00:00:00
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 1964,
a spring morning in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.
00:00:16
Nine-year-old Marise
Chiverella ready to walk by herself to school. She says goodbye to
her family, but they
00:00:24
will never see her alive again. ANTHONY PETROSKI:
She had left early. She walked by herself to school.
00:00:31
And at that time, this was
a very safe neighborhood. You were allowed to
walk by yourself.
00:00:36
And she did. And unfortunately, she
never came home that day. NANCY GRACE: By lunchtime on
that very same day, little
00:00:43
Marise Chiverella
body discovered. Marise has been murdered
in a savage attack. Marise is found about 25 feet
down this slope into this pit.
00:00:59
KRYSTEN QUINN: Marise
was found fully clothed. It was her hands and her feet
were bound with her shoelaces.
00:01:05
And a colorful scarf that
she was wearing that day was pushed so far
back in her throat
00:01:11
that it actually
knocked out a tooth. And how could someone
do this to a little child?
00:01:18
NANCY GRACE: Little
Marise Chiverella's family and the tight-knit
community of Hazleton
00:01:22
are devastated by her murder. Police work every
lead they've got, but still the case goes cold
for over half a century.
00:01:33
Then, a new forensic science,
investigative genetic genealogy and an unusual twist gives
detectives another chance.
00:01:44
RON CHIVERELLA: It seems to be
expanding across the country. And that's a wonderful gateway
for so many individuals
00:01:50
like-- like my family to get
more answers to what really happened to their loved ones.
00:01:56
This is a story about
the cruelest of crimes, the brutal murder
of a beautiful child
00:02:04
and how a family yearns for
answers for nearly 60 years. I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives."
00:02:15
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Hazleton,
Pennsylvania, 1964, a beautiful
town just three
00:02:43
hours west of New York City. ANTHONY PETROSKI: It
was a wonderful time. The city was beautiful.
00:02:51
A lot of good local businesses. A great community. You were able to leave
your door unlocked.
00:02:56
It was a good place
to raise children. Marise was a quiet,
shy little girl. She was nine years old
and she was very petite.
00:03:06
She had dark hair, blue eyes. I think she was an
incredible little girl. RON CHIVERELLA: There were five
of us children in the family.
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Looking and thinking of the
personalities of my siblings, they all have a
great sense of humor.
00:03:23
And that originated
from my father. But my mother had a
unique personality, when it came to humor.
00:03:30
She was a trickster. And that rubbed off on all
of us, including Marise. She had an excellent
personality,
00:03:39
was loved by her
classmates at school and really had a strong
taking to prayer. Because my mother prayed
in the morning and then
00:03:49
in the evening before
she went to bed. Marise then also, when
she was in second grade,
00:03:58
told us that she was
aspiring to become a Catholic nun, a
teacher, a sister. And that's what she
had in grade school
00:04:06
were Catholic nuns teaching. NANCY GRACE: Little Marise
Chiverella leaves for school
00:04:13
that morning with
a mission in mind, to give her teacher,
the nun, a gift. RON CHIVERELLA: Once a
year, it was a tradition
00:04:24
at Saint Joseph's school
to recognize and celebrate your teacher, your nun. Marise had asked my
mother and father,
00:04:33
you know, what can
I bring as a gift? Because the children
would bring gifts. And having a grocery
store, my father
00:04:40
suggested, why don't we give
you some canned goods to take? Marise needed, as the other
students in her class,
00:04:48
needed to get whatever their
gifts were into their classroom and then scoot over
to church in time
00:04:54
so they're not late
for 8 o'clock mass. Marise said, I'm gonna get
going because I've gotta get
00:05:00
these gifts into the school. Carmen Marie, and Barry
said, you know, OK, we'll be-- we'll be right behind you.
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She was last seen in
front of 212 West 4th Street by a cousin of the
family through a window.
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And that was around maybe
like 8:10 in the morning. And that was the last time
that anybody that we know of
00:05:28
can definitively say that they
saw Marise Chiverella alive. It wasn't until lunchtime her
sister asked her father like,
00:05:37
hey, has Marise been in yet? And they realized then
that something was wrong. They returned back to school.
00:05:45
They spoke with the nun
that was Marise's teacher. And she said that Marise had
been marked absent that day.
