The "An Unsolved Murder Is Finally Solved!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading an article in my LNP morning newspaper that brought back memories from when I was in college.  Article was about a man who had pleaded guilty a few days ago in Lancaster County's oldest cold murder case.  Fellow by the name of David Sinopoli had just been sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison for third degree murder, aggravated assault and burglary in the killing of Linda Sue Biechler nearly 48 years ago.  Sinopoli was crying on the witness stand as he apologized to everyone, including his wife.  Linda Sue's family also spoke during the hearing.  Linda Sue's husband, Phil, said, "I forgive you because my God tells me to, but you need to pay for your actions."  Biechler was 19 years old when she was murdered in her Manor Township apartment.  Her Aunt and Uncle had found her body on December 5, 1975.  She had been stabbed 19 times with a four-inch blade and a butcher knife.  I can sill remember driving past her house that same day on my way home from Millersville State Teacher's College and seeing quite a few police cars at her address.  So...just how did they catch the guy.  Prosecutors said Sinopoli was ID'ed through DNA genealogy, which uses a DNA sample in combination with family trees, public archives, databases and court records to pinpoint a suspect.  DNA collected from Linda Sue's clothing scene led CeCe Moore, a member of investigating Paragon NanoLabs, to a  suspect with ethnicity from Gaspeina, a small town in southern Italy.  "These restrictions further narrowed the scope of the subsequent research because there were very few individuals living in Lancaster at that time of the crime that were the right age, gender and had the family tree consistent with these origins," Moore said at the 2022 news conference announcing Sinopoli's arrest.  After Sinopoli was identified as a suspect, the police followed him to the Philadelphia airport and collected a used coffee cup from him after he had thrown it in a trash can.  His DNA was recovered from the cup and he was found to be the murderer!  At times it takes years to catch the bad guys, but the good guys will always come out on top, as long as they never give up!  Evil will always lose!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.