THE mystery of a nine-year-old girl who was murdered 59-years ago has been solved thanks to the help of one talented teen.
Marise Chiverella died on March 18, 1964 after being raped and murdered while on her way to school.
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That same day she was tragically discovered by a man giving his nephew driving lessons when they encountered her small strangulated body in a coal mining pit.
For decades, the unsolved case plagued more than 250 members of Pennsylvania police force who failed to identify her killer.
Authorities complied over 4,700 police files that determined the girl was sexually assaulted and murdered.
However, not a single individual was ever arrested.
But following the help of DNA and genealogy tracking, authorities announced in February that the case had finally been solved.
During a press conference they identified distant cousin James Paul Forte, who died in 1980, as Chiverella’s murderer.
Police said that the case had initially been cold until 2007 when the state’s DNA lab was able to develop the suspect’s profile via semen that was left on Chiverella’s jacket.
Police were hoping this was the break in the case they needed, but the DNA didn’t return any matches.
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In 2019 the DNA profile was uploaded to a state of the art genealogical database as the authorities were able to match the case to a very distant relative, but could not determine specifics beyond that.
Yet a year later, an young history major at Elizabethtown College, named Eric Schubert, contacted the state police offering to help free of charge and lend his unique set of skills of tracing down family trees to find matches.
Schubert, only 18 at the time, had already assisted on several cold cases impressing his colleagues along the way.
And after spending as many as 20 hours a week for 18 months researching every possible lead, the teen zeroed in on local bartender Forte, who had a criminal record but was never considered a suspect.
At the time, it was thought to be a compelling enough to convince a judge to approve the exhumation of his body as a positive DNA match was found.
Speaking to People, Schubert recalled: “I think the odds of the DNA not being his were one in something septillion. So that’s 24 zeros.”
After the case was official confirmed as closed, the teen whizz was described as having “voodoo” powers by staff as he was praised for his efforts.
“He was good to give us information and a new route to go down every day,” State Police Corporal Mark Baron said.
“He was giving me names and saying, ‘Hey, can you go ahead and look into seeing what you can find out about this person or that person?’
“How he came up with the names that he came up with, I have no idea. The voodoo that Eric Schubert does is amazing.”
Schubert concluded that he was simply “relieved for the family” after identifying the killer.
Marise’s older brother Ron later spoke to the media to thank the state police and Schubert for solving his sister’s decades old murder.
“There’s an emptiness there that’s never going to change,” he said.
“But now that we do know, that helped close that door, which is a blessing.”
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