00:05:54
They then went to the
priest, talked to the priest. And they started
organizing a search party
00:06:00
with other children
and teachers and, you know, janitorial staff and
everything, looking for Marise.
00:06:07
DEVON BRUTOSKY: The
priest called the Hazleton City Police Department. And they initiated a
missing persons report.
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NANCY GRACE: The search for
little Marise Chiverella, just nine years old, ends
just hours after it begins.
00:06:22
It's a terrible
discovery that casts a shadow over the quiet
Pennsylvania town. MARK BARON: At around 1
o'clock in the afternoon,
00:06:32
there was a individual and his
nephew that were driving around in the area of a abandoned strip
hole that was used for refuse,
00:06:45
so a garbage dump. They had gotten out
of their vehicle. They looked down into
this garbage pit.
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And about 25 feet from
the very top of the pit, they noticed what
appeared to them to be
00:07:00
like a doll, a large doll. And that intrigued them. They go down closer, realize
that it is not a doll.
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It is actually a
juvenile female. They have no idea who
this juvenile female is,
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but they believe
that she to be dead. They leave the area. They go back to their residence
and they tell another family
00:07:22
member of what they find. And that family
member telephones the Pennsylvania State police
at about 1:15 in the afternoon.
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DEVON BRUTOSKY: At
that time, what they would do is just
quarter off the area and wait for a forensic
member to come out.
00:07:36
Even though we're advanced
in forensic science now, we still had
forensic people then
00:07:40
that did what was
normal and typical for forensics at that time. They would process
the scene, take
00:07:46
photographs, and
try and identify exactly who this person was. At that time, what would
happen in situations like that,
00:07:55
they would have priests come
out to issue last rites and view people that were deceased.
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The priest from the school,
knowing that Marise was missing and also knowing that it
was a young child found,
00:08:05
he and another priest came out. He was the first one that
identified her at the scene.
00:08:11
NANCY GRACE: Both the
priests and first responders are overwhelmed by the sheer
brutality of the crime scene
00:08:19
before them. KRYSTEN QUINN: Marise
was found fully clothed. And she just didn't
have her shoes on.
00:08:24
They were right
next to her body. It was her hands and her feet
were bound with her shoe laces.
00:08:30
And a colorful scarf that
she was wearing that day was pushed so far
back in her throat
00:08:36
that it actually
knocked out a tooth. And her book bag filled with
the canned goods and her pocket
00:08:42
book and her school books
were placed right next to her, as well. It's very disturbing, it is.
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We're talking about
a nine-year-old girl, a nine-year-old
girl that was bound together with her own
shoelaces, deceased.
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Very hard, very hard. You know, try to explain
that to the family. I can't imagine how
the troopers did.
00:09:02
It's never easy to tell a loved
one that their family members are coming home, especially when
this is so new to the community
00:09:08
back in 1964. When I first heard about
a concern for Marise, I was on my way home
from high school.
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I see this black car pull
across the intersection, stop, and then
started backing up.
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Getting out of the
vehicle was Father Rabell, one of our priests. He put his hands on my
shoulders, very solemn looking.
00:09:33
And he sort of leaned into me. And he said, Ronald, go home. Your mother needs you.
00:09:41
Your sister Marise is dead. I think I was also
in a sense of denial. I couldn't believe.
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I was living a
dream, a nightmare. But I wasn't. NANCY GRACE: Parents in Hazleton
all afraid of brutal child
00:09:58
killer could strike again. ANTHONY PETROSKI:
But fortunately because of this horrific crime,
it really changed the narrative
00:10:05
for the Hazleton
community in the fact that we can't leave our
doors unlocked anymore.
00:10:09
We can't just let our children
walk by themselves to school or to the park afterwards.
00:10:14
We have to keep an
eye on them more. One of the worst fears for
any parent or any female,
00:10:22
it's been one of my fears
my entire life of something like that happening. So I can't imagine
being nine years old
00:10:29
and having to
endure what she did. Pennsylvania State
troopers struggled to make headway in the case.
00:10:38
They have very few
leads, no witnesses, and a predatory child
killer on the loose.
00:10:45
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: 1964,
Hazleton, Pennsylvania,
00:10:59
nine-year-old Marise Chiverella
disappears while walking the short distance to school.
