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

[Roselvr]

This is so good they are doing this for him.I know DNA will show who he is.

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

I don't see them say they're submitting to any genealogy databases.

DNA samples - "What's good about the DNA is you can affirm things to it," Kuhlmeier said in 2015. "So, tips come in and if someone said, 'Oh, I think it was my long-lost brother, my long-lost family relative,' we can do DNA [testing] to dismiss those leads and whether or not those leads are viable to run on.”

Before the boy was buried in Ivy Hill Cemetery, maternal DNA was extracted from his teeth.

The DNA sample was submitted to the University of North Texas and entered in a national familial DNA database. Samples were also added to other local and national databases.

But even with DNA, problems remain. For example, the large civilian DNA databases, such as Ancestry.com, use a mouth swab type of DNA that the boy could not possibly provide.

And the sample that investigators did extract might be of dubious quality.

"I think the sample was degraded," Fleisher said. "If you could have seen how the casket was crumbled, the bones were practically dust, not quite, but time was just very cruel at that grave site."

"I don't know how much DNA was collected," he added. "But they can go back and get a mummy."

Rockne Harmon, an expert in the use of DNA evidence in cold cases, said in a phone interview last year that the window for prosecution starts to close after about 25 years.

“The other thing that struck me was that if you tried to pursue cases that are too old, chances are pretty good that the guy will never show up in a DNA database because he died before the police started to aggressively collect it from people.”

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!?

The problem is that the genealogy companies want saliva. Colleen Fitzpatrick (forensic genealogist) contacted the Doe named Lyle Stevik's LE to see if the raw data from UNT (NamUs) could be uploaded to any of the databases that support uploads like GEDmatch, Family Tree DNA or My Heritage but they were told UNT will only release the needed string to another government agency because it is too large of a file. Here is the direct quote from Lyle's thread. Click the arrows to go directly to his post if you want to read more

I spoke to Mr. Youmans via email today and he kindly explained the DNA situation to me:

I spoke at length with Colleen Fitzpatrick, the woman who solved the Lori Ruff case. The problem is, the DNA profile we have for Lyle is different than one you would get from a company like Ancestry. We need a Y-DNA profile, and from what I have learned, the profile is different. I had hoped to submit our profile to one of the Ancestry companies, but from what I understand, they won’t cooperate, as they don’t want to be associated with Law Enforcement. I understand their reasoning, as they don’t want people to submit a saliva sample to find their ancestors, and wind up getting arrested for some old crime, where their DNA was in CODIS. I’ve tried to get Lyle’s DNA profile from the University of North Texas DNA database, but they won’t release it to me. They said they would give it to another government lab, as the DNA sequence is so long, that a lab would know which section to compare.

If I had known about companies like Ancestry and 23 and me back in 2001, I probably could have obtained a saliva sample from Lyle and submitted it to the private company, but all we took was a blood sample that I submitted to the University of North Texas, and the profile was run through CODIS.

Lane Youmans
Grays Harbor Coroner

We have a thread if anyone is interested
Has anyone done their DNA for genealogy?

 

[Ms Suzanne]

I think they are going to do Familial DNA testing.I am hoping they do put his DNA in Genealogy data bases.Isotope testing would be good to do too.[h=3][/h]

 

[Roselvr]

I think they are going to do Familial DNA testing.I am hoping they do put his DNA in Genealogy data bases.Isotope testing would be good to do too.[h=3][/h]

I hope they do testing to try to figure his family but the article wasn't clear whether they were or were not. Agree, isotope testing would be helpful, so would pollen testing if they still have his clothes

But even with DNA, problems remain. For example, the large civilian DNA databases, such as Ancestry.com, use a mouth swab type of DNA that the boy could not possibly provide.

And the sample that investigators did extract might be of dubious quality.

 

[Ms Suzanne]

I agree.No it wasn't clear.

I hope they do testing to try to figure his family but the article wasn't clear whether they were or were not. Agree, isotope testing would be helpful, so would pollen testing if they still have his clothes

 

[Mockturtle22]

I find it infuriating that they can't do the DNA testing to try finding a match due to privacy.... that should not be a factor for an unidentified child who has been dead for decades. I call bull. There is an air of laziness with cold cases that's just awful.

I don't think this will be solved in my lifetime but I hope.

 

[HoaZi]

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.

I'm with you, this case and Opelika Jane Doe haunt me, along with a few others like the King's Run Butcher victims.

 

[Ms Suzanne]

I hope we hear something soon.I pray this little one gets his real name soon.

