Identified! PA - Philadelphia, 'Boy in the Box', WhtMale 4-6, 4UMPA, Feb'57
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A memorial service will be held for this poor boy on February 26 at 10am in Ivy Hill Cemetary.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/16670732.htm
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/16670732.htm
He was only a little boy. Somewhere between 4 and 6 years old, with blue eyes, fair complexion and medium to light brown hair, crudely cut. His nude, severely malnourished body was wrapped in a cheap cotton flannel blanket, placed inside a cardboard box that originally housed a white bassinet. Deep bruises covered much of the boy's frame and face, a telltale indication of prolonged abuse. Tossed aside like trash off an isolated rural road, lying there for days, perhaps weeks, before anyone found him.
Fifty years later, an old man leans by the boy's gravestone, sidestepping the plush toys and flowers that have been left on the ground nearby. He smiles, thinking about the many hundreds of similar artifacts placed by well-wishers and sympathetic visitors in the nearly 10 years that the boy has lain here. It's a brisk January day and he almost didn't make it to the cemetery. It's hard enough for him to drive and snow falling hard just a few minutes before made him understandably nervous. But the snow has stopped, replaced by brilliant sunshine breaking over the sky. He moves even closer and utters a prayer, inaudible to anyone around him but full of heartfelt sentiment that echoes loud and clear:
That he will live long enough for the one piece of news that has eluded him for decades, even as he grows increasingly resigned that this may never come.
He is the Boy in the Box, America's Unknown Child and more recently, Jonathan. Names used interchangeably, but always with a sense of incompleteness, because none is his for-sure true one. Years of voluminous leads, promising theories and fluctuating spotlights, and the answers are still frustratingly out of reach. With the 50th anniversary of the boy's death approaching, the probability of a definitive outcome grows ever slimmer as his strongest advocates grow older, more infirm and die off. The case's most active homicide investigator retired recently from the Philadelphia Police Department, with no replacement in sight. Even a dedicated Web site (at www.americasunknownchild.net) by an interested layman lies fallow after his unexpected death two months ago. When they are gone, who will be left to speak for the boy?
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/15/boy-missing
This is a very sad story. It's highly unlikely someone will come forward with info after all this time. It's sad to think this case will no longer get followed up on. This boy needs his real name gracing his headstone.
Fifty years later, an old man leans by the boy's gravestone, sidestepping the plush toys and flowers that have been left on the ground nearby. He smiles, thinking about the many hundreds of similar artifacts placed by well-wishers and sympathetic visitors in the nearly 10 years that the boy has lain here. It's a brisk January day and he almost didn't make it to the cemetery. It's hard enough for him to drive and snow falling hard just a few minutes before made him understandably nervous. But the snow has stopped, replaced by brilliant sunshine breaking over the sky. He moves even closer and utters a prayer, inaudible to anyone around him but full of heartfelt sentiment that echoes loud and clear:
That he will live long enough for the one piece of news that has eluded him for decades, even as he grows increasingly resigned that this may never come.
He is the Boy in the Box, America's Unknown Child and more recently, Jonathan. Names used interchangeably, but always with a sense of incompleteness, because none is his for-sure true one. Years of voluminous leads, promising theories and fluctuating spotlights, and the answers are still frustratingly out of reach. With the 50th anniversary of the boy's death approaching, the probability of a definitive outcome grows ever slimmer as his strongest advocates grow older, more infirm and die off. The case's most active homicide investigator retired recently from the Philadelphia Police Department, with no replacement in sight. Even a dedicated Web site (at www.americasunknownchild.net) by an interested layman lies fallow after his unexpected death two months ago. When they are gone, who will be left to speak for the boy?
http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2007/02/15/boy-missing
This is a very sad story. It's highly unlikely someone will come forward with info after all this time. It's sad to think this case will no longer get followed up on. This boy needs his real name gracing his headstone.
