After 65 years The Boy in the Box had been identified

Tina Fey’s family? Kevin Beacon’s? Pink’s?

The Biddles? The Pitcairns?

Whoever is responsible for this is long gone now most likely.

Whooooooo’s in the boooooooox?!

He could be a DuPont!

R5 That’s really Delaware.

He could have been a datalounger.

Don't waste your time watching the piece. They don't reveal anything other than he has been identified.

Widener? Elkins? Pennypacker? Barrows? Biddle?

Is he related to Her Serene Highness, Princess Grace?

Jesus! Is that Matt Gaetz?

That photo is of a child who dialed the phone with a pencil.

Some secret child of a knocked up Bryn Mawr student?

Related to Harlow?

Are we talking in the city or Main Line?

Delaware County

I’m shocked they’ve actually solved this, wow.

Why are they waiting until next week? This isn’t DWTS, just announce it!

Surviving relatives have to be notified first.

[quote] Surviving relatives have to be notified first.

His Serene Highness, Albert, sovereign Prince of Monaco?

There's something I don't understand, and even after watching the video in the OP's link, I still don't understand it: If they never knew the child's name, where did that photo of him come from? Or is that photo just some sort of a recreation from the dead body? I would appreciate if anyone can clear this up for me, because I just don't get it.

That's an artist rendering based on morgue photos. Images at link for those who are triggered by dead bodies.

[quote] Why are they waiting until next week? This isn’t DWTS, just announce it!

Because first Monsieur Poirot must gather all the guests in front of him in one room, and take him through the crime. And rehearse the various motives of each of them. And then and only then will he reveal the true murderer, and why the murder was committed!

It had to be the parents. Did anyone declare him missing?

R24 The two biggest theories are that:

A) He was a foster child/illegitimate offspring of a foster child from a near by foster care home. A psyhic (oh dear I know but too lazy to spell check) was able to give their theory and described a near by foster home independently from police. A woman in a near by foster home later married her stepfather who ran the place. Child of incest perhaps?

B) He was the abused brother of M, an mentally ill women who went to the police. She said he was beat to death after years of abuse due to vomiting up a dinner to baked beans. Bakes beans were in fact found in his stomach.

I am excited to see if either of these are correct.

Wow first the Somerton gets identified and now the Boy in the Box, never thought that day would come.

*the Somerton Man

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and with certainly more days behind me than ahead, am happy this mystery appears to be solved in my lifetime.

Ever since seeing a television program about the "boy in the box" (Unsolved Mysteries?" have been intrigued but also saddened. That his short life was filled with abuse and pain is bad enough, but poor sweet boy to be killed and left on side of road like trash just breaks your heart.

R28 : How can I make a little boys murder about me?

It bothers me that "Martha" is described as mentally ill. Police stated she had many details correct and growing up in those circumstances would cause significant issues. I get the prejudice of past generations but people still add the disclaimer as though it's relevant enough to cast doubt. Anyway, I'm glad to hear there's going to be definitive answers soon.

OK, Zodiac next, please.

I am not familiar with this case. Was this specific to Filthadelphia?

Any details/background?

Did you read the link at the OP, r32?

So, they are delaying the announcement to have time to carve a new headstone so the name can be revealed on it?

It was a year ago they last said his identity was forthcoming. I believe it has more to do with the "prominent" family involvement than anything else. Nobody outside the investigation knows the reason for the many delays, though.

Is Geraldo Rivera involved in this? Is it going to be an Al Capone Safe reveal all over again?

I'm glad he was finally identified. Now, he's a full individual crime victim. The body has a history, the story of his life. It matters. This is important, IDing murder victims is damn important, esp. if you can't get them any justice. It's as though the boy woke up from his grave for only moment, just long enough to say his own name. It's important!

Will the announcement be made at the Four Seasons Landscaping parking lot? I’ve heard that’s a very nice, very fine place to hold a press conference.

His name is Schrödinger. While unsure of many details presently, they will know all once they open Schrödinger’s box.

MEOW!

Is it the missing Lord heir?

Has Helena commented yet?

Well played, R39.

Ted Bundy was originally from Philadelphia until his mother moved to Washington state.

Bunch of sick fucks posting in this thread. Empathy is not a strong thing in the gay community.

My guess is he was born into the notable family out of wedlock and was given away to the people who ended up killing him. So the DNA match may not have led to the killers.

Was he a precursor to the boy in the plastic bubble? They should’ve put a hole in the box so he could breathe and, thus, not die.

Did anyone get his stuff?

Cold Case did an episode on this. In their version, the baby was born to a priest and a nun and that's why they never came forward.

R33 Yes, I read the link.

Let me rephrase my question/statement - this seems like this murder was a local event and I'm surprised so many people know about it, that's all.

I didn't know if a prior movie, or some kind of Unsolved Mysteries type of thing had made many more people familiar with this story.

This case was mentioned on the Wikipedia page for the Boy in the Box.

It's a very famous true crime case R50. I'm not American but I'm familiar with it. Those posters that used the dead boy's face are haunting.

R44 So?

OMG that is a chilling story R51. And that poor dog!

I’m glad the dog was okay

R54 I know! I wonder if there was more to it

Don’t read on, R55

[quote] Surviving relatives have to be notified first.

They should have notified them before announcing this.

That poor puppy

[quote] It bothers me that "Martha" is described as mentally ill. Police stated she had many details correct and growing up in those circumstances would cause significant issues. I get the prejudice of past generations but people still add the disclaimer as though it's relevant enough to cast doubt.

Martha happened in 2002. That’s not past generations. They checked with neighbors. They said that they never saw a boy. That was what killed her credibility.

R45 doesn't understand gallows humor.

There’s the theory that the boy was raised as a girl, hence the recent haircut and styling. They also might have wanted to make the child look different enough that no doctor would remember him. He had evidence of surgical procedures done.

The DuPonts are behind a local children’s hospital. They could have paid doctors to keep their mouths shut.

R62 OH MY GOD! You mean this is all part of the great trans genocide?!!!

If BOY IN THE BOX does home delivery at reasonable prices, count me in!

How ironic if his name is Jack.

R45 Gay people like other minorities have to have a sense of humor about things after being so repressed. Yes it is a shame that someone died like that but we are not Oxygen loving housewives here.

