Pennsylvania police solve 60-year-old cold case murder of 9-year-old girl

Pennsylvania authorities this week announced the solution of a nearly-six-decade-old murder cold case, saying they had identified the killer of a nine-year-old girl murdered in 1964.

State police said DNA technology led them to identify James Paul Forte as the killer of Marise Chiverella, who was found murdered in Hazleton, Pa., in 1964. 

DNA material was obtained from Chiverella’s clothing in 2007 but did not immediately lead to any matches in criminal databases; in 2019 authorities began checking the sample through genealogical records. 

They were eventually led to members of Forte’s family; an exhumation of Forte himself ultimately provided the match. 

Forte had a criminal record, though none of those crimes were as extreme as the killing of Chiverella. 

Chiverella’s sister, Carmen Marie Radtke, told news media that the family has “so many precious memories of Marise.” 

At the same time our family will always feel the emptiness and the sorrow of her absence," she said. "Consequently, we will continue to ask ourselves what would have been or could have been."