00:11:06
Just hours later, her
little body discovered. State troopers are shocked
by the crime scene.
00:11:13
They search for any clues
left behind by the killer. Investigators believe
that she was placed there.
00:11:23
And we say that she was placed
there because on her clothing, there's no, like, foreign
material, no dirt, no nothing,
00:11:30
nothing that would indicate that
she was rolled down this hill or thrown from a vehicle
or something like that
00:11:35
or thrown by
somebody down there. Rather, she was placed. Being a state trooper
investigating a crime,
00:11:42
you have to look at everything
as a whole, the totality of the crime scene. You can't just look
at one part of it.
00:11:47
And troopers back in
1964 did a phenomenal job collecting physical
evidence, collecting DNA,
00:11:52
collecting clothing. KRYSTEN QUINN: She
was wearing a sweater, a black skirt and stockings, and
a jacket with a colorful scarf.
00:12:03
The day before Marise's
murder, it snowed. So down in the
stripping pit, they gathered everything
that they could
00:12:11
that was on top of the snow. It kind of helped
them a little bit because it was actually
a dumping ground
00:12:17
for a lot of garbage. That helped them collect
that type of evidence. They also found a
frozen tire track
00:12:23
and they made a mold of that. MARK BARON: As far as,
like, evidence that they're
00:12:29
collecting, obviously all
the clothing that she wears, they're taking
possession of that.
00:12:35
You know, her book bag, that's
in the general area, the shoes. They collected a piece
of Rockwool insulation
00:12:41
that supposedly had
a footprint on it. Items that looked like
they were recently placed
00:12:46
there were taken,
even though they may seem very strange in
nature that you're picking up.
00:12:53
I mean, assorted papers that
may have a person's name on it. They collected an
empty milk carton.
00:13:01
They collected an empty
ice cream container. When you have nothing
to work with initially,
00:13:08
anything could go ahead
and be that little bit of a breakthrough. Because once you collect that
evidence, you send it off for,
00:13:15
you know, trace evidence testing
or maybe there's blood on it. Or maybe you could get a
hair fiber off of something.
00:13:21
Things can just snowball for
the-- for the good when you get that-- that-- that
first piece of evidence.
00:13:27
And then you're just rolling. NANCY GRACE: The next day Marise
Chiverella's grieving father
00:13:33
makes a heartbreaking request. RON CHIVERELLA: My
father had asked to go and see the location
where Marise's body was found.
00:13:43
Police agreed. And I went with my
father because my mother had told me the day before,
stay with your father.
00:13:51
Take care of your father. So I went with my dad and the
Pennsylvania State police.
00:13:57
And we went to the trash dump
where they found Marise's body. And that was a very heart
rattling, shaking experience
00:14:08
for both me and my father. I have never been back there
since-- since that point
00:14:12
in time. NANCY GRACE: Autopsy confirms
the worst fears of the family, of police, and of the
tight-knit community.
00:14:23
The results of
the autopsy were that she was sexually
assaulted and that she was killed by blunt force
trauma and strangulation.
00:14:32
Some police actually attended
the funeral and some police actually documented the people
that attended the funeral.
00:14:37
Believing that it's possible
that the killer could have attended the funeral, being
such a small community,
00:14:42
we wanted to document everybody
that was attending the funeral. So they did both.
00:14:46
Some went to mourn
with the family and some went to
investigate and make sure we could
collect information
00:14:51
that we may need later. RON CHIVERELLA: Seeing
her in her coffin, she had in her hands her
prayer book along with a pair
00:14:59
of white rosaries. And she looked beautiful. NANCY GRACE: Months pass. Possible suspects come, then go.
00:15:12
Pennsylvania State troopers
continue to work the case, following up on
leads and keeping
00:15:18
the Chiverella family informed. The Pennsylvania State
police were there every day
00:15:24
for the first
several weeks, giving my mother and father updates
on what was transpiring.
00:15:30
And they were
working 18 hour days, staying and sleeping
at the barracks, getting maybe four or five hours
of sleep, and then back out.
00:15:38
And they did that for several
months without any pay. They weren't getting
paid overtime.
