In February 1957, a college student stumbled upon the remains of a young boy in the woods of Philadelphia and reported his gruesome discovery to the police. The boy was found badly beaten and laid to rest inside an old bassinet box. His identity was unknown.
Several people came forward with information relating to the case, but the police were not able to verify anyone’s testimony. One woman, Martha, claimed that her abusive mother bought the boy. Under their roof, he was subjected to physical and sexual abuse. What made the police take interest in Martha’s story was her knowledge of details that had not been released to the public.
She claimed that shortly before the boy was beaten to death, he ate baked beans, which corroborated the autopsy. She also claimed that he was bathed before his death, which matched the coroner’s finding of water-pruned fingers. Though Martha’s testimony seemed to match the evidence, her substantial history of mental illness made her an unreliable witness.
Another lead came from a psychic who accurately described a foster home near where the boy had been found, without ever having seen it. Remington Bristow, an employee at the examiner’s office, followed the psychic’s directions to the foster house. Inside, he discovered a bassinet matching the description of the bassinet box the boy was found in.
He also found blankets similar to the one that was wrapped around the boy’s body. Because there was no real incriminating evidence against the foster parents, Bristow’s findings were dismissed as well.
62 years later, the case of the Boy in the Box has gone cold. Facial reconstruction technology has provided mock images of what the boy might have looked like alive, but no one has ever come forward to claim him. DNA and dental testing have also been attempted, with no success thus far. The identity of the Boy in the Box remains unknown to this day.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Over view
Discovery of the body
In February 1957, the boy's body, wrapped in a plaid blanket, was found in the woods off Susquehanna Road in Fox Chase, Philadelphia. The naked body was inside a cardboard box that had once contained a bassinet of the kind sold by J. C. Penney. The boy's hair had been recently cropped, possibly after death, as clumps of hair clung to the body. There were signs of severe malnourishment, as well as surgical scars on the ankle and groin, and an L-shaped scar under the chin.
The body was first discovered by a young man who was checking his muskrat traps. Fearing that the police would confiscate his traps, he did not report what he had found. A few days later, a college student spotted a rabbit running into the underbrush. Knowing that there were animal traps in the area, he stopped his car to investigate and discovered the body. He was also reluctant to have any contact with the police, but he did report what he had found the following day, after hearing of the disappearance of Mary Jane Barker
Investigation
The police received the report and opened an investigation on February 26, 1957. The dead boy's fingerprints were taken, and police at first were optimistic that he would soon be identified. However, no one ever came forward with any useful information.
The case attracted massive media attention in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley. The Philadelphia Inquirer printed 400,000 flyers depicting the boy's likeness, which were sent out and posted across the area, and were included with every gas bill in Philadelphia. The crime scene was combed over and over again by 270 police academy recruits, who discovered a man's blue corduroy cap, a child's scarf, and a man's white handkerchief with the letter "G" in the corner; all clues that led nowhere.
The police also distributed a post-mortem photograph of the boy fully dressed and in a seated position, as he may have looked in life, in the hope it might lead to a clue. Despite the publicity and sporadic interest throughout the years, the boy's identity is still unknown and the case remains unsolved to this day.
On March 21, 2016, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released a forensic facial reconstruction of the victim and added him into their database.
................
I hope the first episode of Thriller Thursday went good.
Episode 2 will be up next Thursday ♡
Stay tuned for the next chapter.
Thank you very much for reading.
If you want your stories to be published here, private message me and get a chance to have your story in this book.
