"BOY IN THE BOX REVELATIONS COME UP EMPTY"

By: Nicole Clark / Staff Writer 12/04/2002

A big, fat zero. That's what's come of the woman who, back in the summer, claimed she knew the so- called Boy in the Box, according to Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr.

She even gave him a name: Jonathan. But, while the media trumpeted the story, eager to wrap up the 45-year-old mystery, Castor was skeptical from the start, calling her story "akin to Martians coming down and marching somebody off in a spaceship." And, so far, Castor said, detectives have been unable to corroborate any part of the woman's story since she came forward last summer. Castor said he's unwilling to accept it as a Montgomery County case. "I'm not so sure that the information that was highly publicized is accurate and I don't know how reliable that information actually is," Castor said. "I'm not so sure that the information gathered was from a credible source."

Now a business executive in Cincinnati, the woman told investigators that as a child she lived with the boy in a Lower Merion home. He died after a female caregiver threw him to the bathroom floor, punishment for vomiting in the bathtub. His nude and battered body was found in a cardboard box in a wooded area along what is now Susquehanna Road near Verree in February 1957. Police estimated the boy to be about 4 years old. He had suffered multiple head injuries, but the medical examiner declared the cause of death uncertain. Police treated it as a homicide. The child's bruises and unknown identity have haunted city residents and investigators ever since.

When the woman's tale was leaked to the media, they clamped on it with hope. Her story held some credibility because she revealed the information to her physician in 1989. The doctor initially contacted law enforcement officials, but he and police worked 13 years to convince her to step forward. She claimed she was about 12 when the boy was killed by a female caregiver who is now deceased.

The witness said the boy was given to a Main Line family two years before his death in what may have been an unofficial adoption. Autopsy photos of the boy's body show signs of abuse. The woman claimed he was malnourished and physically and sexually abused. Restricted to the basement where he slept in a cardboard refrigerator box, he rarely left the house, she said. Castor assigned a detective from his office and one from the Lower Merion Police Department to investigate.

The woman described the general area where she claimed the house was located. Combing through property records and municipal tax records, detectives narrowed the search to a specific address and a particular family. They considered filing for a search warrant or asking for a consent search, but the home was so different than it was in 1957 that "it wasn't worth it," Castor said. Using municipal records, they tracked down residents who lived in the area at the time and might remember a child from the neighborhood suddenly gone missing. Nobody remembered. "It sounded good at the beginning because people from the Main Line might not have ever thought anything of it when you had a body (discovered) 20 miles away or 15 miles away, Castor said. "We tried to get them thinking about it, but nothing panned out.

Philadelphia Daily News - 06/28/02

'Boy in Box' given to couple in '50s

Source: Money exchanged for child

By JIM NOLAN

"Jonathan," the so-called "Boy in the Box" found murdered in 1957, was handed over to his killer caregiver two years before his death in a mysterious transaction that was not an official adoption but involved the payment of money, sources told the Daily News yesterday.

According to the sources, a woman who claims to have lived with the boy told investigators that the exchange allegedly took place at a home in the Philadelphia area.

She said a man and a woman handed the child over to the Main Line caregiver and her husband, who gave the couple an undetermined amount of cash before leaving with the boy.

Sources said police have not been able to determine the relationship of the couple to the boy, though investigators are probing whether handing the boy over could have been arranged by relatives.

The purpose of the cash transaction also is not clear.

"Money exchanged hands," a source told the Daily News. "But it could have been reimbursement of expenses, it could have been a stipend of some sort. We don't know if it's a quid pro quo [for the boy]."

While investigators seeking to solve the 45-year-old murder are still trying to determine where the boy came from, it's hard to imagine the parents who gave him up being worse than the ones who took him in.

According to sources familiar with the case, the woman, interviewed in Cincinnati roughly a month ago, told police the boy was physically and sexually abused and malnourished in the months leading up to his death.

The sources said the boy was rarely seen outside on the leafy street of single-family homes where the family lived.

Instead, he was kept inside and often relegated to the basement, with nothing but a drain to use as a bathroom and a cardboard refrigerator box as a bed.

The cruel treatment described by the woman struck some investigators as similar to the manner in which the mentally

disabled were treated decades ago. Sources said investigators have considered the possibility that the boy may have had some mental handicap.

"Back then it was God's punishment for a sin," said one source familiar with the case. "You weren't hiding an unhealthy kid. You were hiding away a sin."

