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Thread: The Boy in the Box

  1. #1
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    The Boy in the Box

    I heard about this poor kid years ago and the case is still unsolved..

    The "Boy in the Box" is the name given to an unidentified murder victim, approximately 4 to 6 years old, whose naked, battered body was found in a cardboard box in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 25, 1957.

    The body was found discarded in a cardboard box that once contained a baby's bassinet from J.C. Penney. The body was found wrapped in a blanket, and was discovered by a young man who claimed that he was examining muskrat traps, but was later revealed to be in the habit of spying on the young women who lived at the nearby Catholic home for wayward girls.

    The case engendered massive media attention in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, with pictures of the boy even being placed in every gas bill in Philadelphia. However, despite the publicity at the time of the body's discovery and sporadic re-interest throughout the years, the case remains unsolved to this day, and the boy's identity is still unknown.

    The story has been profiled on the television series America's Most Wanted, and the CBS series Cold Case and NBC's Law & Order: SVU both used fictionalized accounts of the story as the basis of episodes.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_in_the_Box_%28Philadelphia%29

    There is loads of other info available on google if you just search for Boy in the Box.



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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    That's very sad. I remember hearing about this story from time to time, too.
    A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.

  3. #3

    Re: The Boy in the Box

    im surprised ive never heard of this story and i live 10 minutes away from there

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    [quote author=I'll die one day link=topic=4793.msg185594#msg185594 date=1171333979]
    im surprised ive never heard of this story and i live 10 minutes away from there
    [/quote]

    Yeah, I am 10 minutes away too, and it doesn't ring any bells for me either.  Which is quite odd, cause cold-cases interest me more than ones that are solved.

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    Really interesting website here:

    http://boyinthebox.bravehost.com/index.html


    I have been following this case for years. My heart breaks for this child.

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    All you people that live 10 minutes away, where the heck are you at?
    I live in that area and never have ment anyone from around there.
    And it happened in the 50's I think that is why you might not have heard about it.

    I read the book about this case and it was interesting.

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    Senior Member tmars78's Avatar
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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    [quote author=Just Me link=topic=4793.msg185629#msg185629 date=1171336061]
    All you people that live 10 minutes away, where the heck are you at?
    I live in that area and never have ment anyone from around there.
    And it happened in the 50's I think that is why you might not have heard about it.

    I read the book about this case and it was interesting.
    [/quote]

    I am right near the Int'l Airport.  Grew up right next to South West.

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    [quote author=tmars78 link=topic=4793.msg185648#msg185648 date=1171336768]
    I am right near the Int'l Airport.  Grew up right next to South West.
    [/quote]

    Okay, I grew up in Northeast Philly but the Roosevelt Mall, Now I live in South Jersey right over the Commader Barry Bridge.


    And yes my spelling stinks...Just wanted to post that before the spelling nazi showed up

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    [quote author=Just Me link=topic=4793.msg185663#msg185663 date=1171337221]
    And yes my spelling stinks...Just wanted to post that before the spelling nazi showed up
    [/quote]

    Haha, no doubt!

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    [quote author=Just Me link=topic=4793.msg185663#msg185663 date=1171337221]

    And yes my spelling stinks...Just wanted to post that before the spelling nazi showed up
    [/quote]

    Sad, but true.  Thank god for that spell check, or more of us would look like retards.

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    Senior Member Peavey's Avatar
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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    Did I hear that this little boy had surgical scar?  If that were the case, you'd think that he would have been recognizable by someone in the medical community - doctors, nurses, surgeon.

    The saddest part is that you have to wonder how awful his poor little life was before he was killed.  Was it all just misery and isolation?

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    Uh....that photo was placed in every gas bill in Philly??  ...that's kinda..hmm.... :roll:

  13. #13

    Re: The Boy in the Box

    i lived on dyre street right of the blvd. now i live across the betsy ross and tacony bridges in cinnaminson

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    [quote author=I'll die one day link=topic=4793.msg187340#msg187340 date=1171408149]
    i lived on dyre street right of the blvd. now i live across the betsy ross and tacony bridges in cinnaminson
    [/quote]

    I am in Mullica hill, the preppy town where I don't fit in

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    Wow. That's horrible. I remember that L&O:SVU though.

