Rape and murder cases come to the fore every day. In most cases, the police and the law bring the guilty criminals to jail bars or to the gallows. But, there are many cases which remain unresolved year after year. And then one day like a miracle happens and the decades-long case gets solved. One such case has come to light from Pennsylvania, USA.
On 18 March 1964, a 9-year-old girl leaves home for school with a gift for her teacher. A few hours later his body is found in the pit. In the initial investigation itself, it becomes clear that the girl has been brutally murdered after the rape. Then the investigation begins. Do not know how many investigation officers retire, many are no longer even in this world. But the mystery of the matter is not solved.
After nearly 60 years, the case is now resolved. The scoundrel has come to the fore, but…? Let us understand the whole story sequentially and in depth.
58 Year Old Painful Story
A city in Pennsylvania, named Hazleton. One morning on 18 March 1964. 9-year-old Maris Shiverella leaves the house at around 8 in the morning with a gift for her teacher. A few hours later, at around one o’clock in the afternoon, his body is found in a pit some distance from the house. Police reaches the spot. The postmortem of the dead body takes place and it becomes clear that Maris was first raped and then brutally murdered.
Now the biggest question is, who is the person who is doing cruelty to this innocent person? Who is the one who carried out this crime? The police investigation begins and continues for 58 years, not one or two.
This picture of Marissa was released by the family. Her dream was to serve the people by becoming a nun.
In the press conference last week, the police said that
people may have forgotten Kalit’s name, even Marisa, but the police did not forget. Investigation officers kept coming and going, but the investigation continued. File not closed. Eventually this case was solved and the police held a big press conference last week and named the rapist and murderer in front of everyone.
All those police officers were present in this press conference, who were involved in the investigation of this case at some point or the other. The police opened the whole matter and told what happened, how it happened. Let’s go ahead…
Present and former police officers while giving a presentation during the press conference.
The first murderer – know the rapist, according to
the police – the name of the murderer and the rapist was James Paul Forte. Yes it was, is not. Because he had died of heart attack in 1980 itself. There were two more cases against him. One man assaulted and one woman misbehaved. He was 20 years old at the time of the incident.
Devon Brutowski, Chief of the Pennsylvania Police, says – ‘The police department in our state was created in 1905. Your allegation is correct that we have spent half the time of our history i.e. about 60 years in solving a case.
The name of the murderer and rapist was James Paul Forte. He had died of heart attack in 1980 itself.
The police continued to investigate till 2019,
in the pit where Maris’s body was found, while his jacket was also recovered. It had some marks on it. It was re-examined in 2007 and a DNA profile was prepared. But, no return match of this DNA was found. That is, it could not be matched with any criminal or suspect. The police did not give up and started scanning DNA data every month.
The police searched the records of all the accused and suspects of that period. Since then, all the forensic and investigation techniques have been taken, but the murderer has not been found. However, this exercise continued till 2019. The police even searched the 6th cousin in the DNA database. After this the case could be solved with the help of a student.
Geneological student Eric Hubert. It was because of them that the mystery of rape-murder could be solved.
The DNA set came in handy
The police investigation did not yield any results, when in 2019, a 20-year-old genetics student, Eric Hubert, came forward. He contacted the police and said that they wanted to help solve the case. Eric was 18 years old at that time.
He made a family tree of the people of that area and then prepared DNA sets. Police Chief says- ‘Eric found a name through family tree and DNA set. It was also matched with the fluid found in Marisa’s jacket and then it was discovered that the rapist and murderer is James Paul Forte. His record was with the police. Eric helped us solve not one but many cases.
After the case was solved, a relative of Marissa said- We wanted to know more than punishing the murderer, who was he? Our daughter wanted to be a nun since childhood. Why did this happen to him?
