PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia police say they are "finally able to identify the child" in the notorious "Boy in the Box" homicide in 1957 that has haunted investigators for decades. They will reveal the findings Thursday morning.
"Despite numerous attempts to identify the child throughout the years, the identity of the boy remained a mystery," the Police Department said in an email Tuesday evening announcing the Thursday news conference.
"Through detective work and DNA analysis, police are finally able to identify the child," the department said.
The young boy's body was found along then-rural Susquehanna Road in Fox Chase on Feb. 25, 1957. The nude body was wrapped in a cheap flannel blanket in a box for a JC Penny Co. bassinet. The boy appeared to be 4 to 6 years old. His blond hair had been cut short in a crude fashion, with clumps of hair still on his body. The back of his head had been smashed in. He was face up in the box, which was stamped "fragile."
A major investigation commenced. Police Commissioner Thomas J. Gibbons approved the citywide distribution of posters with the boy's face. News of the murder case, and a plea to help solve it, was literally hand-delivered to nearly every household in Philadelphia in the form of copies of the poster inserted with gas bills.
The case was reexamined over the decades, and was the subject of numerous media reports.
The unknown boy's body was exhumed from his pauper's grave for a DNA test, which proved fruitless at the time, and was reburied at Ivy Hill Cemetery in 1998.
The announced participants at Thursday's news conference include Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw; Capt. Jason Smith, commanding officer of the Homicide Unit; Ryan Gallagher, assistant director of the Office of Forensic Science; and Philadelphia Medical Examiner Constance DiAngelo.
Also expected to attend are Colleen Fitzpatrick, founder and president of Indentifinders International, and William C. Fleisher of the Vidocq Society, a Philadelphia-based collection of international forensic experts who meet to discuss and reexamine unsolved murders, using modern forensic techniques.
Identifinders helps law enforcement agencies and medical examiners to apply forensic genetic genealogy to solving violent crime cold cases and identifying unidentified remains. Fitzpatrick also is a member of the Vidocq Society.
Police released no other details in the "Boy in the Box" case Tuesday evening.
Police said the case remains Philadelphia's oldest unsolved homicide. Anyone with information pertaining to this incident is asked to call 215-686-TIPS. As with all homicides, police said, there is a standing $20,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest or conviction.
