Discarded Coffee Cup Helps Police Solve ‘Oldest Unsolved’ Murder Case In US: Report

Detectives traced the suspect to Philadelphia International Airport in February this year and waited for him to discard a coffee cup which was then retrieved by the detectives for DNA analysis.

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New Delhi: A discarded coffee cup at Philadelphia International Airport has helped the authhorities amost solve a decades long murder case earlier this year. The person who discarded the coffee cup was taken into custody by the police as the prime suspect in a cold case that took place in December, 1975. David Sinopoli, 68, was taken into custody on Sunday and was held without bail in connection with the death of  Lindy Sue Biechler, 19, as per Pennsylvania authorities, reported news publication Independent. 

Biechler was found “fatally stabbed” in her apartment in Lancaster County in December 1975. 

The authorities were not successful in nabbing the suspect for decades until researchers from  Virginia-based DNA analysis firm used a new technique to pinpoint Sinpopoli as a possible suspect, in what The Washington Post reported was the United States’s longest unsolved cold case, as per the report. 

Detectives traced Sinopoli to Philadelphia International Airport’s Terminal A in February this year and waited for him to discard a coffee cup into a trash can which was then retrieved by the detectives. Later a DNA analysis was performed which found a match between Sinopoli’s fingerprints and DNA found on Biechler’s underwear. 

Following the analysis, Sinopoli was arrested on Sunday. 

Speaking the day after his arrest, Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said Parabon NanoLabs determined through DNA evidence that Biechler’s killer probably had ancestors from the Italian town of Gasperina, in the southern Calabria region, the Independent report stated. 

Sinopoli was flagged as a person of interest by a researcher CeCe Moore who went through newspaper archives and historical records. As per the report, Biechler and Sinopoli lived in the same apartment block. 

“This case was solved with the use of DNA and, specifically, DNA genealogy,” Ms Adams said. “And quite honestly, without that, I don’t know that we would have ever solved it,” Adams said.