Criminology - The Boy In The Box

Episode Date: October 4, 2020

In February 1957, a college student found a little boy's body inside a cardboard box in a field in Philadelphia. The find shocked and caused fear in residents. And, despite a very extensive and long investigation, the boy's identity and the circumstances surrounding his death remain unsolved.  Join Mike and Morf as they discuss this boy that is most commonly referred to as the boy in the box. We'll detail out the exhaustive investigation into the boy's death and identity. The condition of the boy suggested that his life was brutal and most likely abusive. A number of individuals were investigated, many of whom proved to be quite monstrous in their actions with their own children. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Moms and Mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodunit. We're your go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast.

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 129 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, what is going on with you? Not much. I'm doing pretty good. How about you? Yeah. No, I'm doing really well. I'm excited for the episode that we have tonight. I find this a very fascinating case.

Yeah, this is a classic and as far as true crime goes, and I'm a little bit surprised it hasn't been solved yet. Well, I think that's part of the fascination, as people will see as we get into it. Before we do that, let's give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Clarice Sinclair, Lauren Smith, Ardle, Rosie Overrell, Gracie Wilson, Michelle Campbell, Sandra Vettlin, Jessica Lute, Ali, Annette Walter, Christine Perinello and Natalie Gibbon. So again, we're seeing a lot of great Patreon support and we really appreciate it. Yeah, that's really awesome. We can't thank you enough.

And if anyone out there would like to help support the show, they can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. So more if CrimeCon made the announcement that in addition to the one they're having next year in Austin, they're going to do one in London, which is pretty excited. I'd love to go to London. The problem that I have with it is the timing. It's like they chose these back-to-back weekends pretty tough as a podcaster, you know, to get all of your stuff done and in time to take what is essentially a couple of weeks off.

Yeah, and I understand why they did it. I think they wanted to sort of join the UK and the U.S. together and let them have one big celebration over a two-week span, but I get what you're saying, too. That's, that's pretty hectic. Yeah, definitely hectic for podcasters, but also hectic for people, you know, in different parts of the world that would like to go to two, but can't because of the timing. You would think they maybe could have spread it out a little bit, but I get it. I get it. We'll have to wait and see, you know, number one, how things are, you know, at this point next year. You know, year and whether or not that's something we can pull off. I know one thing, a lot of people are ready to

put 2020 behind us and move on to something good in 2021 and PrimeCon, I'm sure, would be a big part of that. Yeah. And it would. It would. I'm hoping 21 is the best year ever. It can't, I don't know, knock on wood. I don't know how it can be worse than what we've experienced this year. I really don't. All right, Morph, let's get into this case. In February 1957, a college student found a little boy's body inside a cardboard box in a field in Philadelphia, leaving residents of that neighborhood shocked and afraid that a monster might be living amongst them, despite a huge investigation that continues to this day. The boy's identity remains unknown, and he is simply known as the boy in the box.

At 10.10 a.m. on February 25, 1957, police sergeant Charles Gargani from Philadelphia's Homicide Bureau, received the call from a 26-year-old LaSalle college student, Frederick Bonanis. Bonanis said he found the body of a small child inside a cardboard box. He told Gargani he was driving through the Foxchase section of the city two days before and stopped his car to chase a rabbit that had hopped into the weeds and scrub growth along Susquehanna Road near Vary Road. He said he didn't find the rabbit. But Bonanus noticed some muskrat traps had not been set.

So he set them and decided to return later to see if they caught anything. Bonanis said he also saw a cardboard box lying on the ground and what looked like a head sticking out of it. He thought it was a doll and really didn't pay any more attention to it. When he returned to check the traps, The box and head were still there. That morning he saw in the local newspaper that a little girl from New Jersey might have been kidnapped and he wondered if it was possible that he had seen her head in the box. He decided he better call police.