00:15:44
There was no such
thing as paid overtime. They were doing it from the
goodness of their hearts
00:15:48
and their own minds of how
horrible the crime was. MARK BARON: They were obtaining
lists of sex offenders
00:15:56
that were from the area. They checked each and
every one of them out. Sex offenders that
were out of the area
00:16:03
that were known to police,
they checked everyone out. Absentees from school
who were males and that
00:16:09
were of age that could have
committed this type of crime, they were checked out.
00:16:13
All of the guests at
local motels and hotels within a 25-mile
radius that stayed
00:16:20
here on the night of March 17,
all of them were contacted. All of them were
checked out, be it
00:16:25
by our department
or our department contacting a local
department in another state
00:16:31
perhaps and saying, can
you go ahead and reach out to these people and see what
they were doing in Hazleton
00:16:36
and-- and try to-- try
to verify something. DEVON BRUTOSKY: Back in 1964
and all the way into the '80s,
00:16:44
we used basically
teletype systems. So you would send
out teletype messages to different departments
asking if they could provide
00:16:51
any details on similar cases. We had cases all throughout
the Northeast United States
00:16:56
that they sent teletypes out
to and information came back. They reached out to
many different agencies.
00:17:02
They followed up
every lead they could. And eventually, it just
came to a standstill.
00:17:07
After a year of
investigating, they actually had 9,000 contacts which
lead to over 22,000
00:17:16
man hours, 116,000
miles traveled, and over 3,000 files
of police paperwork. But all of this led to no leads.
00:17:28
And that's when
the case went cold. ANTHONY PETROSKI: I don't
know of one investigator
00:17:33
who gave up hope on this case. They always said that
this is a solvable case. It is.
00:17:39
We need a little
bit more technology. And we need somebody fresh
to take a look at it.
00:17:45
As we see next on
"Bloodline Detectives," the fresh look comes
from a very clever teen
00:17:52
with a passion for genealogy. [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Hazleton,
Pennsylvania, 1964,
00:18:08
nine-year-old little
Marise Chiverella disappears walking to school. Hours later, her
brutalized body discovered.
00:18:18
Police pursue every
available lead. But in the end,
the case goes cold. Now, over 40 years later,
a new investigator takes
00:18:28
another look at the evidence. In 2007, with
advancements in technology, they found a semen stain
on one article of clothing
00:18:41
that she was wearing
the day of the homicide. From that, a DNA profile for a
suspect was able to be created.
00:18:53
And that was entered into CODIS,
the Combined DNA Index System that the FBI maintains.
00:18:59
That profile was then
immediately checked against known and
unknown samples, both on the state level
and the national level.
00:19:08
Every week or bi-weekly
that that profile was checked with no matches. NANCY GRACE: Investigators
are making progress.
00:19:19
The DNA recovered
from the crime scene provides a unique
marker connected to the man they believe is
Marise Chiverella's killer.
00:19:29
They don't, however,
have a name. They then turn to the
FBI'S profiling division
00:19:37
in Quantico, Virginia
for a possible match. DEVON BRUTOSKY: Our criminal
investigation assessment
00:19:43
officers went down to Quantico. And they presented our case. And they were given
a profile source
00:19:48
of who to look for, who
might have committed the crime, and some
areas to maybe further
00:19:53
the investigation, look
into these types of people from back then as to who
could be the suspect.
00:19:59
With that, they--
they move forward with the old fashioned police
work and talking to people.
00:20:03
However, again, it
became fruitless. 2018, advances
in DNA technology offer a glimmer of hope for
a breakthrough in little
00:20:14
Marise Chiverella's murder. Parabon NanoLabs in
Virginia, a pioneer in the DNA process
called phenotyping,
00:20:23
joins the investigation. MARK BARON: They
concluded that he was probably a Southern
European, Middle
00:20:31
Eastern heritage. And I know that they said
with about 90% confidence that the suspect was
going to have either hazel
00:20:39
or green colored eyes. Lieutenant Brutosky,
who was the troop and criminal investigation
unit section commander,
00:20:47
he approached me and said that
they were working with Parabon about developing some
phenotype sketches
00:20:53
of the potential killer. And he said we were gonna have
a press conference to update
00:20:57
the community members on this. I said that sounds
like a great idea. We wanted to show the community
that, number one, this case,
00:21:03
we're not giving up on it
and we're never going to. And number two, if you
recognize, maybe you
00:21:09
see these sketches and
you recognize a person, give us a call. It was all about
getting potential leads.