His death, however, was decidedly brutal and physical. The woman told investigators the boy was fatally wounded when the female caregiver slammed him down on the bathroom floor after he threw up in the bathtub.

Sources said the woman claimed she had accompanied the female caregiver on the ride from their home in Lower

Merion to a rural stretch of Susquehanna Road in Fox Chase, where the dead child was dumped, nameless to the world.

Sources said police have found no official records of adoption of the boy by the Lower Merion couple.

They theorized that his disappearance from the area back in 1957 likely passed without attracting the attention of

neighbors, the suspicion of police and perhaps even the knowledge of his natural parents because there was no official record of where he came from - or knowledge that he was living full time with the Lower Merion couple.

Instead, the "Boy in the Box" was adopted by Philadelphia homicide detectives, desperate to catch a killer and to give a brutalized child the dignity of a name on his gravestone.

Sources said the woman who allegedly lived with the boy hid the painful memories of what happened for 32 years, before confiding the story to her doctor in 1989.

The doctor contacted police, and they worked together over 13 years until the woman felt strong enough last month to confront the demons of her past and speak with homicide investigators.

Now, armed with some fresh information and more background on previous investigations, Philly homicide detectives are retracing their steps and pushing in new directions to try to corroborate the woman's horrible account.

Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. has also assigned detectives from his county squad and Lower Merion police to help prove or disprove the Main Line connection.

And investigators of the Vidoq Society, a group of retired law enforcement super sleuths who specialize in unsolved crimes, have already spent years on the case and continue to play a role.

The strength - and by some estimates the potential weakness - of the murder theory is the information provided by the woman, a successful corporate executive now in her mid-50s.

Officially, police have been reluctant to embrace the woman's story, characterizing the information she provided as promising but not the definitive end to their search for answers.

"It's still inconclusive," Homicide Capt. Thomas Lippo told the Daily News on Wednesday. "But it's the best information we have right now and we're looking at it."

Citing a lack of corroboration and considering the way in which her memory of what happened first came to light - through her doctor - others have privately expressed the concern that the story may be wholly unreliable.

"Some of the details are so incredible that the thing begins to sound a little bit nuts," said one source.

But others close to the probe believe the story rings true.

"A lot of what we've been told has to be filtered by the perception of the witness, by memory, time, and emotion," said one source familiar with the case.

"But I think we're dealing with a functional person who is cognizant of what happened. I think it was a relief - I think it was a torture this person bore their entire life.

"It's either the biggest hoax since the Hitler diaries or it's the truth. There is no reason for this source that I can see to lie.

They didn't even want to get involved."

06/27/02

13-year-old confession gave 'Boy in Box' a name

By JIM NOLAN

nolanj@phillynews.com

A woman's agonizing revelation to her doctor after 32 years is at the heart of newly disclosed information that could help Philadelphia homicide investigators solve the infamous 1957 "Boy in the Box" murder, sources told the Daily News yesterday.

Earlier this week, sources disclosed that detectives had been told that the toddler was killed when an abusive caregiver slammed him to the bathroom floor of a Lower Merion home after he threw up in the bathtub.

His battered and bruised body was later found naked and wrapped in a blanket in a cardboard box on the side of a rural road in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia.

Yesterday, sources explained how the information first came to light - and why, 13 years later - it is being given another, serious look as a possible answer to an unknown child's short life and horrible death.

Sources said that in 1989, a doctor told police that a female patient of his claimed to have lived with the boy - and that a relative was the killer caregiver.

Over the years, the doctor maintained client confidentiality as police continued to investigate. Meanwhile, the guilt-wracked woman - who reportedly was 12 or 13 at the time of the boy's killing - worked up the courage to speak to authorities, the sources said.

The break came about a month ago. The woman agreed to meet with detectives along with her doctor.

And early this month, Detective Thomas Augustine, the lead homicide investigator on the case, flew to Cincinnati with two other retired investigators, William Kelly and Joseph McGillen.

They interviewed the doctor and the woman over three hours. She told them the boy's first name was "Jonathan."

"It wasn't totally new information, it had been kind of out there for a number of years," said a source familiar with the case.

"But now the individuals involved were willing to open up a little bit more. They were willing to be a little more forthright. Even now, it's a very delicate situation."

Police officials said yesterday they were taking an additional look at the 45-year-old case, which they said has always been an "active" investigation.

"It's still inconclusive," said Capt. Thomas Lippo, of the Homicide Division, when asked about reports of the new information.

