Genetic material on a coffee mug led investigators in the US state of Pennsylvania to the alleged perpetrator more than 45 years after the murder of student Lindy Sue Biechler.
Lancaster County Attorneys said David Sinopoli, 68, was arrested over the weekend in East Hempfield Township, west of Philadelphia.
Sinopoli allegedly sexually abused Biechler in December 1975 before stabbing her 19 times.
In the decades that followed, the judicial authorities followed up numerous indications of possible perpetrators.
25 years ago, investigators managed to secure DNA traces of a man on Biechler's underwear.
However, a comparison with profiles from the CODIS database, which collects genetic information from criminals, yielded no results.
Three years ago, the public prosecutor commissioned a laboratory to examine the genetic material discovered in the underwear.
With the help of the laboratory, the investigators made an identikit of the perpetrator.
The analyzes also indicated that the killer had Italian roots.
Suspicion soon fell on Sinopoli, who had lived in the same house as Biechler in the mid-1970s.
When the 68-year-old threw away a coffee mug at the Philadelphia airport in February, investigators picked up the mug.
The investigation has now revealed that the genetic material on the coffee mug matched the DNA investigators found on her underwear after Lindy Sue Biechler's murder.