R66, this does not need a sense of humor about it at all. It's tragic. And R45 is right. Sometimes people in the gay community are So Fucked Up.

Too soon?

R45 R67 you're on Datalounge, you insufferable fartbags

R62 You mean that the Boy in the Box is actually the Girl without a Box?!?!

The boy in the box

Is a Miss!

[quote] you insufferable fartbags

I LMAO'ed at this. Can we make Insufferable Fartbags a thing?

I hope they identify the Precious Hope at Louis Jane Doe next. I watched a good documentary about this case. It’s sad kids can just disappear and nobody is looking for them.

R73 A lot of Jane Does are identified due to data hits in ancestry sites. I wonder of the lack of Black people using those services makes it harder to discover Black victims that way.

R51 I feel like shit for feeling bad they put down a puppy to check the contents of his stomach... I mean, sorry about the kid too and everything.

They could have done an operation to get the stomach contents. I hope it would be done that way today.

Yea I guess it was just extra sad as the pup had endured that closet, been comfort (hopefully) to that poor little girl, had no idea what was going on then he is suddenly killed too.

They need to find that missing Moors Murders boy in the UK.

R61, I love gallows humor when it's appropriate. In this case it's not. An innocent child suffered cruelly for no reason.. When I saw the recreation of his face, I cried. Poor little kid.

They're supposed to reveal his identity tomorrow.

His name was Joseph Augustus Zarelli

Thanks for the update R81 I wonder what happened to him

There's a former state senator named Joseph Zarelli, possibly related?

They aren't releasing the names of the parents because he has living siblings on both his mom's and dad's side, so they don't want to violate their privacy.

I'm dipping out of this live press conference now, we're on to a doctor who is giving us a powerpoint presentation on the history of DNA, but I don't see anything out there about this being a known missing child so I gotta think the parents knew he was dead, and knew how he died, so their names are going to come out eventually.

Those wacky Websleuths ladies are doxxing masters. According to them, his parents are Augustus J Zarelli and Cynthia C Pashko.

Does that make Cynthia "Martha," does anyone know?

I guess I should mention that Cynthia may not be the mother since she didn't marry Zarelli until two years after the boy died.

I should also mention that in the press conference, a reporter implied that the Zarelli family has already said their dad (Augustus, apparently) was not the father, and the police spokesperson would not confirm whether the father's name on the birth certificate was actually accurate or not. A DNA expert said that they got the father's name from the DNA and not from the birth certificate.

I don't know what that means but it sounds like they found out Zarelli was the father via DNA and it doesn't matter what the birth certificate says. Interesting that the Zarelli family is already complaining. I guess we know who the main suspect is.

Joseph Augustus Zarelli. There was a Zarelli family in Philly listed in the 1940 census with a head of household names Agosto Zarelli who had immigrated from Italy. Born in late 1890s so would have made him an old father to this kid but seems like it could be the connection.

R87, yup, DNA doesn’t lie. Augustus Zarelli was probably the biological father but may not have even know he impregnated the mother, If the family is saying he’s not the father.

Well, I was checking into that Websleuths thread off and on, and it just got shut down, probably because the person who claimed they had the names of the parents from the birth certificate was lying. The best I can tell, they didn't see the birth certificate of Joseph but lied and said they did.

So I apologize for what I posted at r83 and r86 because they came from Websleuths and now I realize they may have been completely wrong.

I need to remember that there is a reason why I stopped going to Websleuths years ago.

r79

[quote] Does that make Cynthia "Martha," does anyone know?

Didn’t Martha claim to be the daughter?

My god, can you imagine if this was your family today?

They’re saying that the family was known to investigators. One provided DNA and was matched.

[quote] There's a former state senator named Joseph Zarelli, possibly related?

He was born in Washington and in the 1960s.

We’ll be casting the made-for-tv movie soon at this rate. The drama!

R87, boys, not girls, carry the paternal line in their DNA, so they would know who the father was. If it was a girl, they wouldn’t be able to test for that.

65 freakin years. How did these people sleep at night? DNA is amazing.

Web sleuths is having a field day. They believe that two more children died from the family that had congenital birth defects. They’re finally death certificates on Ancestry.

They believe this is the mother.

It lists two infants who died the same year they were born on there.

The parents names haven't been released so Websleuths is full of shit

The possible father.

Notice on the possible father’s memorial page:

“ Please refrain from jumping to conclusions based on today's announcement on December 8th. Wait for the details to run their course. Thank you.”

Father is from West Philadelphia where they said the child was from.

Investigators theorized that the child may have been Eastern European since there was a big population that immigrated there around the time. The child’s mother would be if that is in fact her.

If they’re saying that there are living siblings, these memorials don’t say any children are living.

Never mind, there are siblings:

Cynthia C. Zarelli (nee Pashko), on April 1, 2018 at the age of 86, of West Chester. Beloved wife of the late Augustus J. 'Gus', loving mother of Gus L. Zarelli (Jennifer), Jeanette Zarelli (Matthew Bettner), Peter J. Zarelli and Cynthia L. Zarelli, cherished grandmother of Gus, Marc, Luke, Matthew, Danielle, Alexa, Peter James, Madison and Cody, adoring great grandmother of Dillon, devoted sister of Leon Pashko, Letty Calla the late Jenny Hash, the late Dorothy Turano and the late Joyce Stelzer.

Just found all the siblings on Facebook.

I thought this one would never be solved

Augustus John, the boy’s potential father, was the son of Agosto Zarelli that I cited in R88. The potential mother’s obit says her parents were born in Albania, which could account for the Eastern European theory. The two babies who both died same to two days after birth have handwritten death reports from The hospital online but they are hard to decipher. One appears to denote congenital malformations related to some lung issue. Couldn’t read the other cause of death at all.

R103 OMG Sylvester Stallone was the father?!

Keep in mind that the child may have been adopted. They may not have done anything in relation to his death.

R113, nice line but you want to try to push ideas that like as questions, rather than assertions. Maybe the child was adopted? Is it possible they didn't have anything to do with the death? Could they have just been nearby?

[quote]They aren't releasing the names of the parents because he has living siblings on both his mom's and dad's side

What does this mean? “on both his mom’s and dad’s side”? How does one have living siblings “on both [their] mom’s and dad’s side”?

