The Boy in the Box

Investigation- The police received the report and opened an investigation on February 26, 1957. The dead boy's fingerprints were taken, and police at first were optimistic that he would soon be identified. However, no one ever came forward with any useful information.[8]

The case attracted considerable media attention in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley. The Philadelphia Inquirer printed 400,000 flyers depicting the boy's likeness, which were sent out and posted across the area, and were included with every gas bill in Philadelphia.[12] The crime scene was combed over and over again by 270 police academy recruits, who discovered a man's blue corduroy cap, a child's scarf, and a man's white handkerchief with the letter "G" in the corner; all clues that led nowhere.[12][13] The police also distributed a post-mortem photograph of the boy fully dressed and in a seated position, as he may have looked in life, in the hope it might lead to a clue.[12]

In 1998, his body was exhumed for the purpose of extracting DNA, which was obtained from a tooth.[14] On March 21, 2016, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released a forensic facial reconstruction of the victim and added him into their database.[15] The body was then exhumed yet again in 2019 to retrieve additional DNA samples.[5]

My Story- The Boy in the Box: A Tragic True Story

On February 25th, 1957, a woman walking her dog in the Fox Chase neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania stumbled upon a cardboard box sitting off to the side of the street, partially hidden in a clump of weeds. As she approached the box, she was horrified to discover that it held the body of what appeared to be a four-year-old boy. She immediately reported the grisly find to the police.

When police investigated the scene, they quickly determined that the boy had most likely been dead for several days, possibly up to a week. He was discovered lying face up wearing nothing but a plaid button-down shirt, a pair of sneakers, and a soiled diaper, his ankles bound together with a pair of women's stockings. An autopsy concluded that he had likely been beaten and strangled to death. Initially, authorities speculated that the boy might have been the victim of a kidnapping gone wrong; however, this theory was quickly debunked by the fact that he was found in a box and bound in such a manner suggested that he might have been a victim of human trafficking.

The boy's identity remained a mystery until two years after his discovery. In 1959, a former neighbor of the deceased family contacted the police, claiming to have information on the identity of the dead boy. He told authorities that he had lived next door to a family living on South 30th Street, who had a four-year-old son, who went by the name of Jonathan. No one had been seen at the residence for a few weeks, and the neighbor believed that Jonathan was likely the dead boy in the box.

After confirming the neighbor's family belonged to the family that lived next door, an officer from the Philadelphia Police Department went to the address in an attempt to locate Jonathan’s parents. Upon arriving, he noticed the residence had been abandoned. After searching the residence, the officers found a notebook that belonged to the boy, which contained a note that stated the family had moved away and taken Jonathan with them.

Then, on April 29th, 1959, national media outlets reported that the parents of Jonathan, who had been reported missing by Philadelphia Police two years prior, had been located and arrested in Chicago, Illinois. It was discovered that they were members of a cult organization called the Children of God who were an insular religious group based out of Arizona. The police also learned that the cult had forced Jonathan’s parents to give their son away as part of a ritual sacrifice in order to bring them closer to God.

It seemed like after the arrest of Jonathan’s parents, the case was solved and the Boy in the Box was finally at peace, but this case would come back to haunt Philadelphia for decades to come. In 2002, a man named Edward Moore confessed to the murder of Jonathan, claiming that he had acted on orders from a sect of the Children of God. He pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to life in prison in 2003.

The Boy in the Box’s identity and the horrific events that befell him will never be forgotten. His death, and the search for the people responsible for it, became the spark that ignited an investigation which uncovered the sinister activities of a cult organization that had been operating out of the eastern United States. The Boy in the Box’s death serves as a grim reminder of the power of justice and the darkness that lurks in the shadows of our society. Jonathan’s parents were never charged with his murder, but at least his story was told, and his memory honored.