"But it's the best information we have right now and we're looking at it. We're retracing our steps.

"Is this one going to break the case? Right now, we don't want to make that leap of faith."

The biggest issue confronting investigators now is finding independent corroboration of the woman's tale of what happened. The caregiver and her husband died years ago, according to sources.

Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. yesterday assigned a detective to assist Philadelphia homicide investigators in trying to corroborate a tale of murder in Lower Merion.

The trail is already 45 years cold. But help in identifying relatives could come from DNA samples taken from the boy's body when it was exhumed for reburial in 1998.

Despite the woman's statements, police still do not know the boy's last name or any of his relatives. They also cannot confirm how he allegedly came to be in the care of someone who was not his natural mother.

These are the things that keep homicide investigators up late at night, even when they retire. It also gets them out of bed in the morning.

"We're hoping that perhaps somebody will see something or read something or hear it again and it will jog a memory," said Lippo.

"Maybe today - or 15 years from today - we'll get a relative who could tell us who this little boy was.

"To put a name to a face. This is what it's all about."

Philadelphia Inquirer - 06/26/02

New clues fueling hope in a 45-year mystery

"The Boy in the Box" has stymied investigators since 1957, when the body of a boy was found in Fox Chase. The case was never closed.

By Thomas J. Gibbons Jr. and Marc Schogol Inquirer Staff Writers

For 45 years, it has been a mystery that has haunted homicide detectives - troubling some long after they have left their jobs.

It is the case of "The Boy in the Box," the puzzle of the unidentified young boy, age 4 to 6, whose nude and battered body was found in a cardboard carton in the Fox Chase section of the city's Northeast.

Now, countless unsolved Philadelphia murders later, a band of sleuths - a city homicide officer and two retired investigators - is hot on a new trail, intent on cracking a very cold case.

In the last several weeks, the team flew to Cincinnati to conduct interviews with at least two people who reportedly have information about the murder of the boy. One is said to be a woman now living in that area who resided with the boy before his murder.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson and other top officials cautioned yesterday that the investigation could lead to a dead end.

But they stopped short of discounting the new leads. And the investigators working the case are said to believe the fresh leads are worth a hard look.

The trio returned from the Midwest with the strong belief that they had found critical information that the boy died in a home in Lower Merion Township when a female "step-relative" threw him to the bathroom floor after he vomited in the home, in a wealthy section of the township.

They also returned with the name of that boy: Jonathan.

The step-relative, also referred to as a "care-giver" by investigators, is now dead.

After the body was removed from the house, so the lead suggests, it was driven to a lonely section off Susquehanna Road in the Northeast and left behind in a brown cardboard box.

If the boy was killed in Lower Merion Township, the case would draw in investigators from Montgomery County. The district attorney there, Bruce L. Castor Jr., conferred yesterday with senior Philadelphia police after KYW-TV (Channel 3) first broke news of the new inquiry.

Castor said that county detectives and Lower Merion police would work with city investigators to try to verify the new information. But he made it clear he viewed the development with caution.

"The information is sketchy, and there is every possibility that it is unreliable," Castor said in a statement. "Philadelphia police were right not to go public and perhaps raise false hopes with this because it might turn out to be nothing."

Police Commissioner Johnson struck a similar note.

"It's a good, strong lead, but nothing is confirmed," Johnson said yesterday. "Nothing is concrete."

Pursuing the latest tip was Philadelphia Homicide Detective Thomas Augustine, the lead investigator. He was accompanied to Ohio by William Kelly, a retired city police fingerprint expert, and Joseph McGillen, a retired investigator with the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office.

All three are active in the Vidocq Society, a group of crime and forensic experts who try to solve long-unsolved cases.

Augustine and McGillen would not comment yesterday. Kelly could not be reached.

If the investigation stalls out, it will be only the last of many futile leads investigators have run down since Feb. 25, 1957, when a college student stumbled across the boy in the box.

The carton was found on top of a trash pile in a wooded area off what was then a lonely country lane between Verree and Pine Roads.

There were few clues to his identity. He was clean, and his fine blond hair had been crudely cut. Bruises covered his body, which was wrapped in a cheap flannel blanket. The medical examiner ruled that he had died of blunt-force trauma.

There were indications that someone had groomed him while he was undressed, probably before or just after death.

The cardboard carton, stamped "fragile," originally contained a baby's bassinet, sold by the J.C. Penney Co. on 69^th Street in Upper Darby.