The little girl in question was four-year-old Mary Jane Barker who went missing from Belmar, New Jersey, not far from Philadelphia. But after police questioned bananas, they learned. he wasn't really looking for rabbits. Bananas was in the woods to spy on girls at the Good Shepherd home for Wayward Girls on Susquehanna Road. He didn't want to tell police

why he was really there, so he lied about the details. Gargani immediately sent two detectives and Dr. Joseph Spellman, the chief medical examiner to the scene where patrolman Elmer Palmer met them. After searching for about 15 minutes, they found the cardboard box

surrounded by scattered trash at the junction of two footpaths. The box had the word fragile stamped on it. The carton didn't contain Mary Jane Barker or a doll. Instead, inside the box was the body of a little boy, completely nude and wrapped in a tattered blanket. Someone carefully folded his arms over his stomach. Upon examining the scene, detectives believed the child was killed elsewhere and dumped in this location.

About 30 feet from the body, They found a blue corduroy Ivy League cap, size 7 and 1 8th. The person who had been wearing it had stuffed tissue paper in the sweatband. The officers on the scene were shocked to be looking at the dead body of a child. They had gone there thinking that perhaps they would be finding the remains of Mary Jane Barker. Instead, they had found a little boy. Sadly, Mary Jane Barker herself would be found dead just a few days later in the closet of a vacant home in her neighborhood. As it turns out, she became trapped inside when the door had stuck while she was playing

and died from starvation and dehydration. Investigators fanned out to search the area around the boy in the box. 200 feet from the body and along very road, authorities found a pile of clothing for a woman and child, but they later determined that the smaller clothing was not the boy's size. Dr. Spellman made a quick examination of the boy and thought he was four to six years old. The boy had bruises on his face, stomach, and legs. Later that night, Spellman performed the autopsy and established the boy had been killed by a severe blow to the head, combined with a brutal beating.

He had been dead anywhere from three days to two weeks, but he did not believe the boy had been in the woods that long. Spellman had no doubt. The boy was a homicide victim. It seemed as if the injury to the boy's head might have been caused either by a blunt instrument or by pressure, as if someone had gripped the boy's head very tightly. The boy weighed only about 30 pounds. He was fair skin with blonde hair and blue eyes. He had a small L-shaped scar under his chin, and he was slightly bucktooth. The boy still had a full set of baby teeth. His tonsils were still present, and he had no deformities or vaccination scars. Multiple bruises covered his entire body, particularly on the head, arms, and legs. Somebody had crudely cut his hair into a crew cut.

Hair clumps were found on the victim, suggesting his hair had been cut with no sheet or tail around his neck, possibly after his death. His fingernails and toenails had been neatly trimmed and groomed. The palm of the boy's right hand and the soles of both feet, were rough skin and wrinkled. Police called it a washerwoman effect, which indicated that just before or after his death, his hand and both feet had been immersed in water for an undetermined length of time.

His left hand yielded perfect fingerprints. The washerwoman wrinkling wasn't severe enough to obliterate the prince on the right hand or the feet. Dr. Spellman determined that the boy had not eaten within two to three hours of his death. he had seven scars on his body. Spellman found three on his left ankle, others on his chest and groin, which might have resulted from surgery. He also found three small moles on the left side of his face, a small one below the right ear, three on his chest, and another on the right arm, two inches above the wrist.

Authorities broadcasted the boy's description over their radio network and in newspapers, hoping someone would provide information on the boy's identity, but no one came forward. But the publicity led them to their first clue. On October 31st, 1955, two-year-old Stephen Craig Daman disappeared outside a grocery store in East Meadows, New York, while his mother was shopping inside. Stephen resembled the boy in the box. When Stuyvesant Pinell, a chief detective in Nassau County, Long Island, found out about the dead boy. He called Philadelphia authorities to see if there's any chance. The boy was Stephen Damon. A quick comparison of the physical characteristic showed similarities. Stephen would have been in the boy's age group. He had blonde

hair and blue eyes, and both boys had small scars under their chins. Captain David H. Roberts decided to have the boy's body x-ray to see if there were signs of old fractures of the left arm. like Stephen Daman had. Prince of the boy's feet were also taken. Dr. Spelman concluded the boy in the box had not suffered any fractures. And therefore, he wasn't Stephen Damon. Investigators were let down, but their investigation continued. Detectives traced a cardboard box to a J.C. Penny store in Upper Derby,