A special ceremony was held this morning to mark the 50th anniversary of Philadelphia's most infamous, unsolved murder.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=local&id=5069920
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=local&id=5069920
sneezy
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this is from philly.com
Posted on Tue, Feb. 27, 2007
http://www.reprintbuyer.com/mags/knightridder/reprints.html
The 'Boy in the Box' mystery, 50 years on
By Joseph A. Gambardello
Inquirer Staff Writer
Deanna Gannon came to a snow-covered Ivy Hill Cemetery in the gray morning chill yesterday with a single white rose for a boy more loved in death than he was in life.
He has no name, but Gannon - like many of her generation who grew up in Philadelphia in the 1950s - remembers his face.
And so she joined with a dwindling band of retired investigators in marking the 50th anniversary of what has become known as the Boy in the Box case.
There was Elmer Palmer, the police officer who found the boy's bruised and undernourished body in a bassinet box on a field Feb. 26, 1957, in a then-rural part of Fox Chase.
There was Bill Kelly, a onetime police photographer who searched hundreds of medical and immigration records trying to put a name to the face that touched a city. And there was Joe McGillen, a former medical examiner's office investigator, who with Kelly and other members of the Vidocq Society - a group of professional and amateur sleuths - is still trying to solve the crime.
Joining them for the first time was Detective Regina Byarm, the latest Police Department homicide investigator assigned to oversee case H-57-22.
Gannon, too, was making her first visit to the boy's grave site, which had been in Potter's Field until his remains were moved to Ivy Hill in 1998.
Gannon was 12 when the case broke. Since then, she has become the mother of five and the grandmother of 10.
"I remember the poster [of the boy's face] going to the store in our neighborhood," said Gannon, of Gwynedd Valley. "It's such a tragedy. Who would be so cruel?"
The boy was 4 to 6 years old and had been beaten. His light brown hair had been crudely chopped. His nude body was wrapped in a cheap blanket.
McGillen recalled that investigators felt they would break the case in days, if not hours.
"Now, 50 years later, we're still in the same position... It's still a mystery," he said.
He noted that others who had taken the case to heart have since died, including Remington Bristow, a former medical examiner's investigator; and George Knowles, who created the America's Unknown Child Web site dedicated to the case.
At yesterday's graveside ceremony, Kelly offered prayers. A bagpiper played "Amazing Grace" and other hymns.
It was Kelly who observed that the boy "had more love in death than he encountered in life."
And William Fleisher, a former police officer and FBI agent who is commissioner of the Vidocq Society in Philadelphia, said that as long as the boy is remembered, there is chance that one day his name could be chiseled into his tombstone, no longer unknown.
Contact staff writer Joseph Gambardello at 215-854-2153 or jgambardello@phillynews.com.
Posted on Tue, Feb. 27, 2007
http://www.reprintbuyer.com/mags/knightridder/reprints.html
The 'Boy in the Box' mystery, 50 years on
By Joseph A. Gambardello
Inquirer Staff Writer
Deanna Gannon came to a snow-covered Ivy Hill Cemetery in the gray morning chill yesterday with a single white rose for a boy more loved in death than he was in life.
He has no name, but Gannon - like many of her generation who grew up in Philadelphia in the 1950s - remembers his face.
And so she joined with a dwindling band of retired investigators in marking the 50th anniversary of what has become known as the Boy in the Box case.
There was Elmer Palmer, the police officer who found the boy's bruised and undernourished body in a bassinet box on a field Feb. 26, 1957, in a then-rural part of Fox Chase.
There was Bill Kelly, a onetime police photographer who searched hundreds of medical and immigration records trying to put a name to the face that touched a city. And there was Joe McGillen, a former medical examiner's office investigator, who with Kelly and other members of the Vidocq Society - a group of professional and amateur sleuths - is still trying to solve the crime.
Joining them for the first time was Detective Regina Byarm, the latest Police Department homicide investigator assigned to oversee case H-57-22.
Gannon, too, was making her first visit to the boy's grave site, which had been in Potter's Field until his remains were moved to Ivy Hill in 1998.
Gannon was 12 when the case broke. Since then, she has become the mother of five and the grandmother of 10.
"I remember the poster [of the boy's face] going to the store in our neighborhood," said Gannon, of Gwynedd Valley. "It's such a tragedy. Who would be so cruel?"
