Murder in Old Forge, Pennsylvania

The Tragic Death of the Ziemba Children

Brian W. Kincaid

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2025
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781467173223
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

On July 26, 1981, eight-year-old Cheryl Ziemba and her four-year-old brother, Christopher, disappeared from their backyard in Old Forge, Pennsylvania. Within hours, hundreds of neighbors, police and firefighters were engaged in a frantic search, praying that they were not a town "snakebitten," or cursed to misfortune. Two days later, all hope was lost when firefighters discovered the bodies of the children in an abandoned strip-mining pit. Pennsylvania State Police arrested their fifteen-year-old neighbor, Joey Aulisio, who was tried as an adult and sentenced to death by electric chair. Forty-three years later, Joey Aulisio still sits in prison. Author Brian W. Kincaid presents a definitive account of one of the most infamous crimes and sensational trials in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• A Summer Afternoon
• Stench
• A Summer Sunday Afternoon
• The Mountain
• Frantic
• Searchers
• State Troopers
• The District Attorney
• Investigative Team
• Press Conference
• Tuesday Morning
• Suffer Little Children
• The Raid
• The Interrogation
• A Town Snakebitten
• Criminal Procedure
• The Escape Attempt and the Preliminary Hearing
• Facing the Death Penalty
• Scranton
• The Trial, Day Three: Diane Ziemba Testifies
• The Trial, Day Four: A Professional Crier?
• The Trial, Week Two
• The Eyewitnesses
• Bob Aulisio Testifies for the Prosecution
• The Last Monday of May
• The Defense, Second Day
• The Closing Statements
• The Verdicts
• Aftermath
• Resentencing
• Sources
• About the Author