about 15 miles from where the body was found. The box carried no firm name, but through serial numbers, detectives learned it had once contained a baby's bassinet and it was shipped to the J.C. Penny store in November 1956. The store had sold the bassinet between December 3rd, 1956 and February 16, 1957. Roberts issued a public plea for the buyers of all such bassonets during this time frame to come forward and say where they disposed of the box. detectives learned that 12 bassinets had been sold. At the time, JCPenney only allowed cash transactions, so there were no records of the purchasers. With the help of publicity, detectives were able to locate all but four of the buyers.

They said they had either put the box out for trash pickup or they still had it in their homes. Police officials reported that the tattered blanket found with the boy was made of cheap cotton flannel with a plaid designed and pattern with green, rust, and white squares. It had been recently washed, then mended with poorer-grade cotton thread on a sewing machine. The blanket had been torn into halves. Its overall size would have been 64 inches by 76 inches. However, a section had been torn from one of the halves, leading detectives to think it might have displayed some identifying mark such as a name or initials. Another promising tip came in from a man who said that two days before the body was found.

He had been driving along very road when he saw a middle-aged woman and a boy that he estimated to be between 12 and 14 years old. They were unloading something from the trunk of a car. The man thought they might have had a flat tire, so he stopped to ask if he could help. The woman and child never said a word, but seemed to be purposefully. blocking his view of the car's license plate. Where the woman and child had been standing was near where the clothing was later found. Police were unable to locate this woman and boy. Another tip came in from a barber who said he had cut the boy's hair less than a week

before the body was discovered. According to the barber, the boy told him he had five brothers and a sister and lived in the strawberry mansion area of. of Philadelphia. Two detectives were assigned to join the barber to locate the boy's family, but they never found them. Police had 12,000 flyers about the case printed so that they could be handed out, but they soon ran out of the flyers, and a new printing order of 25,000 flyers was made. More than 5,000 flyers were sent to area physicians. Dr. Spellman wrote a detailed article for the Philadelphia County Medical Society. A few days later,

Chief Detective Inspector John J. Kelly organized what was then considered the most extensive search for evidence ever attempted and in Philadelphia homicide case. Coordinated by walkie-talkies, 300 patrolmen, detectives, and park guards, including the entire class of rookies at the city's police academy, searched a 12-square-mile area surrounding the body's location, roughly a quarter-mile away from where the boy's body had been found. The search team found a piece of a blanket that resembled the one with the boy, but a lab check showed it was similar, but not identical. 20 detectives visited 300 homes, hoping residents could identify the boy from photographs, but

they had no luck. But Captain Roberts received a tip from the night manager of a restaurant in Camden, New Jersey, just across the bridge from Philadelphia. She said she had seen the little boy in the restaurant on two occasions in February. The woman said he was with a man who was about 40 years old. This man was red-faced and scruffly dressed. She said the boy wanted to speak to his mother on the telephone and the man placed a long distance call to Baltimore. But when police checked the restaurant's telephone records, no such call took place on the nights mentioned by the woman in her statement to the police. It was another dead end. Two weeks after discovering the boy in the box, police found the owner of the muskrat traps that Frederick Bonanis had set. 18-year-old John Parosnik, whose family had settled

in the Fox Chase community after leaving Poland in 1949, was a high school junior. He said he had 19 traps around the field, but hadn't been checking them regularly because it was close to the the trapping season. John told detectives that on Sunday, February 24th, he was riding his bicycle to play basketball in a nearby church gym when he saw the cardboard box in the field. He thought it looked suspicious, so he got off his bike and walked over to the box. He approached it from the back and lifted the top of the carton toward him. That's when he saw the body of a child and a blanket. He dropped the box, hopped on his bike, and went home without mentioning it to anyone. police figured that he discovered the boy on February 23rd because he spoke of walking in the rain

and weather bureau records showed had rained only on that day. Officers had questioned his parents when they had gone door to door in the area, but the couple spoke such poor English. They had not even made it clear to police. They had a son. One reason for John's silence was that a few months before in another deserted Foxchase field, his brother found the body of a suicide victim hanging from a tree. When police questioned him, they had upset the entire family. John's admission meant that the little boy had been dead for at least 48 hours before the police arrived in the field and possibly longer. Police raised the possibility that the boy in the box was a kidnapping victim. Dr. Wilton Crogman, an anthropologist, known as the bone detective, agreed it was possible.