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    [quote author=perry link=topic=4793.msg185607#msg185607 date=1171334500]
    Really interesting website here:

    http://boyinthebox.bravehost.com/index.html


    I have been following this case for years. My heart breaks for this child.
    [/quote]

    Me too. I remember hearing about this when I was really young. I always hoped they'd figure out who he is but, I guess even w/ today's technology they really have no where to go with this. Really sad.

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    we should all get together for a drink :) I'm right in the middle of all three of you. :)
    "Since change is constant, you wonder if people crave death because it's the only way they can get anything really finished." -Chuck Palahniuk

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  18. #18
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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    the whole size of america and u all live in the same place! how bizarre!

  19. #19
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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    [quote author=Karalicious link=topic=4793.msg191872#msg191872 date=1171717789]
    we should all get together for a drink :) I'm right in the middle of all three of you. :)
    [/quote]

    No problem. I am always up for drinks.

    I know there are a few others that are in the same area.
    Maybe we can have a MDS drink-fest.

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    www.dailylocal.com printed Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007
    Boy In The Box Case Takes A Strange Twist 
    By Kathleen Keane 
    Part 2 of 2


    When it comes to the case of the Boy-in-the-Box, Philadelphia Police Detective Bill Kelly never gave up.

    He worked on the case, on his own time, and still, many years after his retirement, he continues to work on it. He‘s prayed about the case, and finally, 43 years to the day of the discovery of the body, an astonishing phone call came unexpectedly from a doctor in Cincinnati, Ohio, to the homicide division of the Philadelphia Police Department.

    ”My patient would like me to tell you about a murder she witnessed in 1957,“ said the doctor.


    One of the leads very early on was that of a man who called in a homicide and said he had driven past the crime scene location on Sunday, Feb. 24, 1957. He said he was driving along Verree Road when he spotted a car stopped on the side of the road with a woman and a boy standing by the trunk.

    The woman appeared to be groping for something in the trunk. She was between 40 and 50 years old, of medium height and heavyset, wearing a checkered winter coat. The boy looked about 12 to 14 years old, the same height as the woman. The witness told police he slowed his car and asked if they needed help, if they had a flat tire, and both the woman and the boy turned their backs and remained mute. He said it looked like they were trying to conceal the license plate from him.

    He thought it strange, but drove on.

    That vague lead, that went nowhere at the time, would prove to be the one link that finally connected Bill to the person who would give him the best information he would ever get about the boy.

    ”My old friend Hal Fillinger (the late Philadelphia Medical Examiner) told me that after you look at the obvious, the not so obvious, and you find nothing, then, look for the dirty,“ says Kelly.

    So here it is: In the early morning hours of Feb. 25, 2000, a woman in Cincinnati, Ohio, awoke from sleep in a panic. She phoned her psychiatrist and told her she needed to report a murder.

    The woman met her doctor in her office at 9 a.m. the next day and began to speak about the murder. Between 10 and 11 a.m. the psychiatrist asked her patient‘s permission to call the Homicide Division of the Philadelphia Police Dept.

    The psychiatrist reported to the homicide detectives that her patient had related to her details of a murder that had taken place in Philadelphia in 1957. This is her story:

    ”M“ is a woman in her early 60s, with a master‘s degree and a doctorate, who is employed in a prestigious position in the Midwest.

    After she gave her psychiatrist permission to phone the Philadelphia homicide division about what she knew concerning the homicide of a small boy in 1957, it began a two-year correspondence between her and the police and the investigators.

    It began with hand-written letters, which of course, the police had analyzed, and found to be truthful, and later became typewritten as the investigators gained her confidence.

    Finally, in mid-June 2002, Bill Kelly, Tom Augustine, the Philadelphia homicide detective assigned to the case, and Joe McGillen, the lead investigator in the Medical Examiners office, met with ”M“ in her doctor‘s office in Cincinnati.

