Teen sleuth helps solve 58-year cold case killing of schoolgirl

Marise Ann Chiverella in 1964. Photo / Pennsylvania State Police via The New York Times

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, Pennsylvania.

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 killed.

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," Lieutenant Devon M. Brutosky said at a news conference on Thursday (Friday NZT) in which investigators unravelled the decades-long search for the killer.

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, police said, but they did not know of any connection he had to her or her family.

Officials said 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 (161km) northwest of Philadelphia, and, as far as police knew, unmarried.

Most of the information authorities had about Forte was gathered from the records of two other crimes he was tied to.

In 1974, Forte pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was sentenced to one year of probation. Brutosky said that Forte had sexually assaulted a woman in 1974 in an area used for coal mining, and in a recent interview she told police that she thought she would have been killed during the attack if not for a person who saw what was happening and stopped it.

In 1978, Forte was charged with recklessly endangering another person and harassment. Police said they did not have further details on that case.

Police tied Forte to Marise's case with the aid of DNA testing and research by a teenage genealogist who approached 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. Schubert, now 20 and a student studying history at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, identified possible relatives using an earlier DNA match made in the case.

In 2007, investigators created a DNA profile of the suspect using bodily fluids found on Marise's jacket.

In 2019, Parabon NanoLabs, a DNA technology company, helped police upload the DNA profile to a genealogical database, leading to a match with a distant relative of the suspect.

Schubert was able to build out a family tree from that match, which led to a relative considered to be a family historian. Investigators interviewed some family members and took voluntary DNA samples, which narrowed the list of potential suspects to four.

Investigators excluded three of the potential suspects, although they did not specify how. On January 6, they exhumed Forte's body to get a DNA sample and, on February 3, they received test results that confirmed the match.

At the news conference, Marise's eldest brother, Ronald Chiverella, thanked investigators, who he said had been in continuous contact with the family since 1964.

Chiverella said his mother said grace before meals on Sundays and holidays and would acknowledge the unsolved case.

"She would always end it with a prayer asking Jesus, the blessed mother, 'Please help the Pennsylvania State Police find the man that hurt my daughter,'" Chiverella said.

At one point, years later, Chiverella said his mother told each of the surviving siblings that she had forgiven whoever had killed Marise.

He also remembered happier times with his sister, who he said had played the organ.

"That organ is still in good shape today, and we all recall times when we would play the organ with her, not having any notes to follow, just making some noise, but we learned how to repetitively make those same noises so we were in concert," Chiverella said.

Carmen Marie Radtke, Marise's sister, said her family would keep in mind two Bible passages when they reflected on the case, including Romans 12:19, which urges people to leave revenge to God, and Matthew 18:6, addressed to those who harm children.

Radtke quoted the second passage: "But anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone around his neck."

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Amanda Holpuch
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