His specialty was human growth. Crogman examined the body and found the boy to be 40 inches tall and having a height age of about three years and eight months old. The boy's weight of 30 pounds was in line with what a 26-month-year-old child's weight would be. This suggested malnourishment, which the bones confirmed. Crogman x-rayed the body and found scars of stunted growth on the long bones of the legs, which may have slowed down the boy's growth, progressed by six months to a year. He figured the boy was most likely four years old. Crogman also determined the boy had been chronically ill for about a year,

which might be typical of a family on the move. He thought the boy might have come from a family of migrant workers. He also described the boy as having a long, narrow, head, a high, narrow face and nose, which was enough to speculate on northwestern European ancestry. So English, German, Scandinavian, or Scottish. Police did not agree with the kidnapping theory because they doubted kidnappers would keep the boys fingernails and toenails neatly clipped. Also, no one had filed a missing persons report matching the boy's description.

detectives thought perhaps the boy's mother was unbalanced and that possibly the boy was also mentally disabled. Dr. Frogman said he received the phone call from a woman after his name had been mentioned in the newspapers. The woman was calm at first and asked him, can you tell whether that boy was weak-minded? Frogman asked the woman her name, but she didn't give it. Instead, she asked him, the calm that's quickly gone from her voice. Do you know what it is to take care of an idiot? Sometimes you get so sick of their crying, you can kill them in a fit of anger. That might be your explanation.

The woman yelled and hung up the phone. He never heard from her again. In March 1957, the police learned that a woman had drawn pencil sketches of a sleeping child aboard a bus. The woman saw the boy sleeping in a man's arms on a bus running from Philadelphia to Turner's New Jersey. The woman and her companion had boarded the bus at 9th in Market Streets. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do

what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. At the YMCA in Camden, New Jersey, the man boarded the bus with the boy half asleep resting in his arms. Both were unkempt and their condition drew the attention of other bus passengers. The two women rode the bus for about 12 miles to Blenheim where one of them had intended to leave the bus. but because of the menacing appearance of the man, she decided to ride on to the next stop. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases,

and a touch of mom-style humor, moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for moms and mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to who done it,

where you're a go-to podcast for Mysteries with a Motherly Touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast. Sherlock Holmes has never met a villain so clever and so lethal. As he finally met his match, the Shaw Festival presents Sherlock Holmes and the mystery of the human heart. This gripping new play is filled with enough twists to leave even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

guessing what happens next. Lock Holmes at the Shaw. For best seats of best prices, go to Shawfest.com. Police were also searching for a 36-year-old man named Charles D. Speese, who disappeared on February 23, 1957, along with his 8-year-old son, Terry Leespease. His son resembled the boy in the box. Terry Leespease's mother had reported the two missing to the police. She went to the morgue to identify the boy in the box. and found out that it wasn't her son. The father and son were actually later found alive.

It turns out, Charles and his son Terry were the pair scene at the restaurant in Camden and on the bus by the two women. The woman and her companion were among six people who incorrectly identified the slain boy's body as Terry Speece at the morgue. Another tip came in from a woman who operated to shop with her husband at 2603 South Seventh Street. in Philadelphia. She had sold a similar cap to the one found near the crime scene, but this one was tan in color for $1.50 to a young man several months before.

The shop owner Hannah Robbins described the man as 5 foot 11, blonde, and about 25 years old. The man had requested that a leather strap and buckle be sewn into the back of the cap, which Hannah had sewn herself. It was a cash sale, so she had no record of the man's name. She had never seen him before or after that day. Investigators visited over 140 stores and businesses in the area carrying the blue cap and a picture of the boy, but no one recalled either the boy or the cap. On July 24th, 1957, several detectives gathered to bury the unknown boy in a Potter's grave in the city's cemetery at Mechanicsville and Dung's Fury Roads. Detectives had pitched in their own money to buy the tiny white casket.

