Marise Anne Chiveralla was murdered on her way to school 58 years ago. Now the police know who did it.

For nearly 58 years, the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in Pennsylvania while walking to school eluded investigators. But on Thursday, authorities announced they had finally caught her killer.

A principal investigator on the 1964 case Corporal Mark Baron revealed on Thursday that James Paul Forte, who died in May 1980, murdered Marise Anne Chiverella, kidnapping her while she was on her way to school. Forte should have been 22 years old when he committed the crime.

“We’re always told not to get involved in a case, but you just can’t help but do it,” Barron said at Thursday’s press conference, follow Express-Times. “It is a vivid memory for everyone who lived through this and it is a vivid memory for everyone who grew up in this area. You have been told by grandparents, parents, an aunt, an uncle — this is the story of Marise. What happened to her has ushered in a change in this community.”

Forte’s body was exhumed in January and his DNA was found to match the DNA on the girl’s coat on February 3 — years after her body was discovered beaten. and strangled in a band of mines, Baron said.

“This is the fourth oldest cold case in the nation solved with this technology, it is the oldest case in the state,” he said, according to WBRE, touting the discovery of matching DNA. “What happened to her has ushered in a change in this community, whether you like it or not. This is a day the family has been waiting for for almost 58 years.”

On March 18, 1964, at about 8:10 a.m., Chiverella was dropping off canned goods at a local church in Luzerne County on her way to school, but never made it to class, The Express-Times reported.

Pennsylvania authorities said the girl’s body was found later the same day as canned goods she was believed to be carrying scattered about 2 miles away. For decades, no arrests were made.

According to Trooper Anthony Petroski, investigators eventually turned to DNA evidence as technology evolved in hopes of finding a sample from the suspect’s DNA profile that matched the new entries.

In one New information posted Third, he said that state police used DNA evidence to find a suspect and checked the suspect’s DNA profile for new entries in the national database from 2007 – but in For 15 years, they found no match.

Eric Schubert, a genealogist on the case, says he’s been working on finding genetic links in matching DNA for two years.

“Initially, the DNA match had 53 centimorgans or genetic linkages, which didn’t do much,” says Schubert. “But after a year we were up to 200 and after two years we were up to almost 1,200 centimorgans that you would share with an uncle or cousin.”

Luzerne County District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce said he regrets that Forte, who is presumed to have died of natural causes at age 38, will not be prosecuted.

According to WBRE, “The dedication to this case is what solved it.” “Our greatest regret is that we were unable to prosecute this individual,” he added, claiming that Chiverella’s killer would “see vengeance.”