[quote]OK, Zodiac next, please.

Paul Doerr, P.O. Box 1444, Vallejo, CA.

R115, does it include half-brothers and half-sisters?

[Quote]boys, not girls, carry the paternal line in their DNA, so they would know who the father was. If it was a girl, they wouldn’t be able to test for that.

Maury Povich somehow does it.

[quote]How does one have living siblings “on both [their] mom’s and dad’s side”?

I don't know but it somebody was asleep at the switch.

R115, I thought he meant half-siblings on both sides....both the mom and the dad could have had kids with other partners

Maybe it was a hook up and the father didn't know Joseph existed.

Am I the only one who is completely confused about who is who in this case?

- Not the sharpest marble in the box

I also am very disturbed by this case. The kid had a very horrific, sad and painful life. I apologize for the terrible joke.

- R122

Joseph Augustus Zarelli is the boy's name. The names of his parents haven't been released so we don't know which parent was a Zarelli.

Is this the most famous unidentified body case?

[quote]An innocent child suffered cruelly for no reason.. When I saw the recreation of his face, I cried.

This happened [italic]sixty-five[/italic] years ago, Mary.

Do you also weep over the Princes in the Tower?

How did the boy die?

There are only 1267 replies in this thread, r127.

Read 'em.

[quote] There are only 1267 replies in this thread, [R127].

My goodness! That's a LONG thread!

Mea culpa, r129!

At least I attributed it to the correct poster.

Search shows Augustus Zarelli lived in Newtown Square at one point. In Delaware County

I agree, R126 like those Holocaust victims really harsh my mellow, why don't they just get over it?

[quote]Web sleuths is having a field day. They believe that two more children died from the family that had congenital birth defects.

Okay this is absolutely untrue and why I said earlier -- which no one fucking read, because why read anything when you can type and be the center of your own little world? -- that Websleuths wasn't a good source of info.

The person who claimed they found two more children who died was a troll. That thread was shut down because of that troll. How did you show up HOURS after it was shut down and HOURS after everyone else on Websleuths told the troll to shut up, and claim that all of Websleuths believes this and has found the birth certificate of the boy who was murdered?

The last name could come from Joseph's mother or father, or adopted parents, so no one who claims such-and-such a Zarelli must be the father really knows. There was a reporter at the press conference who asked about the birth certificate and the police were vague as to whether the name on there was even correct or not, so even if you find the certificate on some ancestry website (unlikely at this point) it may not have correct info.

r134, they know from DNA who the biological father is, and said it's the same one named on the birth certificate

Grandpa

You don't have the birth certificate so you don't know who is on there.

Some troll named txsleuth70 on Websleuths insisted that the people you're naming are the parents but there are a dozen reasons why they're not.

There was never any reason for txsleuth70 to say that two babies who died early (or were stillborn) were the siblings of Joseph. None. They were asked repeatedly and never answered, and then the thread was shut down because of txsleuth70's trolling.

Now here you are 12 hours later on DL pushing their theory as if it were established fact. Why? Is that YOUR troll account and you want to keep the troll going?

r137, fuck off. No, the troll claimed that Zarelli's wife (who he married AFTER Joseph was born) was the mom. She is not. But he is the dad.

[quote] The person who claimed they found two more children who died was a troll.

It’s literally listed on the Find A Grave web site that’s linked here. If those are the parents, there were indeed two children that died the year they were born in the beginning of the 1960s.

R138, how do you know she isn’t the mother?

[quote] they know from DNA who the biological father is, and said it's the same one named on the birth certificate

I guess they’d have to find a relative of the suspected mother and test that. However, the birth certificate would definitely list mother.

Granddaughter confirmed that AZ was indeed Joseph’s biological father, but that no one in the family knew. She also confirmed that his wife, CZ, was not Joseph’s mother. She says that, beyond that, they don’t have much more information than we do.

Obviously, his father cheated on his wife with a girl who was a minor at the time and got her knocked up.

Joseph was killed two years before AZ got married.

Yep, he was not married at the time of the child's birth. Wonder why he didn't just marry the baby mama, it's not like he was a teen, he was in his late 20s

Joseph's mother had other children between 1946-1955. She may have been married to another man or she could have been a sex worker.

R146, I thought we don’t know who the mother is.

That’s a long time to wait to discard a child you had out of wedlock that you wanted to hide and/or get rid of. That’s not like ditching an infant. They kept the kid for four years. Something else must have happened. They obviously abused him. It’s what killed him and he wasn’t being fed.

The theory is that Joseph was disabled. The detectives believed whoever killed him had been trying to bathe him or cut his hair. They became angry when the boy started to act up.

There was evidence of surgery on one of his ankles and he had been recently treated for an eye infection. So somebody was taking care of him.

It took 66 years to solve this case. It often does take years. The media and the family of those four murdered in Idaho are outraged the murder is still unsolved after 25 days. Days. The police take the bait and insist "We are not considering this a cold case." oh thank God, I mean after 26 days, we'd have to declare this a cold case for sure. What?????

R148 You are assuming that the birth mother did it. It is very possible that she gave the baby up early, perhaps informally, and then a different family killed him.

R152 = Patsy R, formerly of ..

R153 No; what R152 says tracks with M, the woman who claimed her family bought the child and then her mother beat him to death.

So are these people "prominent" or is that bullshit?

I've never beleived M. It's the product of all that 80s Satanic Panic/recovered memories shit IMO. The first time she talked about it was with her therapist, in 1989?... People discussing this case tend to leave out the fact that one version of her story involved not just abuse from the parents, but apparently mommy the librarian also had a whole evil circle of pedophile friends who would come over to abuse the boy. It's typical pedo ring stuff, this time with middle-class moms! Color me skeptical.