00:21:15
You know, we're only as good
as the community that we serve. So if the community can
provide us information,
00:21:20
we will gladly take it. NANCY GRACE: The
press conference yields not a single lead.
00:21:26
But it does introduce a new
twist in the investigation, Eric Schubert, a teenage
genetic genealogy prodigy,
00:21:37
offers his assistance. I was homesick a
lot when I was a kid. So I would be, you know, home,
bored, annoying my mother,
00:21:46
the typical things a
10-year-old would do. I would always see commercials
for genealogy, stuff like that.
00:21:53
And then on one of these
occasions when I was home, my mother I suppose saw
one of those commercials
00:21:59
again for a big genealogy site. And I guess the idea sort
of popped into her head,
00:22:04
you know, you're home,
you say you like this. Here's my computer. Here's my account.
00:22:08
How about you have some fun
with this for two weeks. I sort of just quickly
took a liking to it
00:22:15
and I never put
that laptop down. ANTHONY PETROSKI: It
was February 5, 2020. And I received an email
from ES Genealogy.
00:22:26
It was from a Mr. Eric Schubert. I had never heard of him before. And he had sent me an email
saying that he had seen
00:22:33
our press conference in
regards to the Marise Ann Chiverella case. And he was looking into the
case himself and the history
00:22:41
of the case, that it's one
of the oldest cold cases in the commonwealth
of Pennsylvania
00:22:45
and that he saw the
pictures that Parabon gave us, the phenotype
sketches and that he
00:22:51
thinks he could help. And so further in the email,
it says that he's a genealogist
00:22:55
and he has 10 years of
experience, which at the time, he was only 18 years old. Now, he offered his
services pro bono.
00:23:02
And he said he would love to
help and be part of this team. At the bottom of
the email, there
00:23:06
was a link for his website. And I clicked on that. And it brought up his
website, very professional.
00:23:10
The email was very well written. And there was a picture of him. And, I mean, no
disrespect by this,
00:23:16
but he looked like a child. And I thought to
myself, is this real? I get a lot of emails
every single day.
00:23:24
Can this be real? NANCY GRACE: It's an
extraordinary offer. State troopers
decide to meet the
00:23:31
fresh faced teen genealogist. He came prepared like
it was a job interview. He provided us
contact information
00:23:42
for two other police departments
so that we could go ahead and talk to them regarding
the work that he did for them.
00:23:51
ANTHONY PETROSKI: Myself and
Corporal Barron had a coffee. Eric had an apple
juice and we sat there
00:23:55
and he treated this like it was
the job interview of his life. But one thing that really
stuck out to myself
00:24:01
and Corporal Barron was he said,
I can help solve this case. And he wasn't being
cocky when he said that.
00:24:07
He was being confident. And there was something
about that confidence in an 18-year-old who
shows up at a coffee shop
00:24:14
drinking apple juice
giving us his resume, showing us his work. It was impressive.
00:24:20
I'm confident
enough that, like, when you're talking with
law enforcement on this,
00:24:25
you're the expert in the room. And if you get
that relationship, you recognize that they are
on the investigative side
00:24:32
when you have leads. And they know better
than you on that. But you might know better than
them on the genealogy side.
00:24:39
If you get that
balance, it works. And we had the best
team working with PSP on the Chiverella case.
00:24:45
So I think that
plays a lot into it. We walked away from
that meeting thinking that Eric was the real deal.
00:24:57
NANCY GRACE: After
decades, the investigation is now in the hands of
a young genealogist,
00:25:03
a teenager born more than
30 years after Marise Chiverella's murder. Eric Schubert brings more
than youthful expertise.
00:25:13
He applies techniques he uses
to reveal a normal family tree. Except in this case, his goal is
to reveal the name of a killer.
00:25:23
Forensic genetic genealogy
is the same process that I would do
to find a parent,
00:25:29
find someone's grandparent,
that sort of thing. Except you're finding
a killer or a rapist.
00:25:35
You don't know who
the DNA is from. You're working backwards. And it's a very effective
application of the technique.
00:25:42
He would talk to me daily,
at the bare minimum weekly. ANTHONY PETROSKI: I would
describe it as a big brother,
00:25:49
little brother. That's how I would describe
Corporal Baron and Eric. They were professional
with each other.
