Who was Marise Ann Chiverella? College student helps solve 58-year-old cold case

The nine-year-old girl was sexually assulted and beaten before being killed on March 18, 1964

UPDATED FEB 11, 2022

Marise Ann Chiverella was nine when she was murdered (Pennsylvania State Police)

HAZLETON, PENNSYLVANIA: A decades-old sexual assault and murder case of a little girl has finally been solved after a 20-year-old college student and genealogy expert, Eric Schubert, from New Jersey helped unravel it. Marise Ann Chiverella was nine when she was physically abused, beaten, and murdered on March 18, 1964. On the fateful day, she was going to school in Hazleton while carrying canned goods to a church.

On Thursday, February 10, Chiverella’s killer was identified as James Paul Forte. But Forte is not alive anymore. As per reports, he died in May 1980 due to a possible heart attack. Col Mark Baron, the lead investigator on the case, said: “This is a very important day for our department. Even though it took nearly 58 years for this case to be solved, I think this should instill in the families of victims across the state and across the country a sense of hope.”

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“And that hope is that no matter how long it may take, we as law enforcement will never give up in trying to find the perpetrators of these heinous crimes that go on. God willing, in life or in death you will be found,” an emotional Baron added during a press conference.

Who was Marise Ann Chiverella?

Chiverella was a school kid who was last seen by her family at 8:10 in the morning on March 18, 1964, according to authorities. At around 1 pm that day, her remains were discovered in a strip mine pit in Hazle Township, some distance away from her home. The canned goods she was carrying were also found near her body.

After her tragic death, police were not able to arrest anyone and the case remained unsolved for around 58 years. However, on February 10, 2022, Forte was declared the culprit. It has been said he was a bartender by profession and was in his 20s when he carried out the crime.

Ten years later after Chiverella’s death, Forte was reportedly arrested in 1974 for another sexual assault incident. But at the time, he pled guilty to a lesser charge and was awarded a year of probation only. In 1978, the man was again taken into custody for a minor offense but did not get time behind bars.
In Chiverella’s case, Schubert helped investigators in finding the culprit. Schubert is a student at Elizabethtown College and contacted authorities two years ago. He reportedly made a family tree based on the DNA, which ultimately led them to Forte. The man’s body was then dug out from his burial ground and it was found that his DNA was the same as the sample taken from Chiverella's jacket in 2007.

“I'll never forget when Cpl Baron was telling me that we had just gotten that match because, in that moment, I knew that we were going to find the assailant. We quickly worked our way up from that match to a match that in the end was over 1,000 centimorgans,” Schubert said while talking about a unit for measuring genetic linkage.

Chiverella’s family also spoke during the news conference. Her sister, Carmen Marie Radtke, said: “We have so many precious memories of Marise. At the same time, our family will always feel the emptiness and the sorrow of her absence.” Her brother, Ronald, added: “No full closure we'll never have that, but a sense of closure that we know the individual that did it and that the individual isn't out committing the same crime and hurting other young girls like Marise.”