The image is haunting.

Christy Mirack and Lindy Sue Biechler, both pretty and smiling, ask the question that has tormented their families for years.

"Do you know who murdered us?"

Every December, the month both women were killed, the Mirack and Biechler families mark another year that the murders remain unsolved.

But this year, the two victims' brothers joined forces to buy prime billboard space, hoping that someone will come forward with information that could finally crack the mystery.

This week, a large billboard facing thousands of westbound motorists a day, will go up along Route 30, west of Fruitville Pike, near the Route 283 split.

Along with the plea for help, the billboard posts a Web site address, www.lindyandchristy.com, offering more information about each homicide as well as contact numbers.

Mirack, a 25-year-old elementary school teacher, was found beaten to death on the morning of Dec. 21, 1992, in her Greenfield Estates townhouse in East Lampeter Township.

Biechler, a 19-year-old flower shop clerk, was stabbed to death in the early evening of Dec. 5, 1975, in her home at Spring Manor Apartments in Manor Township.

Evidence has been collected. People have been interviewed. The FBI has created profiles of their killers. Investigators have reviewed the cases over and over again.

But nothing has resulted in an arrest.

The two brothers came together this past summer when Biechler's half-brother, Michael Little, 39, a U.S. Navy officer, was going through his collection of information about Lindy's case.

Several newspaper articles, he noticed, also referenced Mirack's unsolved murder in Lancaster County.

On a whim, he wrote to Mirack's sister, Alicea, who passed the letter on to her brother, Vince.

Mirack, 36, a nurse at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, wrote to Little and the two struck up a correspondence.

Little shared his idea of a billboard with Mirack, and said, "Vince jumped right in."

Both brothers said they wanted to remind people of their sisters' unsolved murders, hoping that someone will come forward.

"I feel that the murderer is still alive and well in Lancaster," Little said, "and I feel that the murder is solvable."

The brothers are emphasizing what investigators have been saying for years: No piece of information is too small or insignificant.

Someone may want to come forward who didn't before or who has already talked to police and now wants to change, or add to, information they supplied to police, Little said.

"We felt like we've got to do something," Mirack said. "We'll see what happens."

Since neither brother lives in the area, Little contacted Terry McDermott of Donovan Advertising in Lancaster about doing a billboard, one that would get maximum exposure.

"They asked if we could help," McDermott said. "How can you not? I lost a sister to cancer in 1997, but I at least had a chance to say good-bye to her ... Somebody took their sisters away from them."

"Nobody can ever tell me that this case can't be solved," Little said, "that somebody can walk into an apartment, take someone's life and, poof, disappear. But they're no nearer to solving this case than they were on the night of Dec. 5, 1975."

Mirack is equally passionate about solving his sister's case.

"It doesn't make any sense," Mirack said. "If she knew her killer, then somebody else has to know him, too.

"It's just hard every day," he added, "knowing that somebody knows something."

•••

Mirack was murdered four days before Christmas.

Wrapped presents, along with pillow cushions and other objects, were tossed around the living room of her townhouse where she died.

Around 9 a.m. that day, the principal of Rohrerstown Elementary School went to the young woman's home when she did not show up for work. He found her door ajar, walked inside and saw Mirack's dead body.

She had been strangled, beaten and sexually assaulted, police said.

Neighbors said at the time they had noticed a car pull into the lot directly across from her apartment shortly after Mirack's roommate left for work at 7 a.m.

A man, described as white, in his 20s, tall, with an athletic build and sandy blond or light brown hair, possibly in a crew cut, jumped out of the car and headed toward her door.

Over the years, investigators have said only that the killer was male and that either Mirack knew him or opened the door expecting to see someone else.

Her brother said he cannot "overemphasize enough how cautious Christy was," about opening the door to anyone.

A single scream was heard at 7:15 a.m.

The suspicious vehicle was described as a 1984 to 1991 Dodge Daytona or Turismo hatchback, with roll-up head lamps and black louvers or sunshades on the rear window. It was faded silver, dull gray or faded white in color.

No one ever saw the man or the car leave.

The FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit came up with a profile of the killer, describing him as someone who wouldn't stand out in a crowd. He was an observer, not the center of attention or the life of the party.

He probably hadn't killed before but might have committed date rape, according to information based in part on an FBI profile.

And he may have gone into a rage when Mirack either rejected him or wouldn't stop resisting on the morning of her death.

Mirack said his sister's brutal murder changed his family's whole world.

"It's just not the same," he said. "It's hard ... You don't get used to it."

His mother, Gerry Mirack, was "the center of our family," and the one who stayed in touch with investigators. She died of cancer in 2002.

Since then, Mirack said, it's been several years since anyone in his family has met with investigators about his sister's case.

"They don't say it's forgotten outright, but the reality is that it is."

•••

Biechler had told her friends in the weeks before her death that she felt that she was being watched.

After finishing work at the flower shop that day, Biechler stopped to see her husband, Phil, at his job, and then went to the grocery store in Millersville.

Between 6 and 7 p.m., as she unpacked her groceries, police said, the intruder entered her first-floor apartment, possibly inflicting a crippling blow before stabbing her 11 times in the chest, neck and back.

Biechler struggled with her killer, police believe, as the man stabbed and unsuccessfully tried to sexually assault her.

If Biechler screamed, no one heard. No one was home in the surrounding apartments at the time of the murder, investigators said.

The number of stab wounds —described as overkill by investigators —has convinced police the killer knew Biechler and had possibly been rejected by her.

The killer left the knife embedded in her neck and fled, leaving the door open behind him.

At 8:40 p.m., Biechler's aunt stopped by and discovered her niece's dead body in the living room.

The FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit also profiled Biechler's killer, suggesting that the man knew the young woman.

He likely had an explosive personality, profilers believe. After the murder, he probably took one of two very different paths: Either he went off the deep end or he became devoted to religion, his family or work.

One year after the murder, around the time of the first anniversary, someone vandalized Biechler's tombstone at a cemetery near Willow Street. Several weeks later, police received a taunting letter, allegedly written by the killer and referencing the vandalism of the tombstone.

The killer and the letter-writer may have been left-handed, profilers suggest.

As recently as 2006, a group of investigators and experts reviewed the case. One detective said at the time they were "two steps" behind the killer, Little said, but still no arrests have been made.

Little's father, Wayne Little, who also was Lindy's father, died in 2000. Lindy's mother, Eleanor Geesey, died earlier this year.

Now, Little is afraid that others involved in the case, or who may know something about the murder, are "going to start dying, too."

"I want people who knew Lindy," Little said, whether from church, or work or school, "... to pause, to truly think about it, who could've done this."

"Maybe," Little theorized, "it's someone who's had a strange interest in this case over the years."

Maybe someone knows a man who after Dec. 5, 1975, "wasn't looking too hot, maybe he was scratched up," Little said.

"I'm not going to rest until this is over with ... Lindy fought for her life, she injured her murderer. I want to fight for her."

•••

"I've always felt it was impossible for the perfect murder to occur in Lancaster County," Little said. "Somebody out there knows something. I'm asking them to come forward. Whether it's someone who knows the murderer," or just something someone heard.

"Hopefully something will come out of this, someone will come forward," Mirack said, "... for our sisters' sake."

CONTACT US: jkelley@LNPnews.com or 481-6026