00:25:55
But they also felt
comfortable with each other. So they can have those
talks where they could say,
00:25:59
I don't think so. Look somewhere else. I don't think you're
right on that. And it was a good,
professional relationship.
00:26:05
They had a very good rapport. NANCY GRACE: The friendship
between teenager Eric Schubert
00:26:10
and a Pennsylvania State
trooper gives a comfort zone for the amateur genealogist
so he can focus on Marise
00:26:19
Chiverella's murderer. Eric Schubert looks
for connections between the suspect's
DNA and local records.
00:26:28
He studies archives, old
newspapers, and online sources. It's tedious work. But step by step,
Eric Schubert gets
00:26:38
closer and closer to the heart
of the killer's family tree. He then comes
back to me and says,
00:26:47
I think I have a
pretty good idea of what line of this family tree
our suspect is going to be on.
00:26:58
Now, he prefaced
everything by telling me that, like, Italian
genealogy is very difficult because of records.
00:27:06
Like, they may or
they may not exist. ERIC SCHUBERT: I was giving him
names of people that I thought
00:27:13
were connected in some way. And he was basically just
telling me hair color, eye
00:27:18
color, do they have a record? Because it was a violent crime. We knew, you know, who did
this probably had a record.
00:27:24
So we figured that was at
least a way to quell it down. Piece by piece, Eric Schubert
assembles the genetic jigsaw
00:27:34
puzzle, until remarkably
he uncovers what has been hidden over half a century. The identity of Marise
Chiverella's killer.
00:27:43
That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Hazleton,
Pennsylvania, 2020,
00:27:57
18-year-old Eric
Schubert, a prodigy in investigative
genetic genealogy, is close to solving the 1964
murder of nine-year-old Marise
00:28:10
Chiverella. Marise disappears
walking to school. Just hours later,
she is found dead,
00:28:17
the victim of a vicious
sex attack and murder. I'll never forget when we
really got the match, which
00:28:27
was leading into
all this big family tree and these family members. We were able to determine
that there was a network.
00:28:34
All these DNA matches who are
related to the subject are also related to this family.
00:28:40
Our person who
did this also must be descended from that family. It wasn't a super strong match.
00:28:48
But it just allowed
us to say, OK, we're doing something right. We know we're in
the right direction.
00:28:53
Let's dive into this family. Schubert was giving Mark names
as to whom may be associated
00:29:02
or related to the
specimen that had been found on Marise's blouse. Mark and I would
go out and obtain
00:29:10
buccal swabs from
whom we believed would be family members. MARK BARON: We had gotten a
DNA sample from an individual.
00:29:18
And it was like
1,100 centimorgans. And we're like, [EXHALES],,
that's like a first
00:29:23
or a second cousin. Quite honestly, like,
when we went and we talked to this individual, I was
100%, and I'm being honest when
00:29:30
I tell you this, I thought
that whomever I was looking for was still a distant
relation that was probably
00:29:35
from New York or New Jersey. I didn't think that
it would be somebody that was from the area.
00:29:41
When we had narrowed in
on this big family tree and we were really
getting into Hazleton
00:29:46
and going through
some of these names, we basically whittled down
our list to four people.
00:29:53
DEVON BRUTOSKY: Of
the four men, one was still alive at the time. We initially went down
and sat on his house
00:29:58
with some undercover people. And we were gonna
pull some trash and get a DNA profile
from the trash.
00:30:04
We waited a few days, and they
didn't put their trash out. So we decided that
Corporal Baron and Trooper
00:30:08
Quiroz were just gonna do what
they had been doing all along. And they were gonna approach him
and explain what we were doing.
00:30:14
And we're working on this case. And it would
significantly help if we could get your DNA profile.
00:30:20
So the gentlemen agreed. We took his profile. Corporal Baron went
to the airport.
00:30:25
We got our airplane. And he flew it to the DNA
lab out near Pittsburgh. And we had that
processed overnight.
00:30:31
And so we were very eager
to get that because if this was our suspect, we were
gonna make an arrest.
00:30:37
NANCY GRACE: The swab taken
from the potential suspect does not deliver the 100%
match investigators want.
00:30:46
It does, however, point
them in the right direction. The Y-DNA from that
gentleman did not match.