It's hard though to figure out though what's fact asserted by authorities and what's just been repeated a bunch of times on internet fora. People like to say that she "knew the contents of his stomach," uh no, his stomach was empty according to the autopsy. It's true that a brown substance was found in his THROAT though which seems to be what they think they're referring to; indeed she said he threw this meal up. (Attention to detail doesn't seem to be a strong suit for these copy-paste thinking types.) I guess that means none of it made it all the way to his stomach--it's unclear how long after he ate that he vomited. I can't find much about the "baked beans" dinner. It sounds more like even investigators weren't sure what it was but since it was "brown substance," it MIGHT have been baked beans. There's also debate over whether or not that detail was publicly available before she said it. Too much is hard to establish for me to be sure about anything but I've never believed her tale. There's a popular social justice angle where posters are constantly going on about how authorities don't believe people with mental illness so they desperately want to vidicate her--but the thing is that they definitely DID NOT dismiss her out of hand. They investigated it, and couldn't find any corroborating evidence--not surprising in a ~50-year-old case. Apparently they were inclined to believe her at first, but at some point the Vidocq society said they no longer did, and they probably know a lot more about the case than we do.

Also, she said his real name (NOT a name they gave him) was Jonathan. Joseph ain't Jonathan. Naturally the diehard supporters are like "it's so similar tho!" but...I don't really consider these similar names. It doesn't prove her wrong, but it's not the slam dunk they were banking on. There's some real confirmation bias at work.

[quote]It’s literally listed on the Find A Grave web site that’s linked here.

You ARE that troll from Websleuths, aren't you?

Yes, those two people you mentioned had two babies who died during birth or were stillborn. That has absolutely nothing to do with the boy who was murdered.

[quote]Granddaughter confirmed that AZ was indeed Joseph’s biological father

Link?

No link was forthcoming so I went to check Websleuths and, no surprise, their thread has been shut down again.

Two things showed up in the Google cache for the thread; the actual posts on WS have been deleted. One, some sleuther on TikTok claimed that the granddaughter of A. Zarelli said no one in the family is alive who was born before 1959, and that no one had ever heard of Joseph's existence before this.

The second thing I found was that there were a few people who claimed someone on TikTok said she was A. Zarelli's granddaughter, but they gave an account name that doesn't exist and their links didn't work. A similar name showed up but that account is private. Other social media accounts of that person with a similar account name show them to be in Florida, not PA, and not with the last name Zarelli.

Honestly, I don't think anyone from the Zarelli family has come forward online yet. I believe they were the family who had contacted a reporter before the news conference, based on a reporter's question at the time, but otherwise I don't think we've heard from them yet.

R157, for Christ’s sake, take your meds! It’s not THAT serious. Calm the fuck down.

[quote] I believe they were the family who had contacted a reporter before the news conference

What was this about? A reporter said he was contacted?

What on earth was posted at r157 that sounds psychotic to you?

Just imagine what Ryan Murphy will do with THIS.

[quote]Just imagine what Ryan Murphy will do with THIS.

I don't think I will.

Yes, r161, at the press conference a reporter said the father's side is contesting the fact that the man (who hasn't been officially identified) is really the father of Joseph.

At that point the reporter asked the investigator if they were sure that the name on the birth certificate was correct, and he seemed pretty displeased, but said that yes, DNA confirmed it was the same guy. I believe there was also some mention of the name possibly not being exact, but there weren't any details. Sounded like a typo or misspelling but I have no idea.

[quote]It took 66 years to solve this case.

These things can't be rushed.

[quote]So are these people "prominent" or is that bullshit?

I think the Zarelli guy did well for himself in construction, but the prominent family could belong to the mother.

R152 Evan Peters IS the boy in the box!

Also featuring Jessica Lange as the abusive foster mother, Sarah Paulsen and, and Niecy Nash as a composite character of representing all of the White police officers who worked tirelessly to try and crack the case.

My theory: mom got married after the kid was born. The step-dad killed him, mom was an accessory after the fact.

Eliot Page IS the Boy in the Box!

Elliot Page IS the Boy WITH the Box :-)

I wonder if the family saying that their father ain’t the daddy is gonna try to sue or something stupid.

I read he was 4 years old and was beaten to death, and his body weighed just 30 pounds.

St.Louis Jane Doe is hopefully next to be identified.

R174 Yes, I would love that. A truly tragic case. And as she was murdered in 1983, there might even be a chance that her killers can be brought to justice.

Totally off topic: I went looking up St. Louis Jane Doe and started looking at a lot of unidentified cases, including those that have been identified in recent years, and am shocked at how bad the sketches of the decedents always are. Several cases on Unidentified Wiki have morgue photos and the sketches made of the victims don't look a thing like the actual person.

[quote]At that point the reporter asked the investigator if they were sure that the name on the birth certificate was correct, and he seemed pretty displeased, but said that yes, DNA confirmed it was the same guy.

Well, if there's a birth certificate, presumably they know who the mother was. I mean, she's the one stuck in hospital after having the kid, and presumably you need some sort of ID to be signing a birth certificate. You can lie about the father, but it's a lot harder for a certificate to lie about the mother.

The name of the mother hasn't been released. Which could mean the prominent family connection is on her side.

I watched a documentary about the at Louis Jane doe last week and they found two close matches. One was dead and the other was in their 90s and their families were t willing to cooperate.

R178, no, the prominent family is the Zarellis. They ran a successful construction business, I believe. They said the prominent family was from Delaware County and the Zarellis moved to Delaware County from Philly sometime after Joseph Zarelli was born

R178 I was about to say. They're still wealthy and prominent after all of these years. Which explains why the identities of the parents are being kept under wrap.

If the identities came out SJWs on social media will play the part of self-righteous moral police (as always) and accuse the family of complicity and a cover up.

The QAnon crackheads will have a field day and use the poor boy's death to invent some insane story that he was a victim of the global satanic cannibalistic pedophile cult. The fact he came from a wealthy family doesn't help.

I hope that the prominent, wealthy Philly family turns out to be the owners of the Four Seasons Landscaping Business so we can turn this into a Republican pedo scandal conspiracy.

R179 That is the first I have heard of this. What docuemntry was it?

It’s a documentary on Tubi called Our Precious Hope. Maybe I misunderstood but that’s what I thought the dna expert near the end said

Looks like Young Sheldon

[quote]I hope that the prominent, wealthy Philly family turns out to be the owners of the Four Seasons Landscaping Business so we can turn this into a Republican pedo scandal conspiracy.

Huh?

r181, r182 two phucking lunatics!

I thought so too, R185.