As it was lowered in the ground, they covered it with red roses and gladioli and a card that read from the members of the homicide squad. A headstone was erected that read, Heavenly Father, bless this unknown boy. No one had come forward claiming the boy, and the detectives felt he deserved a proper burial. By 1958, police had sent out over 400,000 flyers that were posted in police stations, post offices, and courthouses nationwide. In November of that year, police received a small lead on the boy's blanket. They discovered that it was manufactured by either Beacon Mills in Swannanoa, North Carolina,

or Esmond Mills at Granby in Quebec, Canada. The medical examiner's office sent the blanket to the Philadelphia Textile Institute. The dean there consented to have it tested in a lab by Professor Percival Thiel and Associate Professor David Gice. The two examined the plaid design through microscopes. As they checked the blanket, Geis remembered that a student had shown him this particular design two years earlier. That student had obtained a six. sample of blanket material similar to the one found with the body from Esmond Mills in Quebec. But really, the trail ended there.

In June 1959, Dr. Spellman, in collaboration with Philadelphia General Hospital, planned to check the medical records in another attempt to uncover the boy's identity. The hospital recruited 15 women volunteers to examine records to see if the unidentified boy was ever a patient there. Spellman thought that because the boy had been ill and malnourished, there was a good chance he had been treated at PGH. Despite the women's efforts, no records for the boy existed. Then, investigators thought they had found their big break. Joseph Cormanicki, former head of the Philadelphia Detective's Bureau of Missing Persons Division,

and now a deputy sheriff, saw an article in the Daily News in March 1960, about a woman arrested in Colorado for disposing of front of. our daughter's corpse. Margaret Martinez of Thornton, Colorado, was arrested after allegedly throwing her three-year-old daughter's body into a trash can. Margaret matched the woman's description, seen by a witness with a boy along the edge of the road near where the boy in the box's body was found in Fox Chase. Comar Nicky kept thinking about the woman for several months until October 1960, when he

decided to drive to Colorado on his own time to question this woman. When he arrived, he went to visit Adams County Sheriff Robert Roberts, who was a former FBI agent. Roberts told him the Martinez case began when neighbors saw one of the nine children, nine-year-old Raymond, looking for food in a garbage can. A police officer investigated but was not permitted to enter the Martinez residence. Margaret denied that the boy scavenger was Raymond. But a search of the house found the boy hiding under a bed. Raymond had been suffering from malnutrition and he weighed only 36 pounds. Her husband told detectives that Raymond was one of four of Margaret's children.

The woman had hated from birth. 36 pounds at nine years old. I mean, that's enough to, number one, make anyone furious that a child would be treated that way. It's also stomach turning to think that a mother would do that to her own child. I think that's what's tough about covering the cases of kids especially because they have no one to protect them. If their own parents are willing to do this to them, then the chips really stacked against them. And it's really hard to cover that kind of case. After investigating Margaret, police learned that her three-year-old daughter, Rosemary Martinez,

was missing. When they asked Margaret where the girl was, she replied that she was staying with relatives in Philadelphia. But later changed her story and said the little girl had died, so she put her body in a garbage can. The 30-year-old woman then taunted the police and said, try and find her. Margaret said she couldn't afford a funeral for the girl because they were broke. but investigators found out that her husband, Joseph, made $120 a week at an aircraft factory. When news spread about Raymond and the other Martinez children, public outrage forced them to move to Longmont, Colorado, about 50 miles north of Denver, the children were placed in foster care. Sheriff Roberts believed there was a strong possibility that the boy in the box was one of Margaret Martinez's children.

