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.

DEAD FIVE DAYS

An autopsy yesterday revealed the girl apparently died of acute peritonitis caused after she swallowed a sharp object. Assistant Medical Examiner Henry Siegel said the girl apparently had been dead for about five days before she was found.

Brown said the similarity between the two cases was remarkable in that the Fox Chase boy also was undernourished, and was naked, except for being wrapped in a portion of blanket, when he was found February 26 in a cardboard carton.

FULL SCALE PROBE

The boy, whose identity still is a mystery, is believed to have died as a result of a severe beating. He was buried July 24 in the city cemetery at Mechanicsville and Dunks Ferry roads, at serves paid for by donations from detectives and other sympathetic persons.

Brown said the investigation into the murder is continuing full-scale with two homicide men permanently assigned to the case and six detectives, one from each detective division, assisting them.

08/19/57 Philadelphia Bulletin

Marker Planned for Unknown Boy

The police department has approved the placing of a marker on the grave of the unknown boy found slain in Fox Chase and buried in the city's cemetery Captain David H. Roberts said today.

Roberts, head of the homicide squad, said he will confer Wednesday with members of the Art Commission on the design and inscription.

The stone will be purchased out of a $150 balance in a burial fund contributed by detectives, employees of the detective bureau and public donors.

The boy, between four and six, was found February 26 in a cardboard box at Susquehanna and Verree roads. He was buried July 24 in the cemetery at Mechanicsville and Dunk's Ferry roads, Holmesburg.

Art Board Oks Marker For Slain Boy's Grave

The Art Commission yesterday approved a simple marker for the grave of the unknown boy found slain in Fox Chase and buried in the city's cemetery at Mechanicsville and Dunks Ferry roads, Holmesburg.

Captain David H. Robert, head of the homicide squad, told the commissioners he had no design in mind. He said that he and others concerned were stumped as to what to put on the marker.

The marker, which will be paid for out of a $150 balance in a burial fund, will be two feet wide, 18 inches in depth and ten inches high. It will bear the number 191, the only identification for the boy who was found February 26 in a cardboard box at Susquehanna and Verree roads. He was buried July 24.

By JAMES CARTIN and HAROLD HADLEY

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."

The boy found in the box was believed to be between 4 and 8 years old. Physicians said his exact age could not be determined. The boy was thin, even undernourished, when he was slain.

Sanders told police that his son was "that sort of child."

"John was a thin child" said the father. "He had an organic ailment. No matter how much nourishing food he ate, he always appeared undernourished."

Erected for Unknown Boy

That's how the epitaph will read on the gravestone of the little boy whose body was found in a box on a Fox Chase lot.

The announcement was made this afternoon by Chief Detective Inspector John J. Kelly and Captain David H. Roberts, head of the homicide squad.

They said the wording was agreed upon by the rank and file members of the detective bureau who contributed funds to give the unknown child a funeral on July 24 with burial in the city's cemetery at Mechanicsville and Dunks Ferry roads, Holmesburg.

It was also announced that the monument firm of Guest and Williams, 15^th and Haines sts., had offered to donate the gravestone.

The detectives had planned to buy the grave marker with $160 left from $240 donated by detectives and outsiders.

Now, Kelly and Roberts said, it has been suggested that the $160 be turned over to a children's home in memory of the dead child, who was from four to six years old.

All Are Released After Long Quiz; Identities Kept Secret

A mass raid Thursday night on a farm near Horsham netted four persons who were questioned until 4 A.M. yesterday about the murder of an unidentified boy whose body was found in a cardboard box last February in Fox Chase.

Carried out by State, Montgomery county and Philadelphia police, the raid was made as a result of information given to Montgomery County District Attorney Bernard DiJoseph by an unidentified woman.

ALL ARE RELEASED

All of those questioned were released and DiJoseph said he felt they told him a "straight story" and that it was "nothing to get concerned about at this time."

However, DiJoseph, while refusing to disclose the "leads" given him by the informant, insisted that the case was still open and that his investigators would continue to work on the case.

Meanwhile, it was learned, the informant identified the section of blanket found in the box with the murdered boy. It was not learned how the blanket was linked to the farm.

LOCATION KEPT SECRET

The exact location of the farm and the identity of the six persons living there were not disclosed. DiJoseph said they were young and that none of them were related.

DiJoseph said the raid also produced a photograph of a young boy similar in appearance to the dead child. He said he had not yet identified the boy in the picture.

At the scene of the raid with DiJoseph were Police Commissioner Thomas J. Gibbons, Homicide Squad Capt. David H. Roberts, State Police Lt. George Sawyer and squads of plainclothesmen and uniformed officers.

By NATHAN KLEGER

Of the Bulletin Staff

A new lead has developed in the case of the unknown boy found murdered in Fox Chase on February 25, 1957.

