For 57 long years, the death of 9-year-old Marise Chiverella was one of the most notorious unsolved murders in Pennsylvania. The third grader had set off by herself on the 10-minute walk to St. Joseph’s Parochial School in blue-collar Hazleton at around 8 a.m. on March 18, 1964. She left without her four siblings because she wanted to get to school early to deliver cans of pears and beets to Sister Josephine in honor of her teacher’s Feast Day. Marise’s body was later found in an abandoned strip mine. Over the decades, more than 250 members of the Pennsylvania State Police worked on the case, amassing over 4,700 pages of investigation material, but they never managed to find the perpetrator. Marise’s parents — Camden and Mary Chiverella — died without knowing who had killed their little girl. Then, in 2020, Pennsylvania State Police accepted the help of Eric Schubert, an 18-year-old college freshman who did genealogical research as a hobby. He had read about the case online and in the local newspaper and reached out to the state police to offer his services. After being vetted first, Schubert met with officers, and when the meeting was over the officers walked away thinking Schubert was on point. After spending as many as 20 hours a week for 18 months, researching every possible lead, Schubert zeroed in on a local bartender named James Forte, who had a criminal record but was never considered a suspect. Forte died of natural causes in 1980 at the age of 38. The Forte lead turned out to be compelling enough to convince a judge to approve the exhumation of his body. A DNA sample removed from clothing Marise wore the day she died was a positive match to Forte’s and the case could finally be closed. Schubert says that using genealogy to hunt for a killer is an enormous process of elimination, but one that pays off in a big way. Marise’s brother Ron is thankful to the state police and Schubert for solving his sister’s murder. “There’s an emptiness there that’s never going to change, but now that we do know, that helped close that door, which is a blessing,” he said.
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| Marise Chiverella and James Forte |
