They Vanished While Playing Outside. 2 Days Later, They Were Found Shot to Death

On July 26, 1981, 8-year-old Cheryl Ziemba and her 4-year-old brother, Christopher, vanished from their home in northeastern Pennsylvania. They were last seen playing outside near a trailer park in their neighborhood.

Their disappearance kicked off a massive manhunt, with volunteers, police, firefighters and search dogs scouring the borough of Old Forge for the siblings. When they found three blood-covered children’s sandals, they began to assume the worst.

Their bodies were found two days later at an abandoned strip mine. Both children had been shot to death by a 12-gauge shotgun fired at close range—Cheryl in the head, Christopher in the chest. The discovery sent shock waves through the small community, as investigators turned their attention from the search for the missing children to finding whoever was responsible for their deaths.

During their investigation, police homed in on a blood-stained blue rug found during the search for the Ziemba children. They traced the rug to Joseph “Joey” Aulisio, a 15-year-old boy who lived near the Ziemba family. 

Aulisio, whose parents were divorced, lived with his older brother and father, who was in the process of constructing a home. In the meantime, the three were living in a trailer on the property. Investigators believed Aulisio brought Cheryl and Christopher to the partially built dwelling, where he shot them, wrapped their bodies in the rug and transported them to the abandoned strip mine. Then, investigators alleged, once news spread that the children were missing, Aulisio joined the search to find them. 

Prosecutors initially charged Aulisio as an adult with two counts each of first-, second- and third-degree murder, voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping and hindering apprehension or prosecution. Investigators never found the shotgun used to kill the Ziemba children, but they did collect more than 150 pieces of physical evidence to present at Aulisio’s May 1982 trial.

“We intend to strip the innocence of the defendant fiber by fiber, hair by hair, pellet by pellet, witness by witness, physical evidence by physical evidence, photo by photo, eyewitness by eyewitness, circumstantial evidence by circumstantial evidence, drop of blood by drop of blood,” Lackawanna County District Attorney Ernest Preate Jr. said during his opening statement.

At the end of the 16-day trial, jurors deliberated for just two-and-a-half hours before finding Aulisio guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of kidnapping. Jurors found Aulisio not guilty of hindering apprehension or prosecution, and they disregarded the second- and third-degree murder charges, as well as the voluntary and involuntary manslaughter charges. 

Though jurors had the option to give him life in prison, they ultimately sentenced Aulisio to death. He was the first person sentenced to death in Lackawanna County in 29 years, and the youngest person ever to face the death penalty there.

“It may sound kind of harsh and unfeeling,” one juror told The New York Times, “but when he took the lives of those two kids he forfeited his right to live.”

Judge James J. Walsh echoed that sentiment, telling the Times that Aulisio’s death sentence marked “a reflection of the mood of the country.” 

“We’re reading more and more about vicious crimes by younger and younger people,” he added. “Incidents like that are causing a lot of people to say that if they are guilty of adult criminal activity they should be subject to adult punishment.”

Whether juveniles should be tried and punished as adults is one of the “longest and most serious debates” in the American criminal justice system, according to Scott Monroe, a criminal defense lawyer in Jacksonville, Fla.

Often, juvenile offenders are charged as adults when the alleged offense is considered "compellingly serious," he tells A&E Crime + Investigation, such as homicide, rape, aggravated assault or armed robbery. Charging them as adults not only reflects the severity of the alleged offense but also serves as a deterrent to other individuals.

“The argument for trying juveniles as adults in this case is that when someone—anyone—commits our society’s most serious offenses, they should not benefit from leniency merely because of their age,” he says. 

The most common argument against trying juveniles as adults is that their brains are not fully developed, Monroe notes. This means juveniles are “more susceptible to impulses they aren’t able to control and the influence of others, including their peers and adults,” he says. “Because a juvenile is still physically and mentally developing, the argument goes, they shouldn’t be tried as adults because their biology and life experience haven’t yet equipped them to avoid committing a crime.”

Additionally, many juveniles who commit serious crimes have experienced significant trauma or hardship during childhood, have very little stability at home or are desperately looking for acceptance and belonging, Beth Sanborn, school safety coordinator for Montgomery County and president of the nonprofit Pennsylvania Association of School Resource Officers, tells A&E Crime + Investigation.

That doesn’t mean the criminal justice system should excuse serious or violent behavior, she says, but it should consider the circumstances that shaped the juvenile's behavior and the potential for rehabilitation. 

“We need to understand the ‘why’ behind the behavior,” she says. “Why did this young person become involved? What vulnerabilities were exploited? What was missing in their life? And, most importantly, what can we put in place to discourage repeat behavior and set that juvenile up for eventual success?”

Five years after Aulisio was sentenced to be executed, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed his kidnapping convictions and vacated the death sentence. In July 1987, at the age of 21, was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. He made numerous appeals afterward, but none were successful. 

In 2019, he was resentenced for killing Cheryl and Christopher after a pair of U.S. Supreme Court decisions required courts to consider a juvenile offender’s age and other mitigating factors before imposing life without parole. Judge Vito Geroulo sentenced Aulisio to two consecutive 30-year sentences with the possibility of parole.

"I think I’d be happier if he were sentenced to life without parole, but our Supreme Court thinks differently, but I do believe Judge Geroulo's sentence would provide that protection to the community,” Lackawanna County District Attorney Mark Powell told WNEP.

During the 2019 resentencing hearing, Aulisio admitted to killing the Ziemba siblings. But in 2022, he reversed course, claiming he’d been coerced into giving a fake confession and that the children's mother had given false testimony at his 1987 trial. He sought to have his conviction vacated, but a federal judge dismissed his petition a year later.

More than four decades later, Aulisio remains behind bars—and the Ziemba murders are still one of the most notorious crimes in Lackawanna County history. The case continues to cast a long shadow over the community, where many residents still remember the tragedy. It also received renewed attention with the release of Murder in Old Forge, Pennsylvania: The Tragic Death of the Ziemba Children, a 2025 book by Brian Kincaid that revisits the killings and their lasting impact on the region.

“These two children had barely started their lives, but they were part of our community, as were their families,” Lackawanna Historical Society Director Mary Ann Moran-Savakinus told WVIA News in February 2026. “And it’s important to talk about them and remember them.”