Murder of Joseph Augustus Zarelli

Joseph Augustus Zarelli (January 13, 1953 – February 1957), previously known as the "Boy in the Box", "Boy in a Box" or "America's Unknown Child", was an American 4-year-old male whose nude, malnourished, beaten body was found on the side of Susquehanna Road, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 25, 1957.

Joseph appeared to have been cleaned and freshly groomed, with a recent haircut and trimmed fingernails, although he had suffered extensive physical attacks prior to his death, with multiple bruises on his body.

He was also severely malnourished.

His body was covered with scars, some of which were surgical (most notably on his ankle, groin and chin).

Authorities believe that the cause of death was homicide by blunt force trauma.

Despite the publicity and sporadic interest throughout the years, the boy's identity remained unknown for over half a century.

On November 30, 2022, the Philadelphia Police Department announced that detectives had determined the boy's identity using DNA and genealogical databases.

On December 8, 2022, more than 65 years after his body was found, he was publicly identified.

Despite the identification, the exact circumstances leading to his death are uncertain and the case is still considered an open homicide investigation.

On February 25, 1957, Zarelli's body, wrapped in a plaid blanket, was found in the woods off Susquehanna Road in the Fox Chase neighborhood of Philadelphia.

The body was discovered by a young man who was checking his rabbit traps.

Fearing that the police would confiscate his traps, he did not report what he had found.

A few days later, a college student spotted a rabbit running into the underbrush.

Knowing that there were animal traps in the area, he stopped his car to investigate and discovered the body.

He was also reluctant to have any contact with the police, but he did report what he had found the following day, after hearing of the disappearance of Mary Jane Barker.

The naked body was inside a cardboard box that had once contained a bassinet of the kind sold by J. C. Penney.

Zarelli's hair had been recently cropped, possibly after death, as clumps of hair clung to the body.

There were signs of severe malnourishment, as well as surgical scars on the ankle and groin, and an L-shaped scar under the chin.

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.

The case attracted considerable media attention in Philadelphia and 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.

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.

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.

In 1960, Remington Bristow, an employee of the medical examiner's office who doggedly pursued the case until his death in 1993, contacted a New Jersey psychic, who told him to look for a house that matched the foster home.

In 1998, his body was exhumed for the purpose of extracting DNA, which was obtained from a tooth.

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.

The body was then exhumed yet again in 2019 to retrieve additional DNA samples.

The child was an unidentified murder victim for decades.

However, on November 30, 2022, the Philadelphia Police Department announced that they had identified the child through the use of genetic testing and investigative genetic genealogy, and that they would provide a case update in the following week.

Sources stated that he was the child of a prominent family in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

Authorities said that an investigation would use the new information to continue the search for suspects.

On December 8, 2022, the child was publicly identified as 4-year-old Joseph Augustus Zarelli, born on January 13, 1953.

Genealogists had uncovered his name more than a year earlier, in October 2021.

On January 19, 2023, the names of Zarelli's parents were reported.

Investigators were finally able to identify him after a cousin uploaded DNA to a public database.

Investigators subsequently encouraged that person's mother (a first cousin of Zarelli) to submit a genetic profile to GEDmatch, which she did, allowing investigators to identify his parents.

A court order for the child's birth certificate was then made, which revealed the child's name and his parents' names (subsequently verified by DNA).

This theory concerns a foster home that was located approximately 1.5 miles (2.5 km) from the site of the body.