    There were a few ground rules: the detectives could take no notes, and the interview could last only one hour.

    The interview lasted two hours, and then the investigators took her to lunch where she continued her incredible story.

    She remembers she was 10 years old, and it was the year of Hurricane Hazel, 1954, when her mother drove her to a place about 45 minutes away from their home in Lower Merion. They arrived at a house and were greeted by a woman holding a toddler in a wet diaper. She recalled he was 1 to 1½ years old. Her mother handed the woman an envelope, containing money, according to ”M,“ and the woman handed over the toddler.

    They took the toddler home to Lower Merion, kept him in a basement, and her mother used the boy for physical abuse. He was malnourished, slept on an old refrigerator box in the basement, was never allowed outside, and never saw anyone other than his captor.

    Her mother was a librarian and her father a science teacher in the Lower Merion School District. They lived on a tree-lined street and attended church regularly.

    The boy lived with the family about two years. She recalled her mother was bathing the child and became enraged when he threw up in the bathtub. Her mother beat the child and slammed his head against the floor. The boy died. The mother cut his hair and the daughter cut his nails; they cleaned him up, put a hat on his head, put him in the car and drove around the city looking for a place to dump the body.

    ”M“ continues that while they were stopped on Vereee and Susquehanna roads, a man stopped his car and asked if they needed help. They refused, and he drove away. They hauled the body to the trash strewn lot, where they found an abandoned box, and stashed the body inside.

    ”M“ was large for her age, a swimmer with broad shoulders, and could easily have been mistaken for a boy by a casual passerby.

    Her mother died in 1985, and ”M“ has been tormented by guilt her entire life.

    The three detectives interviewed ”M“ both individually and collectively. They compared their notes, and all three came to the same conclusion.

    ”All three of us were 100 percent sure, based on our findings, that she had given us the best information on the case we had in 42 years. We went back to Philadelphia Homicide and presented our findings, together with all the paperwork collected over the years,“ said Kelly.

    ”I was taken back when a lieutenant said this testimony was from the mind of a looney, how was it believable?“ he continues.

    ”I said, if you had witnessed your mother bang a child‘s head and kill him and you were solicited to dispose of the body, wouldn‘t you have been traumatized?“

    ”M“ had first-hand information that no one else ever had. For decades, police thought the box was a coffin; it was not. It was there when ”M“ and her mother arrived with the body. The cap was on the boy. She told the investigators she memorized the route her mother took back to Lower Merion from Verree Road.

    Detectives Augustine, Kelly and McGillen got a warrant to search the house in Lower Merion where the family had lived, and the boy was kept captive and murdered. However, so many years had passed that no trace evidence could be found.

    ”M“ told police she had more to lose than to gain in telling about the murder, that she had a good job, and was afraid she could be fired if the truth about her past was released.

    ”I believe we have as much as we are ever going to get on this case, and I believe what she told us is exactly what happened to the Boy-in-the-Box,“ said Kelly.

    Kelly stays in touch with ”M“; they send Christmas greetings to each other. She says she feels healed now, and thanks Kelly and the others for believing her.


    When multiple catastrophies strike one man in one lifetime, not only a 50-year quest for an unnamed child, but the personal tragedy of the loss of children who are supposed to outlive him, how does that man cope?

    For Bill Kelly, it‘s as simple and as complicated as having faith.

    He knows he is in the winter of his years, and there is not much time left. But, he said, he is both personally and professionally convinced that the mystery of the identity of the Boy-in-the-Box has been solved.

    ”I looked into her eyes, and I know she is telling me the truth,“ he said about the story of ”M.“

    Asked if he believes this because he needs to believe it in order to find peace for himself after five decades of searching, he responds with eyes that never lie, ”No, a good investigator can never allow his heart to get in the way of logic.“

    Note: The Vidocq Society will sponsor a graveside service commemorating the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the Boy in the Box today at 10 a.m. at Ivy Hill Cemetery, 1201 Easton Road, Philadelphia, PA 19150.