Can you imagine if your dead father sired a child with a sidepiece 70 fucking years ago, probably never even thought about it again (because the sidepiece didn't tell him and she gave the baby up for adoption), and THIS was the outcome? A tragically dead kid, an enduring mystery, and now, all these years later, you and your siblings are getting pulled through the mud? What a fucking nightmare.

The fact that this boy's parents never filed a missing person's report is quite suspicious, of course.

Not if he was adopted and neither parent knew he was missing.

🕵 Will Geraldo be hosting the "event" ?

Bastard babies were regularly adopted out in the 50s. It's a crying shame that this one ended up in such a horrible situation, but if he was adopted, his death is not the bio parents' fault. It's certainly a shit situation for his siblings, who have lived most of their lives without a clue that this mystery child was their half-brother. The parents are dead and can't be confronted about the infidelity or carelessness that led to the boy's existence; all the living descendants are left with is a giant pile of shit.

🤷 I don't know what all the fuss is about.

If you gave your baby up for adoption back then there was almost no chance you would ever know what became of them. My uncle was adopted in the early 50s and has no idea who his parents were. I can't imagine not knowing where I came from. But he has no interest in finding his birth family.

Blind adoptions were normal until at least the 1990s. I went to school with a couple of adopted kids who had no idea where they came from except for a city of birth and, of course, their birthday. Both have since tried to find relatives through DNA websites, though that seems like setting yourself up for disappointment. Most families don't want to know about the baby dad made with a girl he slept with just that one time, or the one mom gave up at 16.

What a Pandora's box 23andMe and Ancestry have turned out to be.

So they got DNA in the 90s but couldn't find him, so they dug him up and got more and BOOM, match.

Yeah right, they are looking to pin this on someone, they don't care whom

Why is that strange R197. There are a lot more DNA profiles out there compared to the 90s thanks to dna searching websites.

[quote] The fact that this boy's parents never filed a missing person's report is quite suspicious, of course.

Okay, Rose.

[quote] So they got DNA in the 90s but couldn't find him, so they dug him up and got more and BOOM, match. Yeah right, they are looking to pin this on someone, they don't care whom

You’re such an idiot. DNA Ancestry databases didn’t exist in the 90s.

R198 is correct. Geez, r197, you've never heard of forensic genealogy?

If the boy was given up for adoption, is his last name really Zarelli? Wouldn't it be that of the adoptive parents?

Illegal adoption was a thing back then. You could acquire a child under the table so to speak and call him whatever you wanted. There have been stories in recent years of Fundamentalist families who still do this. If they don't want the kid anymore they give it to another family with no paperwork required. They call it rehoming.

Joan Crawford used notorious baby broker Georgia Tann to aquire her twins.

Sounds like the birth mom reported Zarelli's name on the birth certificate but perhaps got it slightly wrong. But she gave the child his surname and of course the Joseph Augustus is directly from him or his family.

Perhaps she did give up the child and the foul play was from the adoptive parents, or perhaps her new BF killed him, or her enraged father, many possibilities.

Maybe I missed it, but do we know for a fact that he left the adoption home or whatever they call it in the illegal adoption racket? Wasn't his body found with a blanket from the home? Why would a 4 year old living with new parents still have that blanket? Maybe it was his "blankie".

I was conjuring up various scenarios. Except for the fact they say he was battered, it could have been a bad accident that left him so bruised and injured. Possibly being cared for by an elderly relative who babysat when the accident occurred, and the family didn't want this person to go to prison.

I have seen cases where the ME claimed battering but it was really an accident shown on video later recovered. There are some very biased MEs out there. And some who were not up on the latest science. We had one ME who stated that he thought any death to a baby under one year was murder. There was also a period of time when they thought that a certain eye condition observed post-mortem was a certain indicator of trauma until more recently when they found it could be caused by a medical condition.

Just saying.

They didn't say she got the name wrong, they said she used a variation on his name. She probably put his nickname ("Gus") on the birth certificate rather than his real name

R202 Yes; the way they identified the boy is via DNA matches. His DNA matched with members of the Zarelli family. They then were able to locate a birth certificate and that is how the boy was identified.

I'm curious then, if he was living with the Zarellis at the time of his death. If he wasn't, why wasn't he?

R209, he was probably living with his mom

The mom had older children. Have they spoken up?

R209 That remains to be seen. The main theory now is that he was given up in an unofficial adoption as she was an unwed mother. It could also be that she raised the kid, but then got involved with a man, and eventually they abused and killed the child.

R211 Where are you getting that info?

The authorities said there are children on both sides meaning the mother had other children. They were born between 1946-1955.

This whole mess could have been avoided if abortion had been legal.

R214 Authorities said that there are children on both sides. They never said if they were older siblings. They probably are not.

My 1st love was a foster care kid who went in at 5 and left when he was 15. He had no idea if his last name was really his or if it was given to him.He told me he had vague memories of a sister but none about his parents or anything else. He never spoke about that time,and the few times i questioned him it upset him so I just let it go. His last name was Carr,but he looked very ethnic. Almost Italian.Dark curly hair,huge brown eyes,and he'd get dark as hell when he tanned. My poor baby,but he always told me I was all the family he needed. Its funny,but now I cant find any mention of him online,not even his death record. Like this tragic child,he did exist but how easy it is to get lost in the mist.

R212, there's zero evidence he was adopted. Theories by websleuths fraus are always wrong, just look at the Somerton Man

Gus J. "Zarilli" is on the 1950 US Census in Philadelphia as age 24, never been married. Living with his parents.

And Cynthia Pashto is on the 1950 US Census in Philadelphia as age 19, never been married. Living with her parents.

Ah thats damn awful.

^^Sorry, I meant Pashko.

And just because, here is her 1949 yearbook photo from West Philadelphia HS.

R218 That is why I said “theory”.

What's your point? Cynthia Pashko wasn't Joseph's mother.

Yeah, I see now that Gus Zarelli and Cynthia Pashko weren't married until 1958, whereas the boy lived from 1953-57.

[quote] The authorities said there are children on both sides meaning the mother had other children. They were born between 1946-1955.

Can someone please explain what this means, once and for all? “Children on both sides” of what? Are we talking about cousins, half-siblings…??

Both parents have children with other partners.

