Pennsylvania
DNA advances credited in arrest in 1975 cold-case murder
LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) — Authorities have announced an arrest in the stabbing death of a 19-year-old woman in Pennsylvania almost a half-century ago, crediting advances in DNA technology and genetic genealogical research.
Lancaster County prosecutors and Manor Township police said Monday that a criminal homicide charge had been filed against 68-year-old David Sinopoli in the December 1975 murder of Lindy Sue Biechler.
“Lindy Sue Biechler was 19 when her life was brutally taken away from her 46 years ago in the sanctity of her own home,” District Attorney Heather Adams said. She said she hoped the arrest “brings some sense of relief to the victim’s loved ones and to the community (who) for the last 46 years have had no answers.”
Biechler, a flower shop clerk who had gotten married about a year earlier, was killed in the living room of her suburban Lancaster apartment after she returned from grocery shopping. She was stabbed 19 times; prosecutors said evidence at the scene suggested a sexual motive and investigators believed the killer knew her.
In 2019, prosecutors released composite images of a man they said left DNA evidence at the scene. The following year, prosecutors sought further genetic analysis that pointed to Sinopoli, who previously lived in the same four-unit apartment complex. In February, investigators “surreptitiously obtained DNA from Sinopoli from a coffee cup he used and threw into a trash can before traveling at the Philadelphia International Airport,” authorities said.
“This case was solved with the use of DNA, and specifically DNA genealogy, and quite honestly without that I don’t know that we would have ever solved it,” Adams said, adding that the suspect was “just not on our radar” before the new evidence pointed to him.
Cece Moore of Parabon Nanolabs said at the news conference she used “a novel, nontraditional” strategy using the DNA to narrow down candidates through their familial descent from a particular area and town in Italy and following up with public records, social media and other resources. Such research, she stressed, only provides a lead or tip — “a highly scientific tip but a tip just the same” — for investigators to follow up on, she said.
Sinopoli was arrested at his Lancaster home Sunday and was being held without bail on a charge of criminal homicide. Court documents don’t list an attorney representing him; a message seeking comment was left at a number listed in his name.
Virginia
No charges for officers in fatal shooting
LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) — Law enforcement officers won’t face charges in the fatal shooting of a woman who pointed a gun at them as she exited her burning home, a Virginia prosecutor announced Monday.
Chelsae L. Clevenger-Kirk, 29, died after multiple officers fired at her as she exited a burning home and brandished a handgun at law enforcement following an overnight standoff in November, according to Monday’s report from Bedford County Commonwealth’s Attorney Wes Nance and a Virginia State Police news release last year.
The News & Advance reports that the officers won’t be identified because an investigation couldn’t determine which weapon fired the fatal shot and the prosecutor’s legal analysis showed they acted “appropriately and with justifiable use of lethal force.”
On Nov. 6, a Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources conservation officer tried to stop Clevenger-Kirk, who was driving a motorcycle without a helmet and not displaying a license plate, according to the report. Clevenger-Kirk went home, where officers tried to resolve the situation without lethal force.
She came out on several occasions, held a gun to her head, threatened law enforcement and told officers to shoot her. After a fire began inside, Clevenger-Kirk stepped outside, pointed a gun at officers and was fatally shot, the report said.
Mississippi
Lawsuit: School district didn’t stop student bullying
PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. (AP) — A lawsuit alleges that a Mississippi high school soccer player with a rare skin disease was bullied and physically assaulted for months, with school officials failing to respond.
The parents of the 15-year-old boy have sued the Pass Christian school district, a principal and Jones College in Ellisville, seeking unspecified damages, saying all three failed to protect their son.
The Sun Herald reported the lawsuit says the student has Darier disease, which can cause wart-like blemishes to flare up on skin that is contaminated or irritated. The parents say soccer teammates would rub muscle pain ointment or bleach on their son’s socks, or drag his clothes through the dirt, mostly during soccer practice or before games in the 2020-21 school year.
The assaults intensified when the team attended soccer camp in June 2021 at Jones College, a community college in Ellisville, the suit alleges. There, it claimed players stripped off the boy’s clothes, poured hot liquids on the boy’s face, or shoved a canned sausage in his throat, and that the players showed videos of the assaults on social media.
Pass Christian School Superintendent Carla J. Evers said in a statement Monday that an incident involving student-athletes was reported after the June 2021 camp.
“The high school principal and the athletic coordinator conducted an immediate in-depth investigation which was presented at both school- and district-level disciplinary hearings,”
Evers said. “The school and district followed their code of conduct and disciplined the involved students.”
Evers said the school district “believes that all students should be accepted, valued, and safe” and that “no child should be subject to the reported treatment.” She also district is aware of the lawsuit and “looks forward to having an opportunity to share all of the facts in court.”
