Posted on 12/08/2022 9:38:41 AM PST by sodpoodle
A little boy killed more than 60 years ago has finally been identified thanks to police work and DNA analysis, The case, known as "the boy in the box," is Philadelphia's oldest unsolved homicide.the Philadelphia Police Department said.
On Feb. 25, 1957, a naked, emaciated boy between 4 and 6 years old was found dead in a box in a wooded area in northeast Philadelphia. He had been severely beaten, Philadelphia Police Capt. Jason Smith said.
No one ever came forward to claim him, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said.
The boy has now been identified as Joseph Augustus Zarelli, born on Jan. 13, 1953, Smith said.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
I wonder if he was ever reported missing. If not, I imagine that would implicate the parents. He has siblings who are living. Do they remember anything about their brother?
Police commissioner Outlaw?
People can be horrifying. Sounds like a parental beating of a child then dumping the body.
Probably a Democrat performing a post-birth abortion.
I’d like to think the parents weren’t involved, but the police haven’t released the parents’ names “out of respect for” the surviving siblings.
Is that standard operating procedure?
DNA testing has been a huge blessing. A case the other day a little 2 year old girl was kidnapped in 1971. The kidnapped girl did her DNA and found her real parents still alive.
The birth mom said she thought about her daughter every single day since the kidnapping.
She is going to have another wedding ceremony and her real dad is going to walk her down the aisle.
Obviously his parents is whom he is referring to. The dad did the beating, most likely, but the mother remained silent. Especially given this statement:
On Feb. 25, 1957, a naked, emaciated boy between 4 and 6 years old was found dead in a box in a wooded area in northeast Philadelphia. He had been severely beaten, Philadelphia Police Capt. Jason Smith said.
Along with the fact the boy was never claimed.
“””Smith also did not release the names of Joseph’s parents. Both parents are dead, he said.
“Joseph has a number of siblings on both the mother’s and father’s side who are living. And it is out of respect for them that their parents’ information remain confidential,” he explained.”””
It could be that Joseph’s siblings were not born or were too young to remember they had a brother Joseph.
It looks pretty sure the parents killed their son.
The article says no social security number was ever issued.
I wonder if the “journalist” who wrote this even knows that issuance of SS numbers to newborns is a relatively recent thing, starting around 1987.
Just how many Zarellis are there in that area?
Before that parents could apply for a social security number for their children. These parents didn’t. I still have a card my parents got for me when I was still in grade school.
Thanks for sharing that story.
Siblings from both sides, the mother and the father?
Obviously, a second marriage, or parents sharing care of kids, living together.
My training from watching movies and TV, tells me that, it was the step-dad, and both he and the mother never reported it and got away with it. The siblings were kept in the dark or were told lies.
TV and the movies teach at-home-private investigators a lot. ;)
It’s true, I didn’t get a social security card until I was 14.
This case is so evil it could almost be in the 2020s.
-fJRoberts-
I did not have a SSAN issued to me until I was 16 and starting my first job. Very unusual for a child to have a SSAN back then.
It is a good thing that they finally identified this poor child and finally (apparently) put this to rest. Somehow, though, it is also sad to put a name with the tragedy, maybe more personalizing, I guess. Such a sad, short life for this little boy; who knows how many there are out there just like him. He has no sadness now as it is safe to say he is now at peace with the Lord.
I got my social security card when I was around seven. I had a savings account with the Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn.
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