Mysterious ‘boy in the box’ cold case murder gets vital clue – and restores child’s dignity
Nearly seven decades after the battered body of a young boy was found stuffed inside a cardboard box, US police have revealed his identity.
Joseph Augustus Zarelli was the victim of one of Philadelphia’s most notorious cold cases.
The child’s naked, badly bruised body was found on 25 February 1957, in a wooded area of Philadelphia’s Fox Chase neighbourhood.
Now police have finally discovered his identity, and they hope it will bring them one step closer to finding the boy’s killer and give the victim – known to generations of Philadelphians as the “Boy in the Box” – a measure of dignity.
“When people think about the boy in the box, a profound sadness is felt, not just because a child was murdered, but because his entire identity and his rightful claim to own his existence was taken away,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a news conference.
She said the city’s oldest unsolved homicide has “haunted this community, the Philadelphia police department, our nation, and the world” for almost 66 years.
The homicide investigation remains open, and authorities said they hoped publicising Joseph’s name would spur a fresh round of leads.
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Commissioner Danielle Outlaw says the 66-year-old case, has moved forward because of ‘doggedness’ of those investigating.
Police said both of Joseph’s parents are dead, but that he has living siblings.
When the boy was discovered, he was four years old, and had been wrapped in a blanket and placed inside a large box.
Police say he was malnourished and had been beaten to death.
The boy’s photo was put on a poster which was hung all over the city as police worked to identify him and catch his killer.
The leads, the clues and the dead ends
Detectives pursued and discarded hundreds of leads – that he was a Hungarian refugee, a boy who’d been kidnapped outside a Long Island supermarket in 1955, a variety of other missing children.
They investigated a pair of travelling carnival workers and a family who operated a nearby foster home, but ruled them out as suspects.
An Ohio woman claimed her mother bought the boy from his birth parents in 1954, kept him in the basement of their suburban Philadelphia home, and killed him in a fit of rage.
Authorities found her credible but couldn’t corroborate her story – another dead end.
Generations of police took up the case.
Exhumation
They got permission to exhume his body for DNA testing in 1998 and again in 2019, and it was that latest round of testing, combined with genetic genealogy, that gave police their big break.
Dr Colleen Fitzpatrick, president of Identifinders International, a company that uses forensic genetic genealogy to help law enforcement investigate cold cases, said the victim’s DNA was so degraded that it took two-and-a-half years of work to be able to extract enough data to perform the genealogy.
The test results were uploaded to DNA databases, leading to a match on the child’s maternal side.
Authorities obtained a court order for vital records of any children born to the woman they suspected was Joseph’s mother between 1944 and 1956, and found Joseph’s birth certificate, which also listed the name of his father.
Headstone will finally have a name
Originally buried in a pauper’s grave, the boy’s remains now lie just inside the front gate at Ivy Hill Cemetery, under a weeping cherry tree, and a headstone designates him as “America’s Unknown Child”.
Services have been held there each year on the anniversary of the boy’s discovery inside the box.
People often leave flowers and, this time of year, Christmas decorations and toys.
“The boy has always been special to all of us, because we don’t know who it is,” Dave Drysdale, the cemetery’s secretary-treasurer, said.
Now they do. And now that he has a name – his real name – it will be etched on the stone.
Former US president Joe Biden has prostate cancer, his office has said.
The statement said Mr Biden, who left the White House in January, is reviewing options for treatment with his physicians.
It read: “Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms.
“On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterised by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.
“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management.
“The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians.”
File pic: Reuters
According to Cancer Research UK, a Gleason score of 9 means the cancerous cells “look very abnormal” and the disease is “likely to grow quickly”.
A source familiar with Mr Biden and his family’s thinking has told Sky’s US partner network, NBC News, that the former president is considering “multiple treatment options” – including hormone treatment for the cancer.
They added he is at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and that as of now, it is unclear where the former president will be treated.
Mr Biden, 82, was the oldest person to ever serve as president, with concerns about his health raised regularly during his campaign for re-election last year.
After a poor debate against Donald Trump in June, he withdrew from the 2024 election and endorsed his vice president Kamala Harris.
In February 2023, he had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer.
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A Mexican navy ship has hit the Brooklyn Bridge during a promotional tour in New York City.
The New York Fire Department said authorities were responding to injuries but had no details about how many people might have been hurt or whether they were on the vessel or on the bridge.
Sky’s US partner network NBC News reports that at least three people were seriously injured in the incident.
The Mexican navy said in a post on X that the Cuauhtemoc, an academy training vessel, was damaged in the accident, which has prevented it from continuing its voyage.
Eyewitness video of the collision posted online showed the mast of the ship, which was flying a large Mexican flag, scraping the underneath of the bridge.
Pic: AP
The vessel then drifted toward the edge of the river as onlookers scrambled away from shore.
The Mexican navy said the status of personnel and material was under review by naval and local authorities, which were providing assistance.
The Cuauhtemoc is about 297ft long and 40ft wide, according to the Mexican navy. It sailed for the first time in 1982.
Pic: AP
Each year, it sets out at the end of classes at the naval military school to finish cadets’ training.
It left the Mexican port of Acapulco, on the Pacific coast, on 6 April with 277 people onboard, the navy said at the time.
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One person has died in a bomb explosion near a reproductive health clinic in California, authorities have said.
The incident took place in Palm Springs, a city two hours east of Los Angeles, and is being investigated as a possible car explosion.
The city’s mayor Ron DeHarte said one person died in the blast, adding that the bomb was “either in or near” a vehicle. The deceased’s identity is not known, Palm Springs police said.
Dr Maher Abdallah, who runs the American Reproductive Centers clinic, told the Associated Press his facility was damaged but all staff were safe and accounted for.
The explosion damaged the office space where the practice conducts patient consultations, but the IVF lab and stored embryos were unharmed, he added.
“I really have no clue what happened,” he said. “Thank God today happened to be a day that we have no patients.”
Debris covers the ground after the explosion. Pic: ABC7 Los Angeles/AP
In a statement posted on Facebook the clinic said it was “heartbroken” to learn someone died in the explosion and added: “Our deepest condolences go out to the individuals and families affected.”
It continued: “Our mission has always been to help build families, and in times like these, we are reminded of just how fragile and precious life is.
“In the face of this tragedy, we remain committed to creating hope – because we believe that healing begins with community, compassion, and care.
The clinic will be fully operational on Monday, it added.
“This moment has shaken us – but it has not stopped us. We will continue to serve with strength, love, and the hope that brings new life into the world,” the statement concluded.
Pic: ABC7 Los Angeles/AP
The Palm Springs city government said in a post on Facebook that the explosion happened on North Indian Canyon Drive, near East Tachevah Drive, before 11am local time (6pm GMT).
A burned-out car can be seen in a parking lot behind the building in aerial footage.
The blast caved in the clinic’s roof and blew debris across four lanes of the road.
Another person said he was inside a cannabis dispensary nearby when he felt a massive explosion.
Nima Tabrizi said: “The building just shook, and we go outside and there’s massive cloud smoke.”
Investigators from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are travelling to the scene to help assess what happened.
California governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the explosion, his press office said.
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