Cpl. Robert Daniel Corriveau, USMC

December 1, 1947 ~ November 18, 1968

Robert Daniel Corriveau died on Monday, November 18, 1968.  He was 20 years old.  Robert was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts on December 1, 1947.  He was the son of the late Phillip G. Corriveau and Kathleen Hannagan Corriveau.

Robert attended Mt. St. Charles Academy and Central Catholic High School.  He graduated in 1965.  Robert excelled in sports.  He attended St. Mary's Church in Lawrence, where he was baptized. 

He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on April 1, 1965.  After boot camp and field combat training, Robert was deployed to Vietnam, where he was wounded in three separate instances.  He was awarded the Purple Heart and the Marine Corps Service Commendation Medal.  Robert was a featherweight boxer while he was in the Corps.

He is the beloved son of Kathleen Hannagan Corriveau West; brother of Virginia Cleary and her husband Michael, Thomas Corriveau and the late Paul Corriveau.  Also survived by many aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins.

At the request of the family, the funeral services and burial of Cpl. Corriveau with full USMC military honors will be private.

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On Monday, September 17, 2012, a Chester County Judge ordered that the remains of Robert Daniel Corriveau be released to his family by the Chester County Coroner.  He will be exhumed from Longwood Cemetery in Kennett Square and re-interred with full military honors in their family burial plot in St. Mary’s Cemetery, located in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

On November 18, 1968, a Pennsylvania State Trooper, while on routine turnpike patrol spotted a man in a seated position alongside the highway about a mile east of the Downingtown interchange.  The trooper stopped to check on the man and found that he was deceased.  He carried no identification.  An autopsy determined that the young man had been stabbed once through the heart.

He remained unidentified for 44 years.  Through the tireless efforts of his mother, Kathleen Hannagan Corriveau West, his sister, Virginia Cleary, the United States Marine Corps, NCIS, Pennsylvania Medical Examiner, Chester County Coroner and the Pennsylvania State Police Cold Case Unit, the young man was positively identified by DNA on May 31, 2012 as Cpl.  Robert Daniel Corriveau, USMC.  Cpl. Corriveau, just shy of his 21st birthday, was an active duty Marine who had been wounded in action on three separate occasions in Vietnam in 1967.  At the time of his disappearance, Cpl. Corriveau was a patient at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital recovering from his wounds.  He was reported missing on November 18, 1968, the same day he was found.

 Service Information