 

[madamx]

I was thinking of the boy in the box with the whole Etan Patz case that ha been in the news. It took how many many years for Pedro Hernandez to confess to the crime and yet nobody believed him because he is mentally ill.. It really makes me wonder if Mary had been saying the truth the whole time. And of course her mother and church going neighbors would deny such horror. Just as many people were doing with Pedro..even though a couple of times he had mentioned it to different people.
Also the person who said they saw the middle aged woman and child stopped by the road. Did they mention the color and or make of car?? or clothing and or hair color of the people that he saw standing by car. to see if it would match a car that Marys mother owned and it would match to what mary and her mother looked like at that time.. did they ask her what she and her mother were wearing and what the car her mother had looked like?? Just to see if there was at least a match there. I have not read anywhere that the car matched the car marys mother had. I know it would not give you his name but at least you would know that at least this poor traumatized Mary was telling the truth. just some thoughts

I will never ever forget the very first time I saw this poor boy's face on the doe network.

It is incomprehensible to me how someone could have hurt him and thrown him away as if he were nothing.

I can't seem to get out of my head, "M"'s story as to how her mother purchased this boy, regularly abused him and how he met his death. While I know that the investigators have looked into her story and concluded that there was not enough evidence to corroborate her story, she does mention some things that make me scratch my head. First, she told investigators that she helped her mother dispose of the boy. They were on the side of the road when another car came by and stopped, thinking they needed assistance. "M" said that she and her mother turned away and hid the license plate marker. It was brought to light years ago that a man came forward and told police about a car on the side of the road a few days before the boy was discovered. This man said he stopped to help a car on the side of the road and when he approached them, he said the woman and boy moved to cover the license plate and trunk area of the car. I am not sure if this was a fact known by many as far as the investigation goes. It just makes me scratch my head.

 

[madamx]

I was also wondering about this little guy Steven.. was he ruled out early on or was he ruled out after they got the DNA off the boy in the box?

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 ?

 

[madamx]

http://www.americasunknownchild.net/Archives5Text.html#fourq

this was mentioned early on in the thread and I was also wondering what ever became of the little girl in the Bronx was she ever identified?

N.Y. Girl's Death Tied To Boy's Slaying Here
**
Similarity of circumstances surrounding the discovery of the body of a small girl in a secluded park in East Bronx, N.Y., and the murder of a young boy stuffed in a carton in Fox Chase eight months ago, launched a full-scale investigation yesterday by Philadelphia and New York police.
The two-state investigation was begun after the girl, about 5 years old, was found Wednesday in a lonely area of Rodman's Neck Park in the East Bronx.
The similarity between the death of the little girl and of the still unidentified boy in Fox Chase was noted immediately by Lt. David Brown, acting commander of the Philadelphia Homicide squad, who said a New York police teletype message seeking information on the girl's identity "immediately was placed in the file on the murdered boy."
*
PLEDGES COOPERATION
*
"We definitely intend to cooperate fully with New York detectives on this case" Brown said. He added that he was in telephone contact with homicide detectives there in an effort to run down any leads, which might develop, on either case.
In New York, Homicide Detective Harold Leahrer said police, as in the case of the Fox Chase boy, are "getting dozens of leads daily on possible identity of the girl." He, too, said he would remain in "close touch" with Philadelphia police on any developments pertinent to the two cases.
The girl's body was found in a woodland in the park. The body was wrapped in a white sleeveless undershirt with pieces of Army-type OD raincoat around it and tied with white cord. Several feet away was a torn blue canvas suitcase believed to have been used to transport the body.

 

[Springrain]

I was thinking of the boy in the box with the whole Etan Patz case that ha been in the news. It took how many many years for Pedro Hernandez to confess to the crime and yet nobody believed him because he is mentally ill.. It really makes me wonder if Mary had been saying the truth the whole time. And of course her mother and church going neighbors would deny such horror. Just as many people were doing with Pedro..even though a couple of times he had mentioned it to different people.
Also the person who said they saw the middle aged woman and child stopped by the road. Did they mention the color and or make of car?? or clothing and or hair color of the people that he saw standing by car. to see if it would match a car that Marys mother owned and it would match to what mary and her mother looked like at that time.. did they ask her what she and her mother were wearing and what the car her mother had looked like?? Just to see if there was at least a match there. I have not read anywhere that the car matched the car marys mother had. I know it would not give you his name but at least you would know that at least this poor traumatized Mary was telling the truth. just some thoughts

I was never fully convinced that M's story was false, either. When they said she had a mental illness, that could mean a variety of things. Could be anything from depression to schizophrenia. And just because folks are mentally ill (like Hernandez) doesn't mean they're lying about EVERYTHING. Not everybody is Henry Lee Lucas. But I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Owutatangledweb]

http://www.americasunknownchild.net/Archives5Text.html#fourq

this was mentioned early on in the thread and I was also wondering what ever became of the little girl in the Bronx was she ever identified?