Ok, I have a theory- Augustus Zarelli had Joseph with another woman (not the woman he married) out of wedlock. He wanted nothing to do with the kid. Mother sold him or gave him up to the mother Martha (the mentally ill woman who came forward years ago). I think Joseph was disguised as a girl (other people had this theory b/c his hair was so long before it was shaved post mortem). So I think Martha was telling the truth- and that is why the parents never came forward and reported him missing- they didn't know.

Martha is full of shit, like all those people who claimed their dads were the Zodiac killer or killed the Black Dahlia

He was likely killed by a family member or possibly a stepfather

Why do people keep saying he was adopted? There's no evidence for that.

The Martha story was bullshit. She stopped cooperating when cops questioned her former neighbors and they said no other child had lived with the family. Fraus keep clinging to her lies becasue they love torture porn. If the boy was locked in a basement all his life how did he undergo surgery and treatment for an eye infection? Why would parents who bought Joseph just to abuse him take him for medical treatment? I think his guardian got frustrated with caring for a disabled child.

Also the choppy haircut occured at the time of death not in the morgue. There were strands of cut hair on his body which led authorities to suspect someone got angry while trying to give him a haircut.

R233 Post mortem means after death- not in the morgue

R231 There isn’t evidence for anything, so of course theories will thrive. The reason for the adoption theory (less that he was formally adopted and more that he was given away) is that he was born out of wedlock, wasn’t reported as missing, as it doesn’t seem that any siblings knew about him.

r217 - [quote] My poor baby,but he always told me I was all the family he needed.

How sad! Who dump who?

R235, that would be explained by his siblings not being born at the time or being too young to remember. Moat small children who are killed are murdered by a parent or parents

When I was about the same age as Joseph my mom would wash my hair in the bathroom sink before she trimmed it. I always dreaded those days because I was a fidgety kid and mom would get rough. I imagine something like this happened in Joseph's case.

R237 True, that is why the informal adoption theory is just that. I personally think its more likely that the mother ended up with an abusive man who beat and eventually killed the boy.

The DNA search involved a Justin Thomas, who'd taken a DNA test for the heck of it. One of the cold case genealogists from Identifinders International then contacted him. His mother appears to have been Joseph's first cousin. She had an uncle called Zarelli. The fact that point is underlined in this interview with Thomas indicates that his maternal grandmother was the sister of Augustus and Michael Zarelli, the implication being that either Augustus or Michael is the father. The fact that Joseph's middle name was Augustus suggests Augustus was the father.

[quote]The last name of his mom’s uncle is “Zarelli.” His grandmother’s brother is a Zarelli. The Zarelli family lived in West Philadelphia before moving to Delaware County, he said.

If Augustus is his father, then it seems that Joseph was born out of wedlock and his mother named her son after his father.

[quote]In the case of the Boy in the Box, investigators said they identified cousins as well as half-siblings on his mother’s and father’s sides. Again, details were scant. But when investigators got in touch with possible relatives, Fitzpatrick said, they were able to assemble a family tree.

[quote]“There were cousins on both sides of the family that could only funnel to that one individual,” she said.

[quote]The process, she said, yielded one unequivocal identity for the Boy in the Box: Joseph Augustus Zarelli.

I swear, the true crime fraus are batshit. I can sense her EVIL ENERGY!!!! I can tell because I'm an empath, a word that normal, empathetic people literally never use to describe themselves.

Seriously, people like this are a menace to society. Imagine one of these freaks trying to persecute you because they think you have bitchface.

The police representative at the press conference said they first tracked down the identity of the mother through the DNA of cousins, so it's also possible that the mother was actually one of the Zarelli sisters.

Why would she name her brother as the father of her child?

[quote]and of course the Joseph Augustus is directly from him or his family

Those two names could be from her family, meaning the Augustus Zarelli everyone is looking at doesn't have anything to do with this.

This entire case is full of people who are taking their own personal assumptions and insisting they're facts.

[quote]I swear, the true crime fraus are batshit.

People interested in true crime aren't all like this, but true crime attracts crazies. There isn't a single Reddit post on any true crime sub that doesn't have several people like the lady you found. Yesterday someone was posting threats all over the Delphi board and I looked them up and they've been on Reddit since 2014, constantly posting "THESE POOR PRECIOUS BABIES HAVE DIED AND YOU DON'T CARE BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO STUPID, YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED NOT THEM!!!" and no one has done a thing about it.

^ All the people who believe this "M" shit are the same stupid twats who believe untrue shit about the Somerton Man or that woman who claimed her dad killed 40 people and buried them in the backyard

They believe anyone who comes forward with a "theory"

R244, if the mother was the Zarelli, then perhaps she named the child after her brother. Although, I lean more to believing the Zarelli was the father.

Apparently Michael gave his son the middle name of Joseph.

The police Captain also said they have suspicions as to who Joseph's killer might be.

The father's last name on the birth certificate was Zarelli.

[quote]His DNA matched with members of the Zarelli family. They then were able to locate a birth certificate and that is how the boy was identified.

We don't know that his DNA matched with the Zarelli family.

His DNA matched with his mother's side of the family and they got DNA from two siblings, which they did not confirm were full or half siblings. We don't know who his mother was so we don't know which family it was.

From there, they looked at birth certificates and matched with the dad's family listed on there. They told us the boy's last name was Zarelli but never confirmed that the name on the certificate was Zarelli. The name could have been Smith and the kid was adopted and given the name Zarelli and the cops just didn't share that with us.

A reporter at the press conference made it sound like the Zarelli family had contacted him and said that their relative wasn't the father, but it was hard to hear, and the answer ultimately was that DNA proved the father, not the birth certificate.

"We don't know that his DNA matched with the Zarelli family."

It did. He said so

R250, please see r240 and the link there with the interview with Justin Thomas, whose grandmother was a Zarelli sister. Joseph's DNA matched with the Zarelli family. The genealogists also searched through the databases to find relatives of the father, after his name had been discovered on Joseph's birth certificate.

