Family of Hazleton girl killed in 1964 grateful for justice but not vengeful
After 58 years they finally have an answer.
It was a local man they didn’t know who took their 9-year-old sister’s life and changed their family forever.
But they never sought revenge, only justice. That’s what the siblings of Marise Chiverella told the public during a news conference Thursday when state police at Hazleton announced the identity of her killer, ending their decades long search for the truth.
It was the same message the Chiverella siblings conveyed in 2019 when they talked about the case with the Standard-Speaker. To not seek revenge was an approach instilled in them by their parents, the late Carmen and Mary Chiverella.
Marise Chiverella of Hazleton went missing on her walk to school the morning of March 18, 1964, and was found physically and sexually assaulted and strangled to death in a defunct coal stripping pit in Hazle Township, where locals dumped garbage, hours later. State police at Hazleton, during the news conference, announced that DNA and genealogy research led them to identify the killer as James P. Forte of Hazleton, who died in 1980 at 38 years old and was convicted of another aggravated assault in Hazle Township in the 1970s.
Ron Chiverella said when the family would pray before meals, their mother would always ask God to help troopers find her killer, but only for the sake of justice and to prevent him from hurting another family.
Throughout the years, extended family stuck with the Chiverellas, but so did troopers, who provided “comfort and hope,” Ron Chiverella said. They never left the family’s side and forged an emotional connection.
“All of those 58 years, the Pennsylvania State Police routinely made their presence known, continuously,” Ron Chiverella said.
They also kept their promise that they would identify Marise’s killer.
Ron Chiverella rattled off a list of troopers by name for their efforts, referring to them as the “frontline team,” each playing a role in delivering justice, along with genealogist Eric Schubert of Elizabethtown.
“Our family thanks you so much,” he said.
Ron Chiverella was joined at the press conference by his siblings, Carmen Marie Radtke and Barry and David Chiverella.
Radtke said while the solved case brings some closure, they will always ask what could have been if Marise, a shy, sweet girl who expressed interest in being a nun, would have lived a full life.
For those wondering how the Chiverellas are handling the case, Radtke quoted Romans 12:19, which urges people not to seek revenge on their own, but to wait for God to handle it.
For those responsible for harming a child, she referred to Matthew 18:6: “But anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone around their neck.”