A police sketch of the child who would become known as "the boy in the box".
A police sketch of the child who would become known as "the boy in the box".
On a cold day in February 1957, a college student found a boy’s body inside a cardboard box in a wooded area of northeast Philadelphia.
The student waited a day to call police, who immediately went to work to figure out who the boy was, who had killed him andhow his body had ended up in a box. It was a mystery that would endure for decades.
The boy, then believed to be between 4 and 6 years old, had been beaten to death, an autopsy later revealed. But clues were scant, and copious efforts over decades to solve the crime proved futile. The unknown victim became known as “the boy in the box”. Others called him, more gently, “America’s unknown child”.
His name is now known: Joseph Augustus Zarelli. Born on January 13, 1953, he was 4 when he died, Philadelphia police officials said on Thursday (Friday NZT) at a news conference in which they described a breakthrough using DNA and genetic genealogy techniques that have revolutionised cold-case work in recent years.
Captain Jason Smith said officers did not yet know who killed the boy or the circumstances of how he had died, and that investigations would continue.
Philadelphia Police Captain Jason Smith said officers did not yet know who killed the boy, and that investigations would continue. Photo / AP
“We have our suspicions as to who may be responsible, but it would be irresponsible of me to share these suspicions as this remains an active and ongoing criminal investigation,” Smith said.
The steps that ultimately led to Joseph’s identification began in April 2019, when a court granted investigators approval to exhume his body and apply modern DNA analysis. This helped them track down relatives, including his mother and father, who are now deceased, investigators said. He has living siblings, but police declined to release their names, in order to protect their privacy.
The genetic genealogy technique worked where the use of hair comparisons, footprints, X-rays and other methods had failed over the years. At the news conference, law enforcement officials also pledged to use the genetic genealogy techniques for other unidentified remains and unsolved cases in Philadelphia.
In an interview with The New York Times published in 2007, Elmer Palmer, the first officer to arrive at the scene on February 26, 1957, said he thought at the time that the case would be solved quickly. But many of the investigators who worked on the case over the years died themselves without seeing it solved, officials said on Thursday.
The boy was thought to have been dead for a few days, and was believed to be malnourished, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
He was unclothed and had been wrapped in a flannel blanket, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. His hair had recently been “cut in a way that suggested it was not the work of a skilled barber”, and his fingernails had been trimmed, according to the national system.
“It looked like a doll,” Palmer said in the interview with the Times. “Then I saw it wasn’t a doll.”
The child's grave in Philadelphia. Photo / AP
Because cold weather slows the decomposition of bodies, officials could not determine exactly how long the boy had been dead, and the few clues that police had at the time were fruitless.
The college student who waited a day to call the police was presumably frightened. He confided in a priest before calling authorities.
A man’s corduroy cap was found near the body’s body. The cap was traced to a local store. The store’s owner recognised a strap on the cap, and she recalled that a man with the cap came into her store by himself. But the man was never found.
Police also traced the box in which the boy was found to a different store nearby. The box, marked “Furniture, Fragile, Do not Open with Knife,” had originally contained a bassinet, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Despite the store’s cash-only policy, investigators were able to track down the buyer, but there was no link to the boy.
Police checked out orphanages and other childcare institutions, local doctors and hospitals. They placed pictures of the boy in newspapers and sent out photos with utility bills. Posters with his image were hung on storefronts.
Eventually, the clues about the boy’s killer ran out. But the theories about his identity persisted.
One theory was that he was a Hungarian refugee who came to the United States after the country’s revolution in 1956. Some believed he could have been the son of carnival workers who had several children die under strange circumstances. Others thought he was the son of a roofer who worked in the area.
But the theories did not pan out. Eventually, the boy’s body was buried, only to be exhumed to obtain DNA and reburied.
