The Boy In The Box

It was a cold morning on February 25, 1957, when a man came tromping through a dense wooded area in Fox Chase, Philadelphia. He was checking the rabbit traps he had set out earlier. It's there he came upon a box with a little boy wrapped in a plaid blanket inside, deceased. Fearing he would get his traps confiscated, he never reported his find. But a few days later, another man stopped his car and went into the wooded area after spotting a rabbit. He discovered the same box with the boy inside. At first, he didn't want to report it to the police but after hearing about the disappearance of another young child, he reluctantly called it in.

When officers arrived, they found the boy lying on his back in a J.C. Penny box that once held a bassinet. His hair had been recently chopped off with clumps still clinging to his body. He was malnourished, had surgical scars on one ankle and on his groin, and an L-shaped scar on his chin.

His body was taken to the coroner's office where an autopsy was conducted and fingerprints were taken. Everyone was hopeful for an identification but one never came through. Pictures of him were taken and published in flyers, yet nobody came and claimed him.

The crime scene didn't offer much of a lead as investigators only found a man's blue corduroy cap, a child's scarf, and a man's white handkerchief with the letter "G" embroidered in the corner.

In 1998, they exhumed his body for more DNA by taking a tooth. He was officially added to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with a forensic facial reconstruction on March 21, 2016. He was then exhumed one more time in 2019 for more DNA.

There were two theories floating around during the investigation. One was that he lived in a foster home that was only about 1.5 miles from the crime scene. According to a psychic who contacted an employee, Remington Bristow, of the medical examiner's office, they would find the foster home the boy once lived in. They actually found it and discovered a similar bassinet that J.C. Penny sold. Bristow even found blankets that were similar to the one the boy was wrapped in.

Bristow believed that the boy was born to an unwed mother and he was disposed of as to not expose her as such. However, investigators confirmed that was not the case.

In 2002, a woman who only identified herself as "Martha", came to investigators stating that the boy used to live with her family. She said her mom purchased the boy and was ultimately beaten to death and abandoned his body in a box outside of town. Her claims were dismissed after neighbors confirmed that the boy was not living there as well as "Martha" having a history of mental illness.

There was one more theory that they looked into and they wondered if the boy was raised as a girl and that's why no one could identify him. They based this theory on the unprofessional haircut and that his eyebrows were styled but it never held any weight.

The boy was buried in a potter's field before being reburied at Ivy Hill Cemetery in Cedarbrook, Philadelphia in 1998. His headstone read "America's Unknown Child".

For 65 years, the boy was unidentified and the murder remained unsolved.

Then on December 8, 2022, Philadelphia Police announced to the public that the Boy In The Box was identified as 4-year-old Joseph Augustus Zarelli, who was born on January 13, 1953. They were able to do this because his first cousin uploaded her DNA to a public database.

In January 2023, it was reported that his parents were Augustus John Zarelli and Mary Elizabeth Plunkett, both deceased. Joseph does have living half siblings and I'm wondering if they know something about what had happened.

Joseph's death is still an active homicide investigation as of today but we are in the right direction now that we have a name to the face.

65 years as a John Doe and now we know who this little boy is. He did not deserve what had happened to him and I'm really curious as to what the police can uncover.

I have no theories of my own. There's just not enough out there to really speculate what could have happened as much as I want to fill the holes in. Is this a random attack by an unknown person? Did the parents do it? Or will we never figure it out?