And Roberts was able to question her briefly on this subject. Detectives later determined she was not connected to the boy in the box. A few months later, the police had another possible break in the case. In February 1961, investigators questioned a carnival family in the boy's murder. Captain John Kelly sent Sergeant Frank Brennan and Detective Samuel Hammond to Syracuse, New York, Lawrenceville, Virginia, and other cities to check up the family. 47-year-old Kenneth Dudley and his wife, 44-year-old Irene Adele Dudley, were arrested in Lawrenceville on murder charges in the death of their 7-year-old daughter,

Carol Ann. Four of the couple's 10 children were missing, including two boys' investigators thought might have been around the same age as the boy in the box. Carol Ann Dudley's body was found in the woods on February 7, 1961, wrapped in an old tattered blanket, much like how the unidentified boy in the box was wrapped. A medical examiner determined that the girl had died from malnourishment and exposure with a broken leg as a contributing factor. Irene Dudley had disposed of Carol Ann's body while Kenneth drove to a service station. Detectives reported Caroline was wearing clothes bought at a J.C. Penny store. The Dudley's had

married in Syracuse. On July 21, 1934, they had two grown married, daughters, Marjorie Cooper, 25, and Gene Cooper, who was 21. The sisters had married brothers. The Dudleys had a son named Richard, born on August 19, 37, but he passed away three months later. The fourth Dudley child was Kenneth Edwin Jr., born on August 24, 1941. He died at the age of six and was buried in the yard at a former home of the Dudleys. Kenneth, senior served nine months in Jamesville jail for illegal burial when this was discovered two years later. But the fifth and sixth Dudley children had disappeared. Norman James Dudley was born on February 12th, 1949. He would have been eight when the boy in the box was found. His brother Charles

Augustus Dudley was born on December 17th, 1951 and would have been five years old. in February 1957. The seven-child Carol Ann was born on December 13, 1953. The 8th and 9th Dudley children were also missing at the time. Claude Arthur Dudley was born on March 28, 1955, and Debbie Jean Dudley was born on July 13, 1956. Claude was the child that Philadelphia to Texas were interested in finding, believing he might be their boy in the box. The 10th child was alive and living with her parents. Her name was Christine Adele, and she was born March 19, 1958. She was later adopted by another family. Kenneth Dudley was working for carnivals in 1957, and had passed through several eastern and southern states, including Pennsylvania. His

main job at the carnivals was to help erect and operate the rides. Chief Inspector John J. Kelly and Detective Captain David Brown ordered two other detectives. detectives, Detective Lieutenant Nicholas Arcaro and Detective Francis Bergmeister to fly to Richmond to interrogate the couple. Two other detectives were in Syracuse, checking out the Dudley family there. Welfare records in Syracuse showed the Dudleys had received aid for themselves and seven children in early 1957. They were investigated on February 7, March 4th, and March 27th, while living in Fayetteville. Richmond authorities were doubtful.

The boy in the box was one of the Dudley's missing children. Now, Pennsylvania authorities were not happy with the locations the Dudleys gave for the disposal of their children's bodies. Irene told her two grown daughters when they went to visit her in jail that her son Claude had died on November 17, 1958 in Lakeland, Florida. and Kenneth had thrown the boy's body in a phosphate pit. Their son Norman died somewhere in Louisiana on December 23, 1959. Just two days later, another son Charles died at the very same place.

Kenneth wrapped the two bodies and blankets, waded it down with stones, and threw them off a bridge into Lake Pontchartrain. Debbie Dudley died on May 21st, 1980, somewhere in Kentucky. after having convulsions. Kenneth drove along a lonely stretch of road and threw her body out of the car at what Irene thought was a dump. She remembered hearing the rattle of tin cans as he drove. In the early spring of 1957, the Dudley family drove from New York and headed south in a 1949 Chevy. Some sources say it was July 1958. Irene said they didn't go through Philadelphia, but she couldn't remember the exact route they took. Kenneth said they didn't use road. where they had to pay tolls. Syracuse detectives failed to place Charles Dudley with the family in February

1957. Furthermore, they couldn't prove he was alive and well at that time. While in jail in Lawrenceville, Virginia in March 1961, Kenneth Dudley tried to take his own life. He penned a suicide note in which he confessed to disposing of four of his children