“This case has brought to light the importance of talking to your children about making good decisions and reporting when they see something that does not meet our expectations,” Evers said.
The suit identifies a Pass Christian High School assistant principal, Jedediah “Jed” Mooney, as someone who allegedly knew of the abuse and “encouraged’ or “turned a blind eye” to it and even allegedly “belittled” the victim himself at times. Mooney was not listed as an assistant principal on the school’s website Monday, and it was not immediately clear whether he is represented by an attorney. Evers’ statement did not answer questions from The Associated Press about Mooney’s employment status.
Jones College President Jesse Smith said one of the boy’s parents reported attacks on their son while the team was attending a soccer camp at the Ellisville community college in June 2021. He said the case reported to the Jones County district attorney and to Jones County Youth Court. It’s unclear if any of the alleged assailants faced Youth Court charges. Wayne Bates, a special prosecutor named in the case, declined comment citing privacy laws in Youth Court. No one was charged as an adult.
The victim’s parents say they “were forced to remove him from school” because their son had become “extremely fearful of attending school and terrified that he might be subjected to further abuse.” Although the parents’ names are in court records, AP is not identifying them because doing so could identify their son.
The lawsuit accuses the school district of failing to follow its policies to protect students from bullying, harassment or assaults, despite the boy and his parents reporting the alleged attacks to school officials. The suit says Jones College provided little supervision in dorms during the camp.
The lawsuit says the victim recovered part of one video. The other boys supposedly joked by electronic message about the soccer camp or threatened to beat up anyone who turned them in, it states.
WLOX-TV reported lawyers for the family in June 2021 sent a notice to the Pass Christian school district, including one of the videos. The claim letter offered to settle the case for $500,000 if the school district adopted a zero tolerance anti-bullying policy, and required all students and staff to participate in mandatory training.
Oregon
Man to serve minimum 50 years for killing grandparents
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A judge has sentenced a 27-year-old man to at least 50 years in prison for the murder of his grandparents in Eugene.
Nicholas Borden-Cortez was sentenced last week in Lane County for two counts of first-degree murder, The Register-Guard reported.
Borden-Cortez pleaded guilty in June to the May 6, 2021, murder of 85-year-old Nancy Loucks-Morris and 87-year-old Gerald Morris.
As part of his guilty plea, prosecutors dropped two charges of second-degree abuse of a corpse and a charge of attempting to elude a police officer, as well as a separate but related case with two charges of unlawful firearm use.
Investigators found his grandparents dead inside a home in the Falconwood Mobile Home Park, police said.
Later that day, police named Borden-Cortez as a suspect. Borden-Cortez was arrested on May 7, 2021, in Springfield after a vehicle chase. Police said he initially challenged officers to shoot him before he was taken into custody.
Borden-Cortez will be eligible for parole after serving a minimum 50 years of his sentence.
California
Man to be charged with murder for ‘most inhumane crimes’
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Prosecutors plan to charge a Los Angeles man in connection with three murders across Southern California as part of a deadly string of robberies last week at a half-dozen 7-Elevens and a doughnut shop.
Investigators have linked Malik Patt, 20, to the fatal shooting of a homeless man in Los Angeles on July 9, as well as the July 11 deaths of a 7-Eleven clerk in Brea and a man who intervened in a robbery in a 7-Eleven parking lot in Santa Ana.
Three other people were shot and wounded in the July 11 violence, one of whom remained gravely injured Monday, according to Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer.
Patt faces a slew of charges, including murder, attempted murder, robbery and carjacking. If convicted, his case could result in the death penalty or a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Spitzer on Monday called the violence among the “cruelest, most inhumane crimes I’ve ever seen” in his time in law enforcement.
The July 11 robberies occurred within five hours in San Bernardino, Orange and Riverside counties, setting off an intensive manhunt that resulted in the arrests of the two men in Los Angeles on Friday. Authorities say Jason Payne, 44, was Patt’s neighbor and accomplice but was not involved in the killings.
Both men are being held in jail and are expected to be arraigned Tuesday. It was not immediately clear whether they had attorneys who could speak on their behalf.
Police originally believed the spate of robberies at the convenience stories on July 11, or 7/11, might be linked to the day when the national 7-Eleven brand celebrates its anniversary. It was the chain’s 95th year, and stores gave out free Slurpee drinks.
But Spitzer on Monday said that while investigators are still looking into the potential nexus, “it appears it might be random and coincidental.”
Matthew Hirsch, a 40-year-old clerk, was shot and killed at the Brea store, and Matthew Rule, 24, was shot and killed in the parking lot of the Santa Ana store while trying to intervene in the robbery of someone else. The identify of the homeless man who was slain in Los Angeles has not been made public.
Detectives also believe Patt may be connected to other crimes, including robberies in the San Fernando Valley.