Justin Thomas's mother had uncles called Zarelli. Her mother was a sister of the Zarelli brothers. See the link for the obituary of Mary Zarelli Stuardi, a sister of Augustus and Michael Zarelli. It says she is survived by her daughter Donna Thomas, who must be the mother of Justin Thomas, which would make Mary Zarelli Stuardi the maternal grandmother of Justin Thomas. Justin Thomas said the DNA evidence showed that his mother was likely a first cousin of Joseph. Either Augustus or Michael Zarelli is therefore Joseph's father.

This case has haunted me since I first read about it, especially the pictures they used to try to identify him. He’s dead and they posed him in a chair with clothes on. I get why they did it but it was so incredibly sad.

The guilty party is likely long passed on.

People are saying the father is a Zarelli. There is nothing to indicate that's true. We can't tell by the article in r251 whether the DNA from Thomas Zarelli that was on Ancestry matched this boy's mother or father, so we don't know who the Zarelli is, whether it's mom or dad.

I guess we know it's not an adoptive family name, so that's something.

Photos supposedly of the mother.

Little Joseph had a sweet face. I look forward to these detective threads because you never know, people thinking together might solve the case. I learn a lot about logical thinking too from the smarter posters here on DL.

Child abusers make me sick. Nowadays, just drop off your child at a hospital if you can't handle parenthood. No child should be hurt or unloved. I hope they figure out this one and I think it's solveable eventually.

That is not Joseph's mother. It's the mother of M who told that ridiculous story. Even if the story were true she would not be his mother.

So even if DNA leads to discovery of the bio parents, there might be no way of knowing who killed the child or why.

R254, the other two Zarelli sisters were in their 30s and i believe both married in 1953, when Joseph was born. One even gave birth in 1953. It's not completely impossible but it's very unlikely to be one of the sisters.

I’m with R239. Seems like the simplest explanation is that Zarelli and the mother have a fling, she thinks he’s going to marry her so gives the child his surname, but he doesn’t/won’t and eventually she ends up with some other man who abuses and then murders the child. I read somewhere that step-parents represent one of the biggest risks of death to small children. (Which is NOT the same as saying that all step-parents are abusive, in case anyone wants to be offended).

R242 Funny how “empaths” are supposed to be super in tune with other people’s emotions yet cannot tell the entire world thinks they are ridiculous.

Empaths don’t refer to themselves as empaths.

Oh yes they do, R262. They’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that they’re “empaths” - as diagnosed by a quiz in Buzzfeed, no doubt.

It's tacky to refer to oneself as an empath.

It doesn't matter if the boy was adopted or not, whoever had responsibility for him never reported him missing. The beatings he endured were vicious so it's probably a male killer. Admittedly, I watch far too many Crime+Investigation shows.

Women can also be cruel.

^ which is why I said "probably" and not "definitely".

I read statistically it's nearly always the mother's male partner, unrelated to the child, who mistreats. Sad but true. I should post the link- sorry.

"whoever had responsibility for him never reported him missing" - This is a salient point. How could a child simply disappear without anyone asking questions or the authorities not noticing?

The police apparently have some idea of how Joseph was killed and Misty Gillis, who did the genealogical research, says she has developed a theory too. The police want to investigate further before making any revelations, however, so whatever happened to Joseph it could not have been as convoluted as some of the theories that have been put forth in the past.

Interview with Misty Gillis at link.

He had a big forehead but he couldn’t live forever.

The video at R269 is about 6 minutes shy of 4 hours long!!!! Could the person who posted it just give a summary of any interesting points in the video? Thanks in advance.

271, the relevant part is basically the first half hour or so

Yeah, it's just the first 30 minutes or so. Misty talks about the case and the media, how some news outlets released the fact the Joseph's name was going to be made public earlier than they should have. She talks about worrying about all the online speculation that would follow. Then talks about the process of getting his DNA and how they found relatives. She then discusses some other cold cases they are working on and then finishes off talking about Joseph again.

She spent a lot of days crying. This case must be emotionally stressful for all involved.

Parents have been identified. It looks like the mother got pregnant and gave the boy up for adoption. No one knowns the story after that.

R274, why would you link to such a shitty link? It has you disable all your adblockers and then register at the site. What is wrong with you?

No idea what you’re talking about r275. The link is to the Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the best papers around. I’m a subscriber so maybe it shows some ads to you. There were no ads for me to disable. So…maybe there’s something wrong with you?

^Btw, the Inquirer broke the story tonight about the parents. If you have another link that’s not to that, r275, be my guest and post.

Can someone post the article for those of us who are paywalled?

It works for me

Thanks r274

It's a "nothing family".!! No one heard of them. now if it was a Thayer,Drexel. Annenberg, Biddle Girard. DuPont. Widener. Seriously, Philly had he most close off society families..

Thanks for the update and the link, r274, it works for me.

Poor Joseph. It's not even confirmed that his mother did give him up for adoption, although she did give a daughter she'd had a few years earlier up for adoption through a Catholic agency. Perhaps she didn't go through the same agency with Joseph and gave him instead to some horrible, unscrupulous people.

Here's a copy that's not behind a paywall.

It's pretty clear that the child was given up for adoption and it was the adoptive parents, or maybe an orphanage of some sort, that abused and killed him. All these internet vigilantes harassing the father's family are insane. There are just SO MANY crazy people out there, it's astounding.

Thanks for the link, R283.

You”re not wrong, R284. People are disgraceful, especially the true crime zealots.

I also think it highly likely that Joseph was adopted. Possibly his bio father never even knew he existed & it seems probable that mother never mentioned him to her own relatives, hence everyone’s bafflement.

The birth certificate they found for him would have been the one issued soon after he was born, and if they haven’t found the relevant adoption agency (which may have shut up shop years ago) then there’s no way to trace his new parents & probable murderers. It’s interesting that he was found in a bassinet box which may mean a new, maybe unexpected, pregnancy which sometimes means an adopted child is no longer wanted.

At least he got his name back, poor little soul.

I fucking hate the obsessive “armchair detectives” that seem to think they’re all Jessica Fletcher behind the keyboard.

R286, why? We’re all curious to know what happened, so naturally it prompts discussion. But harassing the families is way out of line.

I suspect VOTN is talking about the people who become absolutely unhinged, not just harassing people but insisting that their take, which is often completely crazy and supported by absolutely zero evidence, is the truth.

