Unsolved: Boy in the Box

On February 26, 1957, the body of a small, unidentified boy was found beaten and nude in a box along Susquehanna Road in Philadelphia. What was the morbid finding of a little boy’s body has led to a mystery that has remained open for nearly sixty-five years.

The “boy in the box” as he was dubbed, was found along Susquehanna Road in the Fox Chase part of Philadelphia. He was found by a muskrat, who originally went into the woods that day to look to see if any animals were caught in traps he’d laid out. The hunter didn't call police at first, not wanting to get into any trouble with them for laying traps. He wasn’t the only person to find his body.

A few days later on February 25th, a college student at La Salle University saw a rabbit dash into the forest near the area where the little boy’s body was. He knew there were traps there so he wanted to go see if that rabbit had fallen into one. He found the boy’s body, but didn’t report it to police either. He saw a news report the next day about a little girl who was missing in the area and then called the police to report the body, believing what he found was the missing girl.

The boy was found beaten, with a blanket on top of him. He also had recently been given a haircut, and was covered in surgical scars. The Philadelphia Medical Examiner determined that he’d most likely died of blunt force trauma, and suffered “arrested growth” from the abuse he suffered before death. The Medical Examiner also determined he threw up prior to his death. The police took his fingerprints in hopes of identifying him and finding his family, but they were finding dead ends no matter where they looked.

Attracting a massive amount of media attention, every gas bill which was sent out to Philadelphia residents included a missing poster and information about the boy they were hoping to identify. The Philadelphia Inquirer printed over 400,000 of these posters. Even though there was a massive campaign to try and bring this little boy home, police have been unable to identify him.

Like most unsolved murder cases, theories surrounding this are rampant. The first, which was ruled out, involved a foster care home which was little more than a mile from where his body was found. Remington Bristow, an employee had asked a psychic to tell him what they believed the house he came from looked like.

The psychic led him directly to this foster home. After finding similar blankets and a bassinet at the house, he believed the stepfather was having a sexual relationship with his stepdaughter and she became pregnant. The boy was hidden from public view but when he died accidentally, the stepfather disposed of his body so she would not have to face the stigma of being an unwed mother. In 1998, Philadelphia Police Lieutenant Tom Augustine interviewed the stepfather and the stepdaughter (who eventually married), and after DNA testing, proved she was not the mother of the boy in the box.

The second theory came about in February 2002. A woman known as Martha, or M, claimed her mother purchased the little boy, who she called “Johnathan,” from his birth parents in the summer of 1954. She claims her mother violently murdered the little boy in the bath tub after he threw up, and that they both helped dump the body in the woods. While parts of her story do cooperate the evidence found during the initial investigation, neighbors say she suffered with severe mental health issues.

Currently, Detective Sergeant Bob Kuhlheimer has been keeping the investigation alive. Two years ago the Philadelphia police were granted an order to exhume the boy’s body for a second time. They now have a DNA profile and are hoping they can find someone who is related to the boy to help identify him. The boy was originally buried in a potter’s field, but was reburied in Ivy Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. His headstone reads: Heavenly Father Bless This Unknown Boy.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released a forensic facial reconstruction of what they believed the boy to have looked like and added it to their database. Although his body was first found sixty-five years ago, many remain hopeful that one day, his DNA will be matched to someone and they can finally give this little boy a name.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons