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I-Team Cold Case: 9-Year-Old Raped & Murdered

I-Team Cold Case: 9-Year-Old Raped & Murdered - Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 10:45PM EST

Reported by: Andy Mehalshick
Saturday, Feb 20, 2010 @ 10:45pm EST
HAZLETON, LUZERNE COUNTY -- A Luzerne County family seeks justice and peace of mind 46 years after the brutal kidnapping, rape and murder of their little girl.

9-year-old Marise Chiverella of Hazleton left for school and never came home. That was 1964. Now, there's hope that after all this time an arrest is possible.

The family of Marise Chiverella says they think about their daughter every day. She is always in their mind. But they have never had "peace of mind." But state police investigators say, despite the passage of 4 and a half decades, this cold case can be solved!

The headlines in the Hazleton Standard Speaker stunned the people of the Mountain City. 9-year-old Marise Chiverella was murdered, her bound and gagged body found dumped in a stripping pit. She had been raped and strangled.

The nightmare began just after 8:00 A. M. on March 18, 1964. It was a very cold morning. Marise left her alter street home for the short 5 block walk to her school, St. Joseph's Catholic Elementary School on North Laurel Street.

As Marise walked along Fourth Street, she disappeared. Later that day she was found dead in a stripping pit near Route 309, about 2 miles from where she was kidnapped.

State Trooper Louis Rossi is leading the investigation. "It's a possibility that it was someone that knew her or someone that she would have respected, in a position of authority, or someone that was disguised as a person in a position of authority."

Investigators are taking a look at a possible connection between the Chiverella murder and that of another young girl. The night before Chiverella was killed, a basketball game was held at St. Joseph's School against a team from Bristol, near Philadelphia. Nearly a year to the date of the Chiverella murder, another young girl was murdered in Bristol.

"We are re-examining possible leads that the two cases may have a connection. There's quite a bit of overlapping investigators work that occurred at the time of this incident," said Rossi.

And the trooper insists the passage of 46 years, while a challenge, can be overcome. "We are always open for people to come forward that would have a little bit of information about the case that maybe they thought was nothing special or it was trivial at the time and it may actually help us go in right direction to find suspect that is responsible for this."

Carl Christopher is Managing Editor of the Hazleton Standard-Speaker. The crime has been well documented and investigated by its reporters. He says that crime changed the city forever.

"Parents were petrified. I remember the nuns and the parents keeping a close eye on their kids and really worried, it really changed the way people thought about Hazleton. It wasn't necessarily the safe community they always thought they were living in," said Christopher.

And there was a witness to the dumping of Chiverella's body in that stripping pit. But that young man was mentally challenged, and was several hundred yards away. He thought the person was dumping a mannequin into that pit.

If you have any information call State Police in Hazleton.
 


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