00:30:53
So now we were on
to two brothers. So there was two
brothers on one side and two brothers on the other.
00:30:58
So once we knew this brother's
DNA didn't match, the Y-DNA, we knew it had to be one
of the other two brothers.
00:31:05
JAMES QUIROZ: We looked
at criminal histories. We did our due diligence. We did our research.
00:31:09
And we found that James
Forte had a criminal history. His brother Frank did not.
00:31:15
His brother had passed about a
year prior to us getting there. Corporal Barron and I went and
visited Frank Ford's widow.
00:31:25
And we asked her if
he had any belongings that may have DNA on them. She provided us a
couple of combs,
00:31:33
hairbrushes, and razor blades
that had hair samplings on it. We then submitted
those to the lab.
00:31:39
And they excluded Frank. NANCY GRACE: The power of
investigative genetic genealogy
00:31:46
and the determination
of investigators combined to deliver
to a breakthrough-- a list of four suspects.
00:31:55
It's reduced to a single name-- James Forte. James Forte was from
the Hazleton area.
00:32:04
He had died in 1980
at the age of 38 of apparent natural causes. He was a bartender.
00:32:13
From the limited information
we have on James Forte, because his name did
not appear in our report
00:32:20
from the original investigators,
in 1974 he was arrested and charged for involuntary
deviate sexual intercourse,
00:32:31
indecent assault, and
aggravated assault. That was in 1974. And then I believe in 1978,
he was arrested, according
00:32:40
to the newspaper, for
recklessly endangering another person and
harassment by communication.
00:32:48
NANCY GRACE: The evidence
against James Forte is strong. But it does not prove
with an absolute 100%
00:32:55
certainty he is the
man that cruelly murdered Marise Chiverella. To be sure Forte's the
killer, investigators
00:33:04
need a warrant to
exhume his body and extract a DNA
sample from his bones. Corporal Barron and
the Luzerne County
00:33:14
District attorney's office,
they went before a judge, had a hearing. And all my work was
approved by the judge
00:33:21
to approve the exhumation
order of James Paul Forte to be exhumed to prove if
he was the one who did this.
00:33:29
We exhumed his remains. Started at like 7:00 AM. And we wanted to do it with
the least amount of fanfare
00:33:39
and the least amount
of knowledge by anybody that we were doing it to avoid
any type of media frenzy.
00:33:47
The pathologist was there. He collected some
samples that were sent off to the DNA lab for testing.
00:33:58
And ultimately,
we got our result. This is a result
that, even by today's standards of forensic
science, it's extraordinary.
00:34:08
We find out why next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
00:34:21
NANCY GRACE: Hazleton,
Pennsylvania, 2022, after 58 years and thousands
of hours of detective work,
00:34:28
Pennsylvania State police
know with certainty who murdered nine-year-old
Marise Chiverella.
00:34:37
I got a call from
Jeff Sacchetti, who's our lead DNA guy out there. And he said you got him.
00:34:43
And I said, sorry. He said you got him. And I said, what have we got? And he said 1 in 25
or 1 in 27 septillion,
00:34:55
that only one person
in that many people could have that
DNA profile match. And it was a good day.
00:35:01
I called everybody to my office. And we celebrated. Lieutenant Brutosky came down
to my office and he walked in.
00:35:10
And I think all
he said to me was, hey, I just got a phone call. We got him. I would say relief that
it was finally over.
00:35:18
Because working that case
for, like, four years. And being a supervisor,
I didn't have a caseload.
00:35:23
So, like, the only
case that I ever worked was Chiverella for four years. ERIC SCHUBERT: Of
course, you know,
00:35:30
my heart dropped when they-- they called me. I picked up the phone and I just
said, please tell me it's done.
00:35:36
And they said, yeah, it's done. And that was it. And, like, I still get
emotional now talking about it.
00:35:41
So it's just like, two
years of work boils down to, you know, it's done. I was like in
shock for a minute.
00:35:50
Like, from 1964 to 2022,
and it's being solved now. It was an awesome feeling. It really was a
great feeling to know
00:36:00
that we were able to
do this for the family and the community members. That everybody that went
through this together
00:36:08
NANCY GRACE: The team
holds a press conference and goes public with
the incredible news.