The boy was buried in a potter's field near the city limits in the Far Northeast, a graveyard for executed prisoners, unidentified bodies and body parts.

In 1998, the body was exhumed from its resting place near Mechanicsville and Dunks Ferry Roads so investigators could try to get DNA samples. It was then reburied in Ivy Hill Cemetery off Easton Road in Northwest Philadelphia.

The idea was to obtain forensic evidence that someday could be checked against any new DNA evidence that might surface. It is unclear whether the effort to obtain a DNA sample succeeded, given the many years that had passed since the death.

The cost of the burial was borne by the Vidocq Society.

About that time, the probe took on new life as Augustine; retired Philadelphia Police Detective Sam Weinstein, who was among the first police at the scene when the body was found; and William L. Fleisher, a polygraph expert and Vidocq official, lent their talents.

A story on the boy aired on the popular TV show America's Most Wanted, generating hundreds of new leads. The boy was renamed "America's Unknown Child," and his tombstone bears that title.

Dick Lavinthal, a spokesman for the Vidocq Society, said this week:

"Positive developments may be bringing us closer to the day that Philadelphians and millions of others across the country get answers to a mystery death that has frightened and transfixed generations.

"We all look forward to the day when the Vidocq Society can engrave a name onto the tombstone that marks the final resting place of America's Unknown Child," Lavinthal said.

Ken Coluzzi, a retired Philadelphia police Homicide Division lieutenant who is now now chief of police in Lower Makefield Township, Bucks County, is one of the numerous investigators who worked the case in the past. He's hoping the Ohio angle pans out.

"If this comes to fruition, it will be the result of all the hard work of the detectives throughout the years who have handed this case down to one another," Coluzzi said. "They refused to give up."

New Information in "Boy in the Box" Case

" Investigators Traveled to Ohio

" Sources: Boy's Name was Jonathan

Jun 25, 2002 11:10 pm US/Eastern

(KYW)-(Philadelphia)-The case known as "The Boy in the Box" has tormented Philadelphia police for more than four decades. Now, Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter Walt Hunter has learned police have new information that may help them close this unsolved murder case.

The so-called "Boy in the Box" has haunted Philadelphians for 45 years - the bruised body of a child was found wrapped in a blanket in February, 1957, in a cardboard carton along Susquehanna Road in Fox Chase.

The killer had combed the child's hair, neatly clipped his nails, but the identity of the murderer and the victim, as well as details of the case had not been known.

This has been the longest and most investigated murder mystery in the city's history.

In 1998, the three or four-year-old boy, now known as "America's Unknown Child," was exhumed from an unmarked grave so DNA samples could be taken. He was later reburied in the Ivy Hill cemetery with a special ceremony.

Now, sources tell Hunter that detectives have new information that may finally solve this mystery.

Sources say the new information may reveal the murder suspect's identity and provides a motive and details of the killing. Sources say the boy was brought to Fox Chase after being murdered inside a home in a wealthy Main Line neighborhood in Lower Merion, Montgomery County.

Sources say the new information identifies the murder suspect as a female caregiver, a family member, who has since died. Sources tell Hunter the woman allegedly slammed the boy onto the floor, angry that he threw up.

Sources say the new information also indicates the child allegedly had been previously abused and was even kept in a cage and that he was rarely seen by Main Line neighbors.

To crack the case, two detectives from the Homicide unit, sources say, along with a former investigator with the medical examiner's office traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, to interview two key witnesses, who sources say provided new details about information that had first surfaced in 1989.

Former lead investigator Ken Coluzzi hopes the new information will help solve this case: "We gave every possible opportunity a shot and now hopefully the information will come true."

And while the new information may help investigators finally solve this mystery, they now have a key piece of information - the child's name. His name was Jonathan.

Tuesday evening Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, who would have jurisdiction if the murder happened in Lower Merion, issued a statement, calling the new information "sketchy" and "unreliable," saying the county is proceeding with caution in an effort not to raise false hope.

Castor said "there's too many 'if's' associated with this - and I don't want to raise hopes falsely."

No word yet from officials on when they will decide if their new information is valid or on whether they will file charges in a case where the suspected killer is already dead.

