It was a chilly morning in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, when nine-year-old Marise Ann Chiverella set off for school, clutching a small bundle of canned goods for her teacher. She was a shy girl, full of dreams of becoming a nun, her heart brimming with kindness. But Marise never made it to St Joseph’s Parochial School. By the afternoon, her lifeless body would be found in a desolate coal-mining pit, bound, gagged, and stolen from the world in the most brutal way imaginable. For nearly six decades, her killer remained a shadow—a phantom who haunted a community and a family desperate for answers. Until one determined teenager cracked the case wide open.
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| Marise Chiverella |
This is the story of Marise Ann Chiverella—a tragedy that shook a small town to its core, a case that baffled police for 58 years, and the extraordinary breakthrough that finally brought justice. Welcome to True Crime Tales with Cosette.
Hazleton, Pennsylvania, in 1964, was a close-knit, blue-collar town built on the backbone of coal mining. Families knew each other, children walked to school without fear, and life moved at a gentle pace. For the Chiverella family, March 18, 1964, started like any other day. Nine-year-old Marise, the youngest of five siblings, woke early, eager to deliver a gift of canned pears and beets to her teacher, Sister Josephine, in honour of her Feast Day at St Joseph’s Parochial School. Marise was a quiet, devout girl who loved playing the organ and dreamed of a life devoted to faith.
At around 8:00 a.m., Marise left her home on Alter Street, just six blocks from her school. A neighbour spotted her at 8:10 a.m., walking east on West Fourth Street, her small figure disappearing into the morning mist. It was the last time anyone saw her alive.
By 1:00 p.m. that day, a man teaching his 16-year-old nephew to drive made a chilling discovery near a strip-mining pit in Hazle Township, close to Hazleton Municipal Airport. At first, they thought it was a large doll discarded among the rubbish. But as they drew closer, the horrific truth became clear. It was Marise. Her tiny body was bound with her own shoelaces—her wrists tied with one, her ankles with the other. Her scarf was stuffed into her mouth as a gag. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. The canned goods she’d carried so proudly were scattered nearby, a heartbreaking reminder of her final act of kindness.
The brutality of the crime sent shockwaves through Hazleton. Parents held their children closer, and the town’s innocence was shattered. The Pennsylvania State Police launched a massive investigation, interviewing over 230 suspects, including a local priest and an exhibitionist who later took his own life. Despite amassing over 4,700 pages of case files, no arrests were made. Marise’s parents, Carmen and Mary, were left to grieve without answers, their pain compounded by the knowledge that their daughter’s killer was still out there.
As years turned into decades, Marise’s case grew cold. The Pennsylvania State Police never gave up, but leads dried up. Suspects were cleared, alibis checked, and theories exhausted. Marise’s siblings—Ronald, Barry, David, and Carmen Marie—grew up haunted by their sister’s absence. Their mother, Mary, would end every Sunday prayer with a plea: “Please help the Pennsylvania State Police find the man who hurt my daughter."
In 2007, a breakthrough seemed possible. The state police’s DNA lab extracted a suspect’s profile from bodily fluids found on Marise’s jacket. Every month, they checked it against national DNA databases, but no matches emerged. The case remained a painful mystery—until a new technology and an unlikely hero changed everything.
Enter Eric Schubert, an 18-year-old history student at Elizabethtown College with a passion for genetic genealogy. In 2019, the Pennsylvania State Police partnered with Parabon NanoLabs to upload the suspect’s DNA to GEDmatch, a public genealogy database. It returned a match to a distant relative—possibly a sixth cousin—of the killer. Schubert, who had already helped solve other cold cases, emailed the police, offering his expertise.
Schubert’s work was meticulous. For 18 months, he spent up to 20 hours a week tracing family trees, narrowing down hundreds of potential suspects. He provided names to Corporal Mark Baron, the lead investigator, who tracked down relatives and collected DNA samples. Schubert’s "voodoo", as Baron called it, was extraordinary. By 2020, the list was down to four suspects. One stood out: James Paul Forte, a Hazleton bartender who lived just six blocks from Marise’s home.
In 1974, Forte was arrested for sexually assaulting a 23-year-old woman in Hazle Township. On April 3, 1974, police charged him with involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, and aggravated assault after the victim reported being attacked inside Forte’s Chevrolet on Stockton Mountain Road. A search of his car revealed hair samples and mud linking him to the crime scene. Released on $5,000 bail, Forte later pleaded guilty to aggravated assault on September 18, 1974, with sexual assault charges dropped. Judge Bernard C. Brominski sentenced him to one year of special probation and ordered him to pay the victim’s hospital bills. In 1978, Forte faced charges of reckless endangerment and harassment, though details of this case remain elusive. On May 16, 1980, Forte died of heart failure at age 38 in the Hazle Township ballroom where he worked, escaping justice for Marise’s murder.
To confirm Forte’s guilt, police exhumed his body in January 2022. On February 3, DNA from his remains matched the profile from Marise’s jacket with odds of one in a septillion. On February 10, 2022, the Pennsylvania State Police announced that James Paul Forte was Marise’s killer, closing the oldest cold case in Pennsylvania and the fourth oldest in the United States solved through genetic genealogy. At the press conference, Marise’s siblings shared their bittersweet relief. Her sister Carmen Marie Radtke stated, "Our family will always feel the emptiness and sorrow of her absence. But thanks to the Pennsylvania State Police, justice has been served today.”
Marise’s murder changed Hazleton forever. Parents warned their children, “Remember what happened to Marise,” a caution that echoed for generations. The case also left a mark on the investigators, with over 230 state police personnel working on it over the decades. For Eric Schubert, now 21, solving Marise’s case was a defining moment.
The Chiverella family, though forever scarred, found solace in knowing Forte could no longer harm anyone. Marise’s memory lives on in the organ she loved to play, still cherished by her siblings, and in the justice finally delivered after 58 years.
Marise Ann Chiverella’s life was cut short in a moment of unimaginable cruelty, but her story is one of resilience, determination, and hope. Thanks to the tireless work of the Pennsylvania State Police and a young genealogist’s brilliance, her family finally knows the truth. As we remember Marise, let’s honour her by cherishing the innocence she embodied and the justice she deserved.
Thank you for joining me on True Crime Tales with Cosette. If this story moved you, please like, subscribe, and share to keep Marise’s memory alive. Until next time, stay curious, and stay safe.
