Solved cold cases in Pennsylvania
4 documented cases.
Christine "Christy" Mirack
Christy Mirack, a 25-year-old sixth-grade teacher, was raped, beaten, and strangled in her East Lampeter Township, Pennsylvania home and found on December 21, 1992. The case went cold for 26 years until investigative genetic genealogy identified local DJ Raymond Charles Rowe, who pleaded guilty in 2019 and is serving life without parole.
Elizabeth 'Betty' Wolsieffer
Elizabeth 'Betty' Wolsieffer, 32, was found strangled in the bedroom of her Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania home on the morning of August 30, 1986, while her husband, dentist E. Glen Wolsieffer, lay injured downstairs claiming an intruder had broken in, killed Betty, and choked him unconscious. The case stalled for years until investigators methodically dismantled the intruder story by re-examining the physical evidence: a backwards ladder that left no marks in the ground, a window screen cut from the inside, blue denim fibers under Betty's fingernails consistent with the outfit Glen had worn that night, his own hairs torn out by the roots on the bed, and strangulation marks on Glen that were inconsistent with his account. Glen was arrested in 1989, convicted of third-degree murder by a jury in November 1990, and sentenced to eight to twenty years. He admitted responsibility before being paroled in 2005.
Marise Ann Chiverella
On March 18, 1964, nine-year-old Marise Ann Chiverella was abducted, sexually assaulted, and strangled while walking to her Catholic school in Hazleton, Pennsylvania; her body was found that afternoon in an abandoned strip-mine pit. The case stayed cold for nearly 58 years until investigative genetic genealogy identified James Paul Forte, a local bartender who died in 1980, as her killer. Because Forte was long deceased, he was never charged or tried; the case was closed by official identification.
Maryann Bagenstose
Maryann Bagenstose, a 25-year-old nurse's aide, vanished on June 5, 1984 from the home she shared with her 2-year-old son on West Willow Road in Pequea Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, while separated from her husband Jere Bagenstose. Her body was never found. During the original 1984 investigation, police discovered a crumpled note inside a wooden nail keg in the living room reading 'Had to run a quick errand, be right back,' which Jere claimed Maryann had written before walking to a nearby convenience store. Days into the search, officers found a piece of cardboard covering freshly dug earth in the garage; a search warrant revealed a grave-shaped hole roughly 3 feet by 6 feet and about 5 feet deep, but no body. No charges were filed for decades. The Pennsylvania State Police reopened the case in the late 2010s and focused on the note. Investigators gathered samples of Jere Bagenstose's handwriting, including items seized in a September 20, 2022 search warrant, and the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Forensic Services compared them to the 1984 note, concluding the note recovered in 1984 had been written by Jere Bagenstose, not by Maryann. He was charged with criminal homicide on December 22, 2022. On April 8, 2025, a Lancaster County jury convicted him of voluntary manslaughter while acquitting him of first- and third-degree murder, in only the second no-body homicide ever tried in the county. He was sentenced on June 17, 2025 to four to ten years in prison. District Attorney Heather Adams stated plainly that the case was not solved with DNA, but through decades of investigative work culminating in the handwriting analysis of the planted note.