Jun. 25, 2002

New leads may solve "boy in the box" murder mystery

By Thomas J. Gibbons and Marc Schogol

Inquirer Staff Writers

New information may finally solve one of Philadelphia's most famous unsolved mysteries - the "Boy in the Box" murder of a young boy whose nude, battered body was found in a cardboard carton in the city's Fox Chase section in 1957.Despite 45 years of investigation by Philadelphia Police, retired Philadelphia detectives and a private group of investigators, the boy, believed to have been 4-6 years old, has never been identified and his murderer never caught. But sources said Philadelphia Police are examining new leads in the case, which resulted in investigators going to Ohio to conduct interviews. And a spokesman for the Vidocq Society, a private group of forensic professionals who work on unsolved cases said: "Positive developments may be bringing us closer to the day that Philadelphia and millions of others across the country get answers to a mystery death that has frightened and transfixed generations. "Police wouldn't immediately comment today on broadcast news reports that new evidence indicates the boy may have been killed in a home in a prominent Main Line neighborhood by a female caretaker who may have been a relative and who is now dead. According to those reports, the boy's body may have been taken from a home in Lower Merion and driven to Fox Chase.

Before being killed, the boy, whose name reportedly was Jonathan, may have been imprisoned and at times caged inside the house, according to the news reports. Four years ago, the boy, who initially was buried in a potter's field in the Far Northeast - where his tombstone read "Heavenly Father, Bless This Unknown Boy - was reburied at Ivy Hill cemetery in Mount Airy About 100 people attended a graveside service. A new, black granite marker, with a carving of a lamb, said: "America's Unknown Child."

Today, we are re-interring him and calling him America's Unknown Child as a symbol of our nation's abused children, missing children, and murdered children," said William Fleisher, head of the Vidocq Society, which had donated the burial plot. "We are validating this little boy's life. Our mission is to go forward from this day and put a name on that tombstone." The Boy in the Box is a murder mystery that has riveted the city since the body was found on Feb. 25, 1957. A college student stumbled across the boy in a brown cardboard box left on top of a trash pile in a wooded area off of Susquehanna Road in Fox Chase. There were few clues to his identity. He was clean, and his fine, blond hair had been crudely cut. Authorities believe he was 3 to 5 years old. Bruises covered his body, and the

Medical Examiner ruled that he had died of blunt-force trauma. The investigation was reopened in 1998 by Homicide Detective Tom Augustine, assisted by retired Philadelphia Police Detective Sam Weinstein, who was among the first police at the scene when the body was found; and by and Fleisher of the Vidocq Society. At that time, a story on the boy aired on America's Most Wanted, generating hundreds of new leads. The boy was reburied after his remains were dug up so authorities could take DNA samples that might lead to his identification. Weinstein, who was the second patrol officer on the scene when the boy's body was found, recalled looking at the child's face as he lay in the box. "I saw all his pain and his suffering and his anguish," Weinstein said. "It was as though he was speaking to me: `What happened?' `Why?' And that was an answer I couldn't give."

 Date: 04-04-99

Let me express my sincere gratitude, congratulations, and kudos for the excellent web site you created for America's Unknown Child. It is obvious that the site was created with love and concern for our little boy. You will be blessed for your efforts.

Let me give you a quick update on the investigation to identify America's Unknown Child. Almost every day, retired Phila., Detective Sam Weinstein, VSM, has been coming into the Vidocq offices, where assisted by retired Phila., Medical Examiner's Investigator Joe McGillen, VSM, he has been working on the case. Phila., Homicide Detective Tom Augustine.is working on the case as well. There has been progress and disappointments. However, we are still optimistic we will someday be able to put a name on the child's tombstone. I believe your web page will help.

Have a good Easter or Passover.

Thanks again,

Bill Fleisher, VSM

December 17, 1999

A man from Bucks County, PA sent an email to our site here. He wished to remain anonymous in the public eye, but he had an interesting story to tell.

He told us that his family might be able to shed some light on the Boy in the Box case. The man said that he had been born and raised in Philadelphia, and lived there in 1959. He remembered that the house he was born in, had been rented to an out-of-town family. At about the time the unknown boy's body was discovered, the renters had moved away suddenly, perhaps in the middle of the night. The family left the house a mess. His mother suspected this story tied into the family that rented the house and she contacted the police once in 1957 when it happened, and 2 years later to ask why no one followed through, and again on his sisters part last year, that it seems finally the authorities seem very interested in the information.

In December, the man and his sister met with Sam Weinstein and Bill Kelly of the Vidocq Society and discussed the details of this haunting story. The authorities are now investigating this new lead. Any updates will be posted here.