N.Y. Girl's Death Tied To Boy's Slaying Here
**
Similarity of circumstances surrounding the discovery of the body of a small girl in a secluded park in East Bronx, N.Y., and the murder of a young boy stuffed in a carton in Fox Chase eight months ago, launched a full-scale investigation yesterday by Philadelphia and New York police.
The two-state investigation was begun after the girl, about 5 years old, was found Wednesday in a lonely area of Rodman's Neck Park in the East Bronx.
The similarity between the death of the little girl and of the still unidentified boy in Fox Chase was noted immediately by Lt. David Brown, acting commander of the Philadelphia Homicide squad, who said a New York police teletype message seeking information on the girl's identity "immediately was placed in the file on the murdered boy."
*
PLEDGES COOPERATION
*
"We definitely intend to cooperate fully with New York detectives on this case" Brown said. He added that he was in telephone contact with homicide detectives there in an effort to run down any leads, which might develop, on either case.
In New York, Homicide Detective Harold Leahrer said police, as in the case of the Fox Chase boy, are "getting dozens of leads daily on possible identity of the girl." He, too, said he would remain in "close touch" with Philadelphia police on any developments pertinent to the two cases.
The girl's body was found in a woodland in the park. The body was wrapped in a white sleeveless undershirt with pieces of Army-type OD raincoat around it and tied with white cord. Several feet away was a torn blue canvas suitcase believed to have been used to transport the body.

In what year was the little girl's body found?

 

[U2forever]

Mockturtle22

:welcome6:

:greetings:


We are glad your here!

​

 

[U2forever]

In what year was the little girl's body found?

August 14, 1957

 

[Owutatangledweb]

August 14, 1957

Thanks. I was thinking of Paul Froncak's (Jack's) Sister Jill who is still unaccounted for. That date rules her out for the little girl in the park.

 

[madamx]

I believe it was also 1957 on the site they have a date of 8/17/57 from the Philadelphia Inquirer (oh NeverMind I just saw it was answered above!! sorry)

http://www.americasunknownchild.net/Archives5Text.html#fourq
they also mention this missing woman and her kids but never hear anything after if they were found or not.. its kind of funny.. like ok its not the boy in the box move along next missing person...and they even have photos of the people missing


Homicide detectives have a fresh and exciting interest today in the case of the murdered boy of Fox Chase. A father came to police with a story that there is a chance the dead boy is his long-missing son.
Harold Sanders, 31, of Dover, Del., had a son who was fair, thin, about the age of the child found battered to death in a cardboard box at Verree and Susquehanna rds. Last February.
The father thus revived a search for his missing family-wife, two daughters, and a son. The father learned only recently about the murder, that the Fox Chase boy had not been identified.
Homicide Lieutenant David Brown said, "Even if it was not the Sanders boy, we are working on the strangest disappearance case in Philadelphia police records."
Missing without a trace are Mrs. Jean Sanders, 32, her daughters, Bonnie, 9, and Carol, 7, and son, John, more than 4, if still alive.

In what year was the little girl's body found?

 

[madamx]

http://theboyinthebox.yuku.com/topi...-in-the-box-was-found-wrapped-in#.WNSvsYWcE6Q

I thought this was interesting someone found a blanket similar to the blanket the boy was found in. Like the person in the post says maybe in color it might stir up someones memory

 

[Ms Suzanne]

Yes that was me.That's my board I made for him.I put it on this board too awhile ago.

http://theboyinthebox.yuku.com/topi...-in-the-box-was-found-wrapped-in#.WNSvsYWcE6Q

I thought this was interesting someone found a blanket similar to the blanket the boy was found in. Like the person in the post says maybe in color it might stir up someones memory

 

[Ms Suzanne]

I want this little boy in the box identified and his real name on his gravestone.He deserved this a long time ago.I will never forget about him.

[video=youtube;LImoCjRjpfQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LImoCjRjpfQ&feature=share[/video]

 

[Alleykins]

Oh, my goodness, Ms. Suzanne. There was a lot of pictures in that video that I hadn't seen before.
When they showed the picture of his little feet, I lost it.