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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    Christmas; boy in a box
    Hanukkah; boy in a box
    Kwanzaa; a boy in a box
    Every single holiday a boy in a box
    Over at your parent's house a boy in a box
    Mid day at the grocery store a boy in a box
    Backstage at the CMA's a boy in a box (yeah-wow-wow-wow-wow-wow)

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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    [quote author=jessmom link=topic=4793.msg201711#msg201711 date=1172514186]
    www.dailylocal.com printed Sunday, Feb. 25, 2007
    Boy In The Box Case Takes A Strange Twist 
    By Kathleen Keane 
    Part 2 of 2


    When it comes to the case of the Boy-in-the-Box, Philadelphia Police Detective Bill Kelly never gave up.

    He worked on the case, on his own time, and still, many years after his retirement, he continues to work on it. He‘s prayed about the case, and finally, 43 years to the day of the discovery of the body, an astonishing phone call came unexpectedly from a doctor in Cincinnati, Ohio, to the homicide division of the Philadelphia Police Department.

    ”My patient would like me to tell you about a murder she witnessed in 1957,“ said the doctor.


    One of the leads very early on was that of a man who called in a homicide and said he had driven past the crime scene location on Sunday, Feb. 24, 1957. He said he was driving along Verree Road when he spotted a car stopped on the side of the road with a woman and a boy standing by the trunk.

    The woman appeared to be groping for something in the trunk. She was between 40 and 50 years old, of medium height and heavyset, wearing a checkered winter coat. The boy looked about 12 to 14 years old, the same height as the woman. The witness told police he slowed his car and asked if they needed help, if they had a flat tire, and both the woman and the boy turned their backs and remained mute. He said it looked like they were trying to conceal the license plate from him.

    He thought it strange, but drove on.

    That vague lead, that went nowhere at the time, would prove to be the one link that finally connected Bill to the person who would give him the best information he would ever get about the boy.

    ”My old friend Hal Fillinger (the late Philadelphia Medical Examiner) told me that after you look at the obvious, the not so obvious, and you find nothing, then, look for the dirty,“ says Kelly.

    So here it is: In the early morning hours of Feb. 25, 2000, a woman in Cincinnati, Ohio, awoke from sleep in a panic. She phoned her psychiatrist and told her she needed to report a murder.

    The woman met her doctor in her office at 9 a.m. the next day and began to speak about the murder. Between 10 and 11 a.m. the psychiatrist asked her patient‘s permission to call the Homicide Division of the Philadelphia Police Dept.

    The psychiatrist reported to the homicide detectives that her patient had related to her details of a murder that had taken place in Philadelphia in 1957. This is her story:

    ”M“ is a woman in her early 60s, with a master‘s degree and a doctorate, who is employed in a prestigious position in the Midwest.

    After she gave her psychiatrist permission to phone the Philadelphia homicide division about what she knew concerning the homicide of a small boy in 1957, it began a two-year correspondence between her and the police and the investigators.

    It began with hand-written letters, which of course, the police had analyzed, and found to be truthful, and later became typewritten as the investigators gained her confidence.

    Finally, in mid-June 2002, Bill Kelly, Tom Augustine, the Philadelphia homicide detective assigned to the case, and Joe McGillen, the lead investigator in the Medical Examiners office, met with ”M“ in her doctor‘s office in Cincinnati.

    There were a few ground rules: the detectives could take no notes, and the interview could last only one hour.

    The interview lasted two hours, and then the investigators took her to lunch where she continued her incredible story.

    She remembers she was 10 years old, and it was the year of Hurricane Hazel, 1954, when her mother drove her to a place about 45 minutes away from their home in Lower Merion. They arrived at a house and were greeted by a woman holding a toddler in a wet diaper. She recalled he was 1 to 1½ years old. Her mother handed the woman an envelope, containing money, according to ”M,“ and the woman handed over the toddler.

    They took the toddler home to Lower Merion, kept him in a basement, and her mother used the boy for physical abuse. He was malnourished, slept on an old refrigerator box in the basement, was never allowed outside, and never saw anyone other than his captor.

