Identified! PA - Philadelphia, 'Boy in the Box', WhtMale 4-6, 4UMPA, Feb'57

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With everyone doing their own DNA with sites like DNA 32 and me and Ancestry, I wonder if LE can find relatives to the boy that way.
Yes I mentioned this before.I think they should do this.They did this with a unidentified female Miss X.They should do DNA with him too.
 
I'm beginning to think this isn't a case of a kidnapped/abducted child but one that was murdered by his parents/caregivers and it was just never noticed by anyone other than them that he was there one day and simply gone the next, and never reported. It's possible this child was not known to the public, born in secret at home and kept out of sight, so that the only one (s) who may have known of him were the ones that abused and killed him. If that's the case, then even doing family DNA might not help, but I think it's worth a shot.
 
This is a article someone showed me.I'm so glad they are doing this and they wrote this article.I care very much for this little boy and to find out his real name.DNA can solve his case.DNA is powerful.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/the-boy-in-the-box-1957-DNA-philadelphia.html


Thanks for posting this new, lengthy and very interesting article!
[h=4]The primary suspect[/h] In 2002, an Ohio-based psychiatrist alerted Philadelphia authorities that a patient, Mary (a pseudonym), had claimed for decades that her mother and father bought “America’s Unknown Child” from an underground human trafficking outpost in Kensington.
He was to be used as a sex toy, she claimed.
One day, while struggling to bathe the boy, Mary's mother beat him to death. Mary told her psychiatrist that she accompanied her mother to Northeast Philadelphia and watched her wrap the boy in a cheap blanket and toss him into the cardboard box.
Fleisher believes that Mary and the psychiatrist were telling the truth.
Even if Mary studied the case, even if she had some access to the files, "She said things that mathematically, if you go by all probability," he said, "to me, I think we're 8,000 to 1 that she's lying."
Addresses lined up. Testimony checked out. Descriptions matched.
Nothing the woman said could be confirmed conclusively, but it also couldn't be discounted, Fleisher said.
As a witness, she may be mentally unstable. But, Fleisher countered, if she did witness the horrific crime, "Wouldn't something like this make her mentally ill?"
Complicating matters further, Mary has mostly refused to cooperate on the case.
Once, she sat down with three of the main investigators — Philadelphia detective Tom Augustine, and Vidocq Society investigators Joseph McGillen and William Kelly, two of the men first on the scene that day in 1957.
All three came away convinced.

A brief memorial service is set for 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26, outside 720-722 Susquehanna Road, near where the boy's body was found 60 years ago.
 
I am very glad DNA is being checked with him.I pray they find out who he is.I do still strongly believe that when they get a match it will not lead to M's story.They need to Identify him first and the story will then unfold.
 
I agree that his DNA likely holds some interesting clues/answers. With Home DNA testing and Genealogy being all the rage right now, there is so much more possibility of finding matches than years ago when had to wait for a suspect etc to compare.

Now you can test with one company, such as Ancestry, or FamilyTree DNA, 23andme etc and upload the Raw Data to GedMatch to expand your search result pool. You can see results from companies you didn't test with. I have seen some amazing things come of this, even if you don't get a close match - a little investigative genealogy can produce amazing results.

I have seen some pretty amazing things come from DNA testing, British Home Children finding their family, Adoptees and Birth Parents finding each other, Baby Doe's who were abandoned finding birth families/parents. Cece Moore is amazing as well, she may even want to assist!

I really hope they go this route! Nothing ventured, nothing gained right!?
 
In 2002, an Ohio-based psychiatrist alerted Philadelphia authorities that a patient, Mary (a pseudonym), had claimed for decades that her mother and father bought “America’s Unknown Child” from an underground human trafficking outpost in Kensington.
He was to be used as a sex toy, she claimed.
One day, while struggling to bathe the boy, Mary's mother beat him to death. Mary told her psychiatrist that she accompanied her mother to Northeast Philadelphia and watched her wrap the boy in a cheap blanket and toss him into the cardboard box.

Ummm, that sounds too much like the Satanic Panic stories of "reclaimed memories" to me.
 
