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After Nearly 58 Years, Pennsylvania Police Solve Killing of 9-Year-Old Girl
After Nearly 58 Years, Pennsylvania Police Solve Killing of 9-Year-Old Girl
On Sundays and holidays, the victim’s mother ended a prayer with a plea: “Please help the Pennsylvania State Police find the man that hurt my daughter.”
In 1964, 9-year-old Marise Ann Chiverella left for school and never returned. On Thursday, the Pennsylvania State Police identified the man they said was responsible for her killing. | Pennsylvania State Police
By Amanda Holpuch
Feb. 12, 2022
On March 18, 1964, Marise Ann Chiverella left for school, carrying canned goods to give to her teacher, a nun at St. Joseph’s Parochial School in Hazleton, Pa. ... Marise, 9, who aspired to be a nun, hurried from her home to bring the gifts to her classroom and still get to morning Mass on time. ... For members of her family, those were the last memories they had of Marise, who was found that afternoon in a pit used for refuse. She had been sexually assaulted and murdered.
Nearly 58 years later, the Pennsylvania State Police have identified the man they say was responsible for her death. ... “Pennsylvania State Police was founded in 1905, so over half of our existence we’ve investigated this case,” Lt. Devon M. Brutosky said at a news conference on Thursday in which investigators unraveled the decades-long search for the killer.
A state trooper displayed a high school yearbook photo of James Paul Forte and the police case file on Marise Ann Chiverella at a news conference in Hazleton, Pa., Thursday. | Michael Rubinkam/Associated Press
Lieutenant Brutosky said investigators used DNA tests and genealogical research to identify James Paul Forte, who was then 22, as the person who killed Marise. He lived six or seven blocks from Marise, the police said, but they did not know of any connection he had to her or her family. ... Officials said Mr. Forte was 38 when he died of natural causes, possibly a heart attack, in the bar where he worked in 1980. He was still living in Hazleton, a former coal mining town nearly 100 miles northeast of Philadelphia, and, as far as the police knew, unmarried. ... Most of the information the authorities had about Mr. Forte was gathered from the records of two other crimes he was tied to.
{snip}
The police tied Mr. Forte to Marise’s case with the aid of DNA testing and research by a teenage genealogist who approached the police in 2020 and volunteered to help. ... Eric Schubert, the teenager, said he had helped in other cold cases and spotted Marise’s story while looking for something new to work on. Mr. Schubert, now 20 and a student studying history at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa., identified possible relatives using an earlier DNA match made in the case.
On Sundays and holidays, the victim’s mother ended a prayer with a plea: “Please help the Pennsylvania State Police find the man that hurt my daughter.”
In 1964, 9-year-old Marise Ann Chiverella left for school and never returned. On Thursday, the Pennsylvania State Police identified the man they said was responsible for her killing. | Pennsylvania State Police
By Amanda Holpuch
Feb. 12, 2022
On March 18, 1964, Marise Ann Chiverella left for school, carrying canned goods to give to her teacher, a nun at St. Joseph’s Parochial School in Hazleton, Pa. ... Marise, 9, who aspired to be a nun, hurried from her home to bring the gifts to her classroom and still get to morning Mass on time. ... For members of her family, those were the last memories they had of Marise, who was found that afternoon in a pit used for refuse. She had been sexually assaulted and murdered.
Nearly 58 years later, the Pennsylvania State Police have identified the man they say was responsible for her death. ... “Pennsylvania State Police was founded in 1905, so over half of our existence we’ve investigated this case,” Lt. Devon M. Brutosky said at a news conference on Thursday in which investigators unraveled the decades-long search for the killer.
A state trooper displayed a high school yearbook photo of James Paul Forte and the police case file on Marise Ann Chiverella at a news conference in Hazleton, Pa., Thursday. | Michael Rubinkam/Associated Press
Lieutenant Brutosky said investigators used DNA tests and genealogical research to identify James Paul Forte, who was then 22, as the person who killed Marise. He lived six or seven blocks from Marise, the police said, but they did not know of any connection he had to her or her family. ... Officials said Mr. Forte was 38 when he died of natural causes, possibly a heart attack, in the bar where he worked in 1980. He was still living in Hazleton, a former coal mining town nearly 100 miles northeast of Philadelphia, and, as far as the police knew, unmarried. ... Most of the information the authorities had about Mr. Forte was gathered from the records of two other crimes he was tied to.
{snip}
The police tied Mr. Forte to Marise’s case with the aid of DNA testing and research by a teenage genealogist who approached the police in 2020 and volunteered to help. ... Eric Schubert, the teenager, said he had helped in other cold cases and spotted Marise’s story while looking for something new to work on. Mr. Schubert, now 20 and a student studying history at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa., identified possible relatives using an earlier DNA match made in the case.
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