    Her mother was a librarian and her father a science teacher in the Lower Merion School District. They lived on a tree-lined street and attended church regularly.

    The boy lived with the family about two years. She recalled her mother was bathing the child and became enraged when he threw up in the bathtub. Her mother beat the child and slammed his head against the floor. The boy died. The mother cut his hair and the daughter cut his nails; they cleaned him up, put a hat on his head, put him in the car and drove around the city looking for a place to dump the body.

    ”M“ continues that while they were stopped on Vereee and Susquehanna roads, a man stopped his car and asked if they needed help. They refused, and he drove away. They hauled the body to the trash strewn lot, where they found an abandoned box, and stashed the body inside.

    ”M“ was large for her age, a swimmer with broad shoulders, and could easily have been mistaken for a boy by a casual passerby.

    Her mother died in 1985, and ”M“ has been tormented by guilt her entire life.

    The three detectives interviewed ”M“ both individually and collectively. They compared their notes, and all three came to the same conclusion.

    ”All three of us were 100 percent sure, based on our findings, that she had given us the best information on the case we had in 42 years. We went back to Philadelphia Homicide and presented our findings, together with all the paperwork collected over the years,“ said Kelly.

    ”I was taken back when a lieutenant said this testimony was from the mind of a looney, how was it believable?“ he continues.

    ”I said, if you had witnessed your mother bang a child‘s head and kill him and you were solicited to dispose of the body, wouldn‘t you have been traumatized?“

    ”M“ had first-hand information that no one else ever had. For decades, police thought the box was a coffin; it was not. It was there when ”M“ and her mother arrived with the body. The cap was on the boy. She told the investigators she memorized the route her mother took back to Lower Merion from Verree Road.

    Detectives Augustine, Kelly and McGillen got a warrant to search the house in Lower Merion where the family had lived, and the boy was kept captive and murdered. However, so many years had passed that no trace evidence could be found.

    ”M“ told police she had more to lose than to gain in telling about the murder, that she had a good job, and was afraid she could be fired if the truth about her past was released.

    ”I believe we have as much as we are ever going to get on this case, and I believe what she told us is exactly what happened to the Boy-in-the-Box,“ said Kelly.

    Kelly stays in touch with ”M“; they send Christmas greetings to each other. She says she feels healed now, and thanks Kelly and the others for believing her.


    When multiple catastrophies strike one man in one lifetime, not only a 50-year quest for an unnamed child, but the personal tragedy of the loss of children who are supposed to outlive him, how does that man cope?

    For Bill Kelly, it‘s as simple and as complicated as having faith.

    He knows he is in the winter of his years, and there is not much time left. But, he said, he is both personally and professionally convinced that the mystery of the identity of the Boy-in-the-Box has been solved.

    ”I looked into her eyes, and I know she is telling me the truth,“ he said about the story of ”M.“

    Asked if he believes this because he needs to believe it in order to find peace for himself after five decades of searching, he responds with eyes that never lie, ”No, a good investigator can never allow his heart to get in the way of logic.“

    Note: The Vidocq Society will sponsor a graveside service commemorating the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the Boy in the Box today at 10 a.m. at Ivy Hill Cemetery, 1201 Easton Road, Philadelphia, PA 19150.


    [/quote]

    I'm so glad that this is finally solved. He can now rest in peace.

  23. #23
    Senior Member Just Me's Avatar
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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    I don't think it is solved. They still don't know who he is and that is the sad part.

  24. #24
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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    [quote author=Just Me link=topic=4793.msg211549#msg211549 date=1172978952]
    I don't think it is solved. They still don't know who he is and that is the sad part.
    [/quote]

    True, but at least they know what happened, his story has kind of been told and he isn't just a boy in a box anymore. I'm sure that they can continue into finding out where he actually came from.
    Just a thought I wonder if it's possible to extract any DNA and run it through all the different databases and possibly coming up with a relative of some sort.

  25. #25
    BelleMorte
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    Re: The Boy in the Box

    I read a little about this in Weird Pennsylvania.

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