00:36:13
They ask Eric Schubert, who
joined the investigation as an 18-year-old
amateur genealogist,
00:36:20
to share his experience. ANTHONY PETROSKI: He
delivered a wonderful speech, addressing how proud he was
to be a part of this team,
00:36:28
addressing the
Chiverella family, the fact that they will
always mean something to him.
00:36:32
He's an impressive kid. And he won over a lot of
people during that press conference, community
members who have never
00:36:37
met this young man before. They-- they were--
they were blown away. ERIC SCHUBERT: When I
first started this case,
00:36:44
I printed out a
picture of Marise. I kept it with me. And I always had it. So that's what I think
back on and I look at.
00:36:54
She is why we were doing
the work and her family. DEVON BRUTOSKY: I think
Eric is a young man well
00:37:01
beyond his years, a brilliant
person in the research that he's doing. And I'm very thankful that
he called us that day.
00:37:09
KRYSTEN QUINN: Marise's
case was the fourth oldest case in the entire nation. And I think for it to
be solved in Hazleton,
00:37:17
they felt a major sigh
of relief to finally know who did that to Marise
and that he only
00:37:26
lived until 38 years
old and he could no longer hurt anybody else. MARK BARON: I don't
know if there's really
00:37:34
gonna be closure for the
family or for maybe even, like, the people
who knew Marise.
00:37:39
I think one thing
that you could say is that maybe the community
could start to heal
00:37:44
after 57 and a half years. DEVON BRUTOSKY: It was a
big deal for our community. And I believe it's
a big deal anywhere.
00:37:50
We were the oldest
case in Pennsylvania to use forensic
genetic genealogy to solve a case in the country.
00:37:56
I think we had one of the
oldest cases to be solved. So we knew that
pressure was there
00:38:01
during the news conference. However, I felt good because
the family had closure.
00:38:07
NANCY GRACE: The news that the
mystery of Marise Chiverella's murder is finally solved
brings some comfort
00:38:14
to her brother Ron. But it can never lessen
the pain of his loss. RON CHIVERELLA: It
doesn't give me closure.
00:38:22
It gives me answers. I have answers of who
the individual was. I've even had someone
say, well, now you have--
00:38:32
you can-- you can heal. OK, well, I'll never
have Marise again. I'm limited because I never
met the nieces and nephews
00:38:42
I would have had from Marise. I don't know who her husband
would have ever been.
00:38:46
So all of those absences
over the last 50 some years our family was
robbed of, needless to say,
00:38:55
of the main entity that
we lost was Marise. NANCY GRACE: After
the press conference,
00:39:02
the Chiverella family
invites the whole team to an intimate memorial and
Marise's final resting place.
00:39:10
ANTHONY PETROSKI: We
set the vase of flowers with our Pennsylvania
State police patch next to her headstone.
00:39:16
And we had a moment
there with the family. And it was-- it was-- a it
was a very surreal feeling,
00:39:21
it really was. And my part in this
was very minor. I was proud to be
there with that family,
00:39:26
knowing that the
department that I worked for, the Pennsylvania State
police were able to give
00:39:32
this family closure. MARK BARON: We have a
close bond and a friendship that's-- that's grown
out of this tragedy.
00:39:39
If there's any positive thing
that could be gleaned from, you know, this type
of an investigation
00:39:45
is that, you know, like I've
been able to form friendships with the Chiverella family.
00:39:51
NANCY GRACE: Without the
groundbreaking science of investigative
genetic genealogy,
00:39:56
a case nearly 60 years old
would never have been solved. RON CHIVERELLA: It seems to be
expanding across the country.
00:40:05
And that's a wonderful gateway
for so many individuals like my family to get more
answers to what really
00:40:12
happened to their loved ones. Solving the tragic murder
case of Marise Chiverella,
00:40:20
just nine years
old, is incredible. It's about the
success of the science of investigative
genetic genealogy.
00:40:29
And it's about
thousands of hours of determined detective work. But still, there's more
to the story than that.
00:40:39
It's also about the contribution
of a remarkable teenage boy who achieves the extraordinary,
providing answers
00:40:48
to a long-grieving
family, answers they waited to hear almost 60 years. I'm Nancy Grace.
00:40:58
Thank you for being with us
here on "Bloodline Detectives." [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] [THEME MUSIC]