Sandra Ann Miller:1978, Nazareth, Pennsylvania

   

  Sandra Ann (Deutsch) Miller was born on the first of May in 1956 to  Anna (Jurasits) Deutsch and John Deutsch. She had a sister named Cynthia. 

  She graduated from Nazareth High School in the class of 1974. Sandra was a very active at school. She was a Mat Maid in her sophomore and junior years. (That is an assistant to the boy's wrestling team. I was not familiar with that.) She was active in other things as well. 

  Sandra Ann Deutsch worked at Bethlehem Steel after high school. I imagine that she had an office job there but I don't know.  

   She also was a member of Holy Family Church in Nazareth. 

   Sandra married Scott John Miller in May of 1975. He had also gone to Nazareth High School. I don't know but I imagine that they started dating there.

   The couple had a baby daughter named Kelly in late 1977. 

  She and her husband were living separately in September of 1978. Sandra was living in a duplex with their baby. 

 Sandra was working in food service at The Beer Stein in Wind Gap, Pennsylvania in 1978. That isn’t a long drive from her home in Nazareth. It probably offered a flexible schedule so that Sandra could manage to take care of her baby. Her mother and possibly her sister Cynthia helped with childcare. Service jobs are easy to get and if your baby gets sick you can often switch shifts with a friend who works there. 

 The other tenant of that duplex had passed away a couple of weeks before. So, the apartment building was quiet and unoccupied except for Sandra and Kelly. 

  On Monday, September 18th, 1978, Sandra Miller was attacked in her apartment late at night. She was beaten badly about the head. She had bruising on her legs. She had been stabbed with a bread knife from the kitchen. She had also been strangled. She fought very hard against her assailant. Vases and lamps were broken in the bedroom and the sheets and bedclothes were scattered around the room. 

  Her stab wounds were located in her chest, stomach and back. She was found wearing a “pullover” and underwear. I think the “pullover” was actually just a t shirt and "pullover" was a local term. 

  Her 10 month old daughter was also in the apartment but was physically unharmed. 

  The following morning her mother, Anna, came to check on her because she was not answering the phone. Anna found her daughter’s body and ran next door to get help. 

  The police were called. The knife used to kill her had been placed in the kitchen sink. 

  Her husband worked at Elco Paving Company. He was called from work to come to the scene. I imagine that he might have had a good alibi for the night of the murder and that is why he has never been charged. I would imagine detectives have looked at him quite a bit over the years. I tend to doubt that he did this.  There is a reason that this is a cold case. 

   I think this perpetrator entered the apartment while she was asleep. I believe he took a knife from the kitchen and entered the bedroom with the intent to rape Sandra but she fought against him intensely. 

    

   I think this perpetrator was possibly a neighbor. He might have known that the apartment next door at 117 Spring Street was unoccupied now. 

   The houses in the neighborhood are all very similar. They are two story structures with a basement. They have porches and many have a separate garage in the back. 

   This perpetrator might also have been someone she worked with at The Beer Stein in Wind Gap or someone who followed her home from there. 

   I wonder if David Sinopoli ever went to The Beer Stein. I wonder if he ever lived in Nazareth. He stabbed his neighbor, Lindy Biechler, to death in her Lancaster apartment in 1975. The knife used to kill her was also from her own apartment. (It had become lodged in her neck and was still there when she was found.) Lindy also fought for her life.

  David Sinopoli was very recently found to be Lindy Biechler’s killer. DNA evidence left at the scene matched David Sinopoli’s DNA. (He had masturbated over Lindy Biechler’s body after killing her.) 

  David Sinopoli lived in the same building as Lindy Biechler. He stayed in Pennsylvania and kept quiet for decades. Cold case detectives were looking at all the old male neighbors recently. They followed him to the airport and collected a coffee cup that he had thrown away. He and his wife were going on a vacation. They used his DNA left on the cup to compare to the DNA left on Lindy’s body back in 1975. 

  I had a hard time believing that he only ever killed one woman that one time when I researched and wrote about Lindy’s murder. 

  It might not be David Sinopoli. There were plenty of other rapists and murderers in the 1970’s and 1980’s in Pennsylvania. Hopefully this killer left DNA or fingerprints somewhere in that apartment. Hopefully evidence was collected and preserved. 

  There may still be DNA from the killer under Sandra’s fingernails today. She was buried. She was not cremated. 

  But hopefully DNA can be found and it can be compared to a suspect. David Sinopoli is in prison serving a life term. They already have a DNA profile in CODIS because of that coffee cup from the airport. 

  Sandra never got to see her daughter grow up. Little Kelly was only ten months old when her Mom was murdered. It may be that Sandra never even got to see her first steps. 

   Sandra Ann Miller is buried in Holy Family Cemetery in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. 

   Rest in peace, Sandra.

If you have information about the murder of Sandra Ann Miller please call 1-800-4PA-TIPS