The Mysterious Death Of The Boy In The Box

**"The Mysterious Death Of The Boy In The Box"** is a video made by Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej, uploaded onto YouTube on August 4, 2017. It was the second episode of the second season of *BuzzFeed Unsolved: True Crime*, and the thirty-first episode overall. You can find it here.

## Background

On February 25, 1957, the body of a boy was found in a box in an illegal dumping ground near Bury Road in Philadelphia. The boy was estimated to be around 4 to 6 years old, weighed 30 pounds, and stood 3 feet 3 inches. He was found naked, but wrapped in a
blanket. The boy's hair was cut and his body was recently washed. There were small scars in several places including his chin, groin, and, left ankle, some of which suggested he underwent a medical procedure. Head injuries were determined to be the cause of death and there were no witnesses.

The body was first found by a young man who was walking through the abandoned lot. Strangely, this man waited a full day before tipping off the police and even stranger, it turns out that a second man had previously found the boy's body but had not contacted the police because he claimed he did not want to get involved.

With the cold weather at the time of year, and the delayed phone call from the person who found the body, it wasn't possible to accurately estimate when the boy had passed away. In hopes of finding his identity, the police kept the boy at the morgue while visitors from over 10 different states tried to identify the boy by looking for any significant marks, to no avail. Police sent out 400 thousand fliers of images of the boy to police stations, post offices, and courthouses all over the country. Even the American Medical Association sent out a description of the boy, but it led nowhere. The police compared the child's footprints to hospital records in the area. Fingerprints were taken of the boy, but no record was found to prove the boy ever existed.

One promising clue came from the actual box itself. The box contained a serial number which allowed investigators to pinpoint the shipment, who were able to trace it back to a JC Penney store 15 miles away. Eerily, before the boy, the box was used to ship a bassinet. The store had shipped 12 of these boxes of bassinets. However, all of the purchasers paid in cash, leaving no record. Eight purchasers ended up contacting the police when they read about the story in newspapers to go on record that they either still had the boxes, or had put the boxes out for trash collection. Though, the police were able to determine that the box was shipped to Upper Darby, Pennsylvania.

The blanket was examined by the Philadelphia Textile Institute, which believed the blanket was made either in Granby, Quebec in Canada or Swannanoa, North Carolina. But there was no way to tell where this particular blanket was purchased since thousands were made and sold. Ultimately, the blanket lead was a dead end.

Another propitious clue was a hat found 15 feet near the box: a blue corduroy Ivy League style cap size 7 and 1/8. It was labeled Eagle hat and company and made by the small company owner Mrs. Hannah Robbins in South Philadelphia. Mrs. Robbins remembered the man who purchased the hat because she had customized it for him. The man who was described as blond between the ages 26 and 30, requested that a leather strap and buckle be added to the hat. He paid in cash and she never saw him again. Detectives visited over 100 stores within the area, but nobody recognized the hat nor the boy.

There was also strands of hair found on the boy's body, suggesting a hasty haircut and one forensic artist named Frank bender believes the boy was possibly raised as a girl. In fact, Bill Kelly, an original investigator of the case, recounts that in 1957 and 1958 a West Coast artist did circulate a rendition of the child as a girl, but it never produced any leads.

## Theories

* **The first theory comes from authors Lou Romano and Jim Hoffman, who came across a lead from a man in Philadelphia who said that his family once rented a place to a man who sold his son**, possibly the boy in the box.
	+ A forensic pathologist looked at photos of the boys potential father and possible brother and agreed that similarities would warrant further laboratory testing. He found similarities in the facial structure, the helix of the right ear, and the nose. A DNA sample was taken from the man they believed to be the brother. Oddly, investigators on Philadelphia police did not say whether they would test DNA to compare the potential brother to the DNA of the boy in the box. They only said they would "investigate further
* **The second theory comes from medical examiner Remington Bristow who investigated the case for over 36 years.** Bristow gathered newspaper clippings of the boy and spent thousands of dollars of his own money and countless hours trying to identify the boy. He traveled all the way to Arizona and Texas for leads. Bristow even consulted with a psychic who held staples from the bassinet box, hoping he or she could gather some clues. Bristow went even as far as carrying a mask of the boy's face in his briefcase.
	+ Bristow theorized that the boy died accidentally. His freshly cut hair and nails indicated that he was well taken care of, perhaps the boy's family never came forward because they did not want to be charged with murder. Based off of a psychic's clue, Bristol looked into a foster family that lived nearby where the boy was found. The foster family had already been interviewed by the police. At this foster family's 1961 estate sale, Bristol found a bassinet that he believed could have previously been stowed in the box the boy was founded.
	+ Bristow then began to theorize that the boy was an illegitimate child of the daughter of the foster family and was perhaps abandoned by the daughter so she would not be revealed as a single mother. Bristow would eventually pass away in 1993 but shortly after, Philadelphia detective Tom Augustine took up the case where Bristow left off. On February 23, 1998, detective Augustin went to the home of Arthur Nicoletti, the man who led the former foster care home. Nicoletti's wife, Anna Marie, was the woman Bristow theorized to be the mother of the boy in the box. In addition to being Nicoletti's wife, Anna Marie was also Nicoletti's stepdaughter.
	+ Anna Marie told Augustine that she did have a boy who passed away in bizarre fashion, with morgue records supporting her statement. His cause of death was electrocution from a nickel ride outside of a store, once again leading to a dead end.
* **The third and final Theory comes from a woman named Martha.** A psychiatrist from Cincinnati contacted Augustine and said one of her patients insisted on speaking to the police. The patient went by the name of Martha and said that when she was 11 years old, her mother took her to a house where she handed an envelope over for a boy
	+ Martha said that she was sexually abused by her mother, and the mother wanted to do the same to the boy. Martha said her mother beat the boy to death, after struggling to bathe him and drove Martha and the boy to Philadelphia to abandon him. Martha spoke with investigators Tom Augustine, Joseph McGillen, and William Kelly. McGillen and Kelly were one of the first on the boy in the Box crime scene. All three were allegedly convinced by Martha's story. According to Bill Fleischer, a retired FBI agent, details of Martha's story add up. The testimonies, addresses, and descriptions. It is a strong theory, but even with Martha's lead, the police were not able to verify if the boy was who Martha claimed he was.

## Aftermath

Genealogists discovered the boy's identity in October 2021. On December 8, 2022, the Philadelphia Police Department held a press conference, where they publicly identified the boy as 4-year-old **Joseph Augustus Zarelli**, born on January 13, 1953. Joseph's parents were later revealed to be Augustus J. "Gus" Zarelli and Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Abel.