His face looks 4-6, but his body in the box looks closer to 2-3 to me. Poor baby.
 
Ok guys, I submitted a potential match to DN :
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1275dmny.html

Pros :
- Age, height, weight match
- The surgical scars and the scar on the ankle in UID matches the "kidney growth" for Steven

Cons :
- More than 200 miles between disappearance and the UID
- time elapsed


Child might had been treated in Philadelphia in 1957 rather than NY in those days.



Your opinion ?
 
DN sent me an email to tell me so.

How about a post for the rules out ? I confess having been too lazy to read this thread's 92 pages to find out my match was already ruled out.
A mod would be able to edit the first post to add link for the ruled out, so we'd be able to find them without tooth combing more than 50 pages.
Mods, admins, your opinion ?

Today is quote busy, so I won't be able to make the list.
 
re we sure Steven was ruled out ? this is the single rule out on NAMUS

[h=3]Exclusions[/h]The following people have been ruled out as being this decedent:
First NameLast NameYear of BirthState LKA
FrederickHolmes1953New Jersey
 
[h=3]Exclusions[/h]The following people have been ruled out as being this decedent:



sorry it would not copy Fredrick Holmes 1953
 
Thank you to the posters who shared the new article from philly.com. I am so glad to see our boy getting some fresh attention. I think submitting his DNA sounds like a very good idea. I wonder what will happen if they find any kind of match, though; would people be willing to look into something like this in their own family history? I hope so, but I can also imagine people being reluctant.

Something I've been wondering about regarding the boy's age estimates; how did they get them? I've been following his case for many years but I've forgotten now whether they did this by measuring his bones or something else. I wonder because, like another poster, I've always felt that his body seems small in the box photo, and his head seems larger in proportion, like a much younger child. His height is like a 4-5 year old's but his weight seems low. He may have been malnourished. I just hope their estimates are good enough to help pinpoint a probably DOB if they're looking into things further now. Maybe it would help to refine it more.

Anyway, just thinking out loud now that I've seen the article and he's fresh in my mind again. I was struck by Fleisher's discussion of how the boy's photo stuck with him once he saw it at 13. I can just imagine what that would be like. I first encountered the boy's story and saw his photos when I was in my mid-twenties, around 2003, and his photos haunted me. I remember being unable to sleep well for weeks after I first saw him. I have to think a whole generation of children in the Philadelphia area could attest to what Fleisher remembers and how it gripped him.
 
Not all rule outs will appear in NamUs.
Only manual comparisons are listed on there.
I knew Steven had been ruled out from his Charley page, that's why I linked my source.
They used footprints.
 
The "girl " theory is interesting, wondering if anyone who truly believed or wished others to believe, a missing child was female and placed a report for a missing girl?
Maybe if that was the case, photos of a girl may have been released to LE and family and neighbours might have been searching for missing girl?
speculation, imo.

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_in_the_Box_(Philadelphia)
[/URL]
Other theories

Forensic artist Frank Bender developed a theory that the victim may have been raised as a girl. The child's unprofessional haircut, which appeared to have been performed in haste, was the basis for the scenario, as well as the appearance of the eyebrows having been styled. Bender later released a sketch of the unidentified child with long hair, reflecting the strands found on the body.[SUP][12][/SUP]

Following the 59th anniversary of the discovery of the boy's body in 2016, two writers, one from Los Angeles, California (Jim Hoffmann) the other from New York, New York (Louis Romano) explained that they believed they had discovered a potential identity from Memphis, Tennessee and requested that DNA be compared between the family members and the child. The lead was originally discovered by a Philadelphia man (who introduced Romano and Hoffmann to each other) and then developed and presented, with the help of Hoffmann, to the Philadelphia Police Department and the Vidocq Society in early 2013. In December 2013, Romano became aware of the lead and agreed to help the man from Philadelphia and Hoffmann to personally obtain the DNA from this particular family member in January 2014 - which was sent quickly to the Philadelphia Police Department. Local authorities confirmed that they would investigate the lead, yet they stated that they would need to do more research on the circumstances surrounding the link to Memphis before comparing DNA.[SUP][11][/SUP]
 
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