HAZLETON, Pa. — After 57 years, genetic genealogy led authorities to James Forte. The man from Hazleton was just 22 years old when troopers say he kidnapped, raped, and murdered 9-year-old Marise Chiverella.
Forte died of natural causes in 1980.
While they cannot be certain, state troopers do not believe that Marise Chiverella was Forte's only victim.
Gina Donahue-Connors tells us she was about 9 or 10 years old when a man tried to kidnap her blocks away from where Marise Chiverella was abducted a few years earlier. After Thursday's announcement, Donahue-Connors says she was able to put a name to that face she's had in her mind for more than 50 years.
Donahue-Connors grew up walking up and down Alter Street in Hazleton in the same neighborhood 9-year-old Marise Chiverella called home.
Donahue-Connors was just a girl when she says on this corner of Third and Alter Streets, a man in a car stopped and offered her and a friend a ride.
"I used to tell my kid that's how much it affected me," Donahue-Connors said. "It doesn't sound scary, like, you know, maybe that does it probably does happen, but the only time it happened to be, so it stuck with me there all my life."
Donahue-Connors tells Newswatch 16 she was 4 years old at the time of Chiverella's murder, and she says it changed the tone of the city. Her parents didn't allow her to leave her front porch alone. But those rules got a little more relaxed about five years later.
"Because nothing came of it, the police didn't, there was nothing. So when they finally let us go out and start walking around, that's how I came upon him with my friend I was about 9 or 10 years old."
It was just a block from where the Chiverellas once owned a store.
"This corner right behind me here, and he pulled up a white car. I mean, my memory is just so vivid, and now that I saw his picture yesterday, that's, yeah."
Donahue-Connors believes it was the same man, James Forte, who kidnapped and murdered Marise Chiverella, who tried to get her to get in his car.
"He rolled down the window, and he said, 'Come on, we'll give you a ride. I will give you a ride.' And we said, 'No, we want to walk. That's OK.' And he wouldn't leave it. 'Come on. No, no, no, come on. We'll give you a ride.' So that was what my parents always said: just run. We went around the car and into this old A&P behind me. Got a clerk. I just remember being in there quite a while, I don't know. Did they call my mother? Did they call the police? So now that part I can't remember."
Donahue-Connors said when state police announced they had discovered Chiverella's murderer, it made her think about this encounter. Now that she's made the connection, it brings her closure but still makes her uneasy.
"I'm still shaking. I mean, even just thinking about it. And at that time, that's unusual for somebody to pull up like that because this was a quiet little town," Donahue-Connors said. "Nothing like that ever happened."
Gina tells us she really feels for families involved but did tell us it made her feel better by talking about it with us for that short amount of time this morning.
If you think you may have had an encounter with James Forte, contact state police.