The lead involves the cheap cotton flannel blanket, which partly covered the boy's nude body when it was found inside a cardboard carton in a thicket off Susquehanna Road west of Verree Road.

Since the crime was discovered 21 months ago, investigators have been unable to identify the boy, about four years old, or to trace the blanket.

Given to FBI

Now through some sleuthing of the medical examiner's office, police have a clue to the origin of the blanket it was learned yesterday.

They have turned it over to the FBI to run down for them. The clue is that the blanket is manufactured by one of two mills. One is located in North Carolina; the other is in the Province of Quebec, Canada. Their hope is to establish which of the two mills manufactured the blanket and then in what area the blanket was originally sold.

"This is a step in the right direction," said Chief Inspector John J. Kelly, in charge of detectives. "It may bring results if we can localize the area where these blankets were sold."

The blanket found with the body was old, faded, and worn. It had been torn in two halves. Approximately a quarter of one of the halves was missing.

It had a plaid design with diamonds and blocks in green, rust, brown, and white. One half of the blanket measured 33 by 76 inches, while the other, from which the piece was missing, was 31 by 51 inches.

With the cooperation of the homicide squad, the Medical Examiner's office took the blanket on November 3 to the Philadelphia Textile Institute, School House Lane and Henry Avenue.

There Dean Donald D. Partridge consented to have it laboratory tested by Professor Percival Theel and Associate Professor David W. Giese.

Remembers Weave

As the two examined the weave through microscopes, Giese remembered that a student had shown him this particular weave two years ago.

Giese checked with the student and was told that the student had gotten a sample of blanket material of the same weave, but different pattern, from a Canadian mill.

With the help of this information and checking the weave against other samples, Theel and Giese determined that the blanket was made either at the Beacon Mills, Swannanon, N.C., or the Esmond Mills at Granby, Province of Quebec, Canada, from which the student had gotten his sample.

Swannanon, with a population of about 1,700, is in Buncembe County, east of Asheville, Granby, with a population of 26,000, is in Shefford County, 50 miles east of Montreal and 30 miles from the New York border.

No Report Yet

The medical examiner's office relayed this information to Kelly who, in turn, requested that the FBI run it out. He asked the FBI to determine which of the two mills produced the blanket, how many such blankets were woven, and where they had been distributed. No report has been received yet from the FBI.

The boy's medium-brown hair had been crudely cropped short, apparently at the time of his death. He had blue eyes, weighed 30 pounds, and was 40 inches tall.

The child was finally buried in the city's cemetery on July 24, 1957, after detectives contributed to a burial fund. This was after his body had lain unidentified in the morgue for six months. A marker later was placed on the small grave. The inscription reads: "Heavenly Father, bless this unknown boy. February 25, 1957."

Bone Detective

Dr. Wilton M. Krogman, professor of physical anthropology at the Graduate School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, was called in by the Medical Examiner's office to study the body's characteristics.

Dr. Krogman, known as the "bone detective," reported his findings in a recent issue of Lippincott's Medical Science.

The article in the semi-monthly scientific journal is entitled, "Who Is This Boy?" and carries a morgue picture of the child's head and shoulders.

Dead 3 to 14 Days

The boy may have been dead from three to 14 days when found.

A first examination showed a thin but well-developed boy of about 4 to 5 years of age.

The skin of the right hand and both feet was much wrinkled, indicating possibly a rather long immersion in water.

The boy had a height age of about three years, eight months, and a weight age of two years, two months.

However, it is possible the boy actually weighed 35 pounds at death, which would place his weight age at about three.

Long, Narrow Head

Head measurements showed a long, narrow head, a high forehead, a narrow face, and a high, narrow nose.

These traits, together with his brown hair and blue eyes, indicated a national background of Northwest or West Central Europe, possibly Scandinavia, West Germany, England or Scotland.

Analysis of X-rays of the body suggested a skeletal age of around three. However, there was evidence of a chronic growth disturbance about a year prior to death, which may have slowed the boy down six months to a year in his growth progress.

A final evaluation shows a probably chronological age of about four.

Was He Kidnapped?

 Dr. Krogman's article concludes:

"All the evidence permits a few deductions (or hunches) as to the background of the child: (a) the suggestion of chronic ill health prior to death points to a family of lower class or reduced socio-economic circumstances; (b) it is possible also, that the presumed ill health may have been due to neglect and malnutrition, such as may be found in families constantly on the move (itinerant or migratory workers); (c) or is this a kidnapped child, with the abductor(s) frantically 'on the lam'?

Shortly after the boy's body was found, it was suggested that he might have been Steven Craig Damman, son of an Air Force enlisted man, who was kidnapped outside a Long Island supermarket October 31, 1955, when he was 34 months old.

Nassau County, N.Y., detectives, who checked and discounted this possibility, said the Damman boy had suffered a fractured left arm in January 1954.

According to Dr. Krogman's article, the X-ray film of the unknown boy's left arm suggested "the possibility" of an injury there.