America’s Unknown Child

The Boy in the Box, also known as “America’s Unknown Child”

This case is as bizarre as it is mysterious. On February 25, 1967, the naked and battered body of a child aged between 3 and 7 was found in an illegal dumping ground in Philadelphia.

The boy weighed thirty pounds and was wrapped in a blanket. His body had been washed and his his hair recently cut. There were several scars on his chin, groin and left ankle, some of which suggested that he went under a medical procedure. Head injures were thought to be the cause of death. There were no witnesses of the murder.

With the cold weather at the time of year and the delayed phone call from the person who found the body, it wasn’t possible to determine when the boy passed away. In an attempt at finding his identity, the police kept the body at the morgue and brought in visitors from 10 different states, but to no avail. They also sent out 400,000 flyers with images of the boy all over the country and sent out a description of the boy to dozens of police stations. No result.

Ones of the key clues in the case actually involved the box itself. The box contained a serial number which allowed investigators to pinpoint the shipment, who were able to trace it back to a JCP penny store 15 miles away. Strangely, before the boy, the box was used to ship twelve different bassinets to purchases, all of whom paid in cash, leaving no record. But one of the purchasers got in contact with the police when they caught word of the story. They went on record to say that they either still had the boxes or had put them out for trash collection. Police eventually figured out that the box had been shipped to Upper Darby.

Eventually, investigators came across a lead from man in Philadelphia, who said that he once rented the place to a man…

Who sold his son.

Photos of the boy’s potential father and possible brother were looked at. Similarities were found in the facial structure: the helix of the right ear and the nose. A DNA sample was taken from the man believed to be the brother.

They only said they would “Investigate further”.

But why? If they had a possible match on this boy and you had an opportunity to compare it to the DNA of a suspect or relative, why not just give it? How much do DNA tests costs? It doesn’t make sense.

Remington Bristow, a medical examiner, worked on the case for 36 years, trying to solve it. He collected hundreds of newspaper clippings of the boy and spent thousands of dollars of his own money. He travelled all the way to Arizona and Texas for leads. Bristow even went as far as carrying a mask of the boy’s face in his briefcase. He theorised that the boy had died accidentally.

On March 21, 2016, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released a facial reconstruction of the victim and added him onto their database

Despite the publicity and sporadic interest throughout the years, the boy's identity is still unknown. The case remains unsolved to this day. His grave is marked at the Ivy Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.

To this day, people are mystified as to why nobody came forward to claim him. Perhaps some day, we will learn who this boy was and what happened to him.