the late-1990s identified a possible Italian-American killer.

And when the case was taken on by Lancaster County’s Cold Case Unit in 2019, investigators’ intrigue focused on Lindy’s ex-neighbor, David Sinopoli.

Lindy Sue (left) was found dead in 1975 with a kitchen knife sticking out of her neck. No arrest had ever been made during the investigation of her killing – until Sinopoli’s (right, mugshot)

District Attorney Heather Adams (center, in white) thanked investigators for their ‘never-ending pursuit of justice’ and commitment to finding Lindy Sue’s twisted murderer

In February, police tracked Sinopoli to Philadelphia International Airport. After he threw away a used coffee cup, cops picked it up and took it for testing.

DNA found on the cup was matched to semen found on Lindy’s underwear in April. Last month, cops also matched blood found on Lindy’s body to the coffee cup.

That was deemed enough to finally make an arrest earlier this week.

District Attorney Heather Adams thanked forensic investigators and law enforcement for their 46-year effort to obtain an arrest in the case.

She said: ‘There has been a never-ending pursuit of justice in this case that has led us to identifying and arresting Sinopoli. 

‘Lindy Sue Biechler was on the minds of many throughout the years. Certainly, law enforcement never forgot about Lindy Sue, and this arrest marks the first step to obtaining justice for her and holding her killer responsible.’

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