We have solved the mystery of the boy found dead in the box (@themujimancodes)
A boy found dead in a box 65 years ago finally has a name.
Police on Thursday released the identity of the 4-year-old boy found dead in a box found in Philadelphia 65 years ago.
His name is Joseph Augustus Zerli, the victim of what police say is one of the nation's oldest unsolved murders.
The identification, made through DNA analysis, solved the decades-old murder case, which began in late February 1957 - when the boy was found wrapped in a blanket inside a cardboard box after being severely abused, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlow announced.
"The case attracted enormous public interest at the time," Outalo told reporters Thursday, but no one has ever come forward to claim him as a lost child and his identity remains a mystery despite numerous attempts to identify him over the years.
The police announced that they successfully identified the boy through detective work and with the help of genetic genealogists - a field that in recent years has led to many breakthroughs in cold murder cases - and on the other hand led to the reunification of families with missing loved ones.
The boy found dead in the box is 4-year-old Joseph Augustus Zerli (photo: screenshot, Philadelphia Police)
"For 65 years, the story of America's unknown child has haunted this community, the Philadelphia Police Department, our nation and the world," said Outlaw, who opened the news conference by praising generations of police officers who worked on the case, some of whom are no longer alive.
She added: "Despite the fact that Joseph Augustus Zerli's identity and rightful claim to his own existence was taken from him, he was never forgotten."
Officials hope the techniques used to identify Joseph after so many years will help them in other cases in the future.
"This breakthrough brings hope that there will never again be an unidentified homicide victim in the city of Philadelphia," Outlaw said.
Although officials this week are "celebrating" the identification of Joseph, the investigation into who is responsible for his death is still ongoing.
"We have suspicions as to who may be responsible, but it would be irresponsible of me to share those suspicions as this is an active and ongoing criminal investigation," said Capt. Jason Smith of the Philadelphia Police Department's homicide unit.
He hopes that the news about his personal details will cause an "avalanche of reports from the public", but admitted that the statute of limitations on the case will be a problem.
"We may not make an arrest," Smith said, "we may never identify the killer, but we're going to do our best to try."
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"America's Unknown Child"
It all began on Feb. 25, 1957, when the body of an unidentified boy was found in a box by a passerby off Susquehanna Road, in a wooded area in Northeast Philadelphia. It was clear then, Otlow told reporters Thursday, that the boy "experienced horrors that no one, but no one should to be subject to them." He was "severely beaten," Smith added, "multiple bruises were visible on his thin naked body.
His eyes are blue and his brown hair was roughly cut from the scalp." An autopsy confirmed that the boy was 4-6 years old and found that he had "suffered multiple injuries, a subdural hemorrhage (a type of cerebral hemorrhage, which is often associated with a brain injury) and pleural effusions (accumulation of fluid in the lung cavity) ", Smith said.
There was a lot of public interest in the case and the police received and followed up on hundreds of tips that came from the region and all over the country. "No one led them to the identification of the boy," said Smith, adding that it is very difficult to solve a murder case and bring the killer to justice when the victim remains unaccounted for. identified.
While DNA was discovered as early as the 1800s, DNA decoding technology didn't advance much until the 1950s, Dr. Constance D'Angelo, the chief medical examiner, explained Thursday. Instead, “ "Visual identification" was the main method of identifying people, she said, so the authorities published pictures of the boy in the newspaper, distributed flyers throughout the city and even included a picture of him with the gas bill sent to residents. None of this led to a breakthrough in the case.
The box in which the child is (photo: screenshot, Wikipedia)
The boy's body was originally buried in a potter's field in Philadelphia, where he lay until 1998, when his remains were exhumed for further tests - before being reinterred in Ivy Hill Cemetery, where the tombstone reads: "Our Father in Heaven, bless the unknown child of America."
Every February since then, case investigators return to the grave on the same date the boy was found.
Foreigners from other countries also pay their respects to him, leaving toys and flowers near the tombstone.
Investigators saved parts of the boy's remains for future testing, Smith said, but DNA tests at the time were inconclusive.
Police recovered the remains again in 2019 when it was determined they could benefit from more modern forensic techniques, Smith said.
This time, the DNA test results were uploaded to DNA databases, Smith said, and with the help of genetic genealogists at Identifinders International, a forensic genetic genealogy company, detectives were able to locate and contact the boy's next of kin.
The investigators identified the biological mother and obtained his birth records, which also recorded the father's details.
Further research led detectives to a man who was later confirmed to be the child's father.
Police declined to release the identity of the boy's parents, but Smith said both are now dead.
However, Joseph has siblings who are still living.
"Joseph has several siblings, and out of a desire to preserve their dignity, the information of the parents and siblings remains confidential," Smith said.
Posters asking for the public's help in finding the child's identity (photo: screenshot, Wikipedia)
Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick, president of Identifinders International, said the case was the most challenging of her entire career, in part because of the degree of decay of the DNA. But the discovery "will allow us to use this technology going forward," she told CNN, "to identify any So many other people you think are lost forever, because you think their DNA is lost — but maybe they're not."
Meanwhile, Vidocq, a Philadelphia crime-solving club whose members have been among the case's devout followers over the years, is preparing to finally put a name on his grave. of the child. "Joseph Augustus Zerli will no longer be that boy in the box," Vidocq's Bill Fletcher said Thursday, "and will no longer be America's unknown child."
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