Websleuths is bad about this, mostly because they never ban the crazies who have their insane theories. With this case, on WS, there was some mentally ill moron who kept insisting they found the mother on an ancestry site and the proof was that the mother's other kids all died from a genetic deformity, just like this boy did. It made NO SENSE and WS never banned them, and after a few days, that crazy person's theories were all anyone was talking about.

R487 The key word in VoiceOfTheNight’s post is “obsessive”. R288 sums such people up perfectly.

Wow, you can totally see the resemblance between mother and son. Last name Abel. Hmm.

Got it, r288, yes I remember some of the obsessives on that site (I usually go there when there are breaks in cases like this one). Turns out she was as wrong as wrong can be.

No one has mentioned this very strange information found in R51's link about the death of Mary Jane Baker.

[quote]The press surrounding the Barker case led to the first calls about the Boy in the Box. Frank Guthrum, who discovered the boy, had decided not to call the police until he listened to reports of the Barker case on his car radio.

So Frank just randomly comes across a little dead boy in a box and just sits on that information? He is prompted to call the police only after listening about Mary Jane Baker's story on the radio. So if he had never heard that story, would he have left Joseph there? That is truly odd. Not sure what that means, but it's not normal behavior. Unless I am misreading something. I am sure he was questioned up and down. But maybe some guilty conscience of knowing more information caused him to come forward. Why the initial indifference?

Actually the Frank Guthrum as named on Wikipedia is Fredrick Benosis and he was the second person to come across the box. The first person was a John Stachowiak who was affraid to report what he saw due to illegal animal traps he had set in the area. Damn, the 1950s was a brutal time for children if two people are walking past a dead boy in a box and not immediately reporting it.

Does anyone know what the law was in Pennsylvania regarding the use of father’s last names for the children of unwed mothers?

In New York up until the ‘70s unwed mothers had to give any children their maiden names at birth and if they wanted the father and his last name used/added then had to petition the court. If Pennsylvania had a similar law it would make it less likely that the biological father didn’t know about the child because of the court action.

My father was born out of wedlock in PA, given up for adoption in the late 1940s. His birth certificate listed his biological mother’s surname. No father. He never found out who he was.

Not sure if that was how it was legally done in PA, or if that was his mother’s wish to leave the birth father out of it.

Is OP’s picture an artist rendering?

Is OP’s picture an artist’s rendering?

R294, in PA unwed mothers were allowed to give kids whatever last name they wanted

[quote][R286], why? We’re all curious to know what happened, so naturally it prompts discussion. But harassing the families is way out of line.

There's a difference between speculating on things and huffing around saying that you're "solving" a case. No one is solving shit. All they're doing is trying to connect disparate points of publicly available information that may or may not ultimately have anything to do with each other. Read about Maura Murray and the fact that people are still harassing her family after 20 years.

And that's even before you get to the ones who googled DSM definitions of things, and think they're forensic psychiatrists. I've done forensics work and work part-time as jail shrink, and I still wouldn't call myself that.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

He was a darling little boy. How horrible that we will never know the real circumstances of his death. Why are so many adopted kids abused? Why legally take responsibility of a child you really don’t want? Absolutely tragic.

There isn't any evidence he was adopted

What happened to the link to a prominent Philadelphia family thing they announced?

[quote] Family members believe that the boy was put up for adoption through a Catholic organization shortly after his birth.

Could the organization have killed him? What ever happened to that woman who claimed her mother killed him.

Would this organization have kept records? It’s probably no longer there. I wonder what happened to the documents.

Are there Federal laws requiring that adoption records must be preserved and “registered” with the government? There should be, no one should ever not have access to their personal records, it is insane to me that these papers are lost/destroyed.

He wasn't adopted

R307, where’s your proof? No one knows anything for sure except perhaps law enforcement.

It's a fascinating mystery. The investigators have done amazing work uncovering what they've been able to.

A lot of the questions will remain unsolved. It's easy in today's world to look back and ask 'How come this information isn't known, or that record has been destroyed?' But we live in a digital age, looking back on an analogue world, with fading memories.

At least this the little boy now has a name.

R305, where is that quotation from? The latest info on Joseph, from r274's link, says it's not known if he was put up for adoption.

[quote]The close relative, who asked not to be identified, said she could have put him up for adoption because she had done that before, with a daughter. The Inquirer has been unable to confirm whether someone adopted Joseph.

[quote]A police spokesperson declined to comment on The Inquirer’s findings.

R297, it's a police reconstruction from the 1950s, I believe. How sad the the photo on his grave is a reconstruction police made in an attempt to solve his murder.

It could be the bio mother's husband, based on the timeline. She was living in a tiny walk-up apartment with her husband. The first child she had with that husband, a daughter was just born the year before the boy in the box died. That could mean the boy was living in this little apartment with his mom, her husband, and the new baby girl. They had little money and were stressed. They would have bought a bassinet for the baby. The boy's body was found in a bassinet box. As people noted in post above, the bassinet box could mean the boy was no longer wanted, or the mother's husband could have resented having to raise a bastard child not his own, especially when they had a small apartment, a new baby girl, and more babies on the way. She would have 3 more babies by that same husband.

Why did no one ever connect him with a missing person? Even if his own parents killed him, i.e., never reporting him missing, wouldn't someone else have noticed his absence?

Indeed, r313. It sounds like he was hidden away after he was born, although he apparently had surgical scars.

R306 I agree in theory that all people should be allowed access to their own records. But in reality forcing people to give up anonymity when surrendering a child would lead to even more dead babies. Better to save a life.

Following on from my post at r310, the apparently "close relative" didn't even know that Betsy Abel was pregnant and had given birth to Joseph. The way she also denies that Betsy could have mistreated Joseph suggests that there is indeed a possibility that Betsy could have mistreated him.

[quote]The relative does not recall her pregnancy at the time but expressed doubt that she was involved in the mistreatment or death of Joseph.

[quote]It sounds like he was hidden away after he was born

That would explain a lot, including why no one -- neighbors, etc. -- noticed a little boy missing, whether he was raised for his short life by his biological parents or adopted parents.

I wonder too why the birth mother wasn’t buried with her husband in the military veterans cemetery. Wives are allowed to be buried there. She’s buried with her stepfather I think. Maybe she kept him and the the husband was abusive. There’s really nothing out there about the husband at all.