The boy was 4 to 6 years old and had been beaten. His light brown hair had been crudely chopped. His nude body was wrapped in a cheap blanket.
McGillen recalled that investigators felt they would break the case in days, if not hours.
"Now, 50 years later, we're still in the same position... It's still a mystery," he said.
He noted that others who had taken the case to heart have since died, including Remington Bristow, a former medical examiner's investigator; and George Knowles, who created the America's Unknown Child Web site dedicated to the case.
At yesterday's graveside ceremony, Kelly offered prayers. A bagpiper played "Amazing Grace" and other hymns.
It was Kelly who observed that the boy "had more love in death than he encountered in life."
And William Fleisher, a former police officer and FBI agent who is commissioner of the Vidocq Society in Philadelphia, said that as long as the boy is remembered, there is chance that one day his name could be chiseled into his tombstone, no longer unknown.
Contact staff writer Joseph Gambardello at 215-854-2153 or jgambardello@phillynews.com.
Bumping him up. Can a mod move this sweet little guy to the unknown section maybe? He is the first Doe I ever came across and who led me to missing kids and Does and then here. I never gave stuff like this much thought until him.
I had before brought up if there was any way to know if he was menatlly retarded or had some sort of disability. I was curious b/c I thought maybe he was dropped off at an institution as an infant or toddler once a disability or retardation became apparent, as many parents did with diasbled kids back then. Is it possible he was accidentaly killed at a mental institution? I know some were not the friendliest of places.
This case breaks my heart so much and I doubt he will ever have a name.
This case breaks my heart so much and I doubt he will ever have a name.
Gina_M
New Member
On the Doe Network it says "His body was beaten, although coroners' investigations were unable to pinpoint any previous broken bones or inflicted trauma." and "Strands of the child's own hair were present on his body, leading authorities to believe that his hair had been cut shortly before or following his homicide."
Here's the updated Doe Network link:
http://doenetwork.org/cases/4umpa.html
I just can't quit thinking about this boy tonight. Do hospitals keep medical records from that far back? maybe an older Phila hospital has records from his surgery? Is it even possible for someone to comb through records from, say, 1950-1956 to look for anything? Then again he may not even be local. He could be anyone from anywhere.
I guess that is impossible, what with hopitals changing hands, merging, closing and it being 50 years later.
I still just think he was disabled or mentally challenged in some way.
I guess that is impossible, what with hopitals changing hands, merging, closing and it being 50 years later.
I still just think he was disabled or mentally challenged in some way.
Gina_M
New Member
Philadelphia is also very close to other states, such as Delaware, New Jersey, and Maryland. I wonder if LE ever checked out the possibility of him coming from one of these nearby states.
AmandaBrown23
Im just living among all the madness
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Is it possible they cut his hair to try to throw off what he looked like? I was just wondering.
believe09
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I would think that there must be a way to do DNA even this old and see if he had any abnormal markers which would indicate if h might have been mentally retarded? Or as Gina M mentioned to me earlier, he might be an ideal candidate for the new oxygen technology that can determine where someone previously lived based on the oxygen molecules in their bones or teeth...
christine2448
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I think that is a good theory. IIRC, his nails were also cut and he was recently bathed? Been a long time since i read up on this one.
What is sad, with this and so many other cold cases, time is running out.
bakerprune64
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You know I can only hope that justice will come for this precious child, just as it did for Baby Grace. There has to be somebody somewhere who knows something about this child, and sooner or later (preferably sooner) somebody will come forward. That is my wish for the new year.
IMO, this one will never be solved. His parents could very well be dead, but then again, maybe one will come forward with a death bed confession. His parents could age anywhere from early 70's to late 80's maybe a little older.
Same here. This child should be about the same age as my dead. He had the same thin build my dad had as a child and the light short hair and just reminded me of my own father as a child from the pictures I saw. Anyways, my dad and his siblings were horribly abused, severly beaten and threatened by their parents daily the beatings they recived were awful, and my dad bore the brunt being the oldest and this little boy always makes me think, wow that could have been my dad or one of his brothers just as easily. So that is why this case breaks my heart aside from the other obvious reasons, and it was the first Doe I came across.
chicoliving
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