本周，一名涉嫌1975年谋杀一名年轻女子的嫌疑犯被捕遗传系谱学家-他称这个悬案极难解决-转向了一种全新的调查方法。

根据兰开斯特县地方检察官办公室的说法，19岁的呼唤·苏·比奇勒于1975年12月5日在宾夕法尼亚州庄园镇的公寓被刺死。检察官说，她的颈部、胸部、背部和腹部有19处刺伤。

检察官说，比奇勒被发现仰面躺着，脖子上插着一把刀，并补充说这把刀来自比奇勒自己的厨房，刀柄上裹着一块茶巾。

几十年过去了，这一骇人听闻的罪行仍未落网。

检察官说，当DNA分析在20世纪90年代出现时，调查人员将比奇勒内衣上残留精液的DNA提交给了国家执法DNA数据库CODIS，但从未找到匹配的DNA。

2020年，前美国广播公司新闻撰稿人、帕拉邦纳米实验室(Parabon NanoLabs)首席基因系谱学家茜茜·摩尔(CeCe Moore)开始用基因系谱调查此案，基因系谱使用未知嫌疑人的DNA来追溯他或她的家谱。

基因谱系在2018年成为头条新闻，当时小说调查工具是用来寻找金州黑仔.基因谱系学提取留在犯罪现场的未知嫌疑人的DNA，并使用自愿向DNA数据库提交DNA样本的家庭成员来识别它;这使得警方可以创建一个比他们只使用像CODIS这样的数据库更大的家谱。

当摩尔开始着手比奇勒的案子时，当她将案件档案上传到DNA数据库时，她感到“极度失望”,因为她只能找到这名未知嫌犯的非常非常遥远的亲戚。

“通常我能够识别共同的祖先。但是因为本案中匹配者和嫌疑人的共同祖先可能是在18世纪[或]17世纪，所以我不能用我处理大多数案件的方式来处理它，”摩尔告诉ABC新闻。

“这真的很难接受，所以我决定开发一种新的方法，”她说。"从意大利南部一个叫加斯佩里纳的小镇到宾夕法尼亚州的兰开斯特有一个非常明显的移民模式。"

摩尔说，她花了几个月的时间搜寻兰开斯特的文件，找到了一个来自意大利的当地居民俱乐部。

“那些会员卡都是人出生的时候列的。因为我知道这个嫌疑人来自加斯佩里纳这个小镇，所以我翻遍了所有的卡片，找到了从加斯佩里纳移民到兰开斯特的人，”摩尔说。

她说她了解到犯罪发生时大约有2300名意大利人住在兰开斯特——对她来说这是一个“可控”的数字。

“大约一半是女性。一定比例的人会太老或太年轻。我知道这个人必须是来自加斯佩里纳或附近的纯正意大利人，”摩尔说。

“我走访了从那个特定城镇迁移过来的每一个家庭，”她说。“这一切之所以成为可能，是因为兰开斯特拥有非常独特的(会员卡)唱片收藏。”

摩尔说，她将这些会员卡与爱丽丝岛记录和第一次世界大战和第二次世界大战的征兵登记卡进行了比较，以确定从加斯佩里纳搬到兰开斯特的人，然后努力确定他们的后代。

“我只是在自己的时间里悄悄地研究它。我不知道这是否可行，”摩尔说。

1975年，摩尔看了所有住在兰开斯特的意大利家庭后，她锁定了68岁的大卫·西诺波利。摩尔说，他的祖父母都来自加斯佩里纳，检察官说，他以前住在比奇勒的公寓里。

检察官说，2022年2月，调查人员监视了西诺波利，并在费城国际机场找到了他用过并扔掉的咖啡杯。据检察官称，实验室后来证实，西诺波利咖啡杯上的DNA与比奇勒内衣上精液的DNA相匹配。

检察官说，调查人员还发现，留在比奇勒裤袜上的血液DNA与比奇勒内衣上的精液一致。

检方周一宣布，自谋杀案发生以来一直住在兰开斯特的西诺波利周日在家中被捕，罪名是刑事杀人。他的初步听证会定于7月25日举行。没有列出辩护律师。

兰开斯特县地方检察官希瑟·亚当斯在新闻发布会上说，Sinopoli“不在我们的调查范围内”。亚当斯说，西诺波利“从未被证明清白”，但“这些年来没有任何线索表明他是一个可能的嫌疑人。”

比奇勒的谋杀标志着摩尔第一次使用这种新方法，她说她已经在另外两起案件中成功使用了这种方法。

亚当斯在一份声明中赞扬了摩尔和帕拉邦纳米实验室，称没有他们的帮助，逮捕是不可能的。

亚当斯说:“在这个案件中，对正义的追求永无止境，这使我们找到并逮捕了西诺波利。”“当然，执法部门从未忘记呼唤·苏，这次逮捕标志着为她伸张正义并追究凶手责任的第一步。”

Suspect arrested in 1975 murder after genetic genealogist turns to new approach

A suspect was arrested this week in a young woman's 1975 murder after agenetic genealogist-- who called the cold case extremely difficult to solve -- turned to a brand new investigative approach.

Lindy Sue Biechler, 19, was stabbed to death at her Manor Township, Pennsylvania, apartment on Dec. 5, 1975, according to the Lancaster County District Attorney’s Office. She suffered 19 stab wounds to her neck, chest, back and abdomen, prosecutors said.

Biechler was found lying on her back with a knife sticking out of her neck, prosecutors said, adding that the knife was from Biechler's own kitchen and a tea towel was wrapped around its handle.

Decades went by without an arrest in the gruesome crime.

When DNA analysis emerged in the 1990s, prosecutors said, the investigators submitted DNA from semen left on Biechler's underwear to CODIS, the national law enforcement DNA database, but no match was ever found.

In 2020, CeCe Moore, a former ABC News contributor and the chief genetic genealogist at Parabon NanoLabs, began investigating the case with genetic genealogy, which uses an unknown suspect's DNA to trace his or her family tree.

Genetic genealogy made headlines in 2018 when the novel investigative tool wasused to find the Golden State Killer. Genetic genealogy takes an unknown suspect's DNA left at a crime scene and identifies it using family members who voluntarily submit DNA samples to a DNA database; this allows police to create a much larger family tree than if they only used databases like CODIS.

As Moore began working on Biechler's case, she was "extremely disappointed" when she uploaded the case file to a DNA database and only could find very, very distant relatives of the unknown suspect.

"Usually I'm able to identify common ancestors. But because the common ancestors between the matches and the suspect in this case were probably back in the 1700s [or] 1600s, I wasn't able to approach it the way that I do most cases," Moore told ABC News.

"It was really tugging at me, so I decided to develop a new approach," she said. "There was a very clear migration pattern from a town in southern Italy called Gasperina, to Lancaster, Pennsylvania."

Moore said she scoured Lancaster documents for months and landed on a local club of residents who were from Italy.

"Those membership cards listed when people were born. Because I knew that this suspect had roots in this small town Gasperina, I went through all of those cards and found the people who had immigrated from Gasperina to Lancaster," Moore said.

She said she learned about 2,300 Italians lived in Lancaster at the time of the crime -- which for her was a "manageable" number.

"About half are gonna be female. A certain percentage are gonna be too old or too young. I knew this person had to be fully Italian from Gasperina or close by," Moore said.

"I worked through each and every one of those families that had migrated from that very specific town," she said. "It was really only possible because of this very unique [membership card] record collection that Lancaster had."

Moore said she compared those membership cards with Ellis Island records and World War I and II draft registration cards to identify the men who moved from Gasperina to Lancaster, and then worked to identify their descendants.

"I just quietly worked on it on my own time. I didn't know if it would work," Moore said.

After looking at all Italian families in Lancaster in 1975, Moore said she zeroed in on 68-year-old David Sinopoli. All of his grandparents were from Gasperina, Moore said, and he had previously lived in Biechler's apartment complex, prosecutors said.

In February 2022, investigators surveilled Sinopoli and recovered a coffee cup he used and threw away at the Philadelphia International Airport, prosecutors said. Labs later confirmed the DNA on Sinopoli's coffee cup matched the DNA from the semen on Biechler’s underwear, according to prosecutors.

Investigators also found that DNA in blood left on Biechler's pantyhose was determined to be consistent with the semen from Biechler’s underwear, prosecutors said.

Sinopoli, who has lived in Lancaster since the murder, was arrested at his home on Sunday on a charge of criminal homicide, prosecutors announced Monday. His preliminary hearing is set for July 25. No defense attorney is listed.

Sinopoli "was not on our radar," Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams said at a news conference. Sinopoli was "never cleared," Adams said, but "none of the tips over the years had suggested him as a possible suspect."

Biechler's murder marked the first time Moore used this new approach, and she said she's since used it successfully in two more cases.

Adams praised Moore and Parabon NanoLabs in a statement, saying the arrest wouldn't have been possible without their help.

"There has been a never-ending pursuit of justice in this case that has led us to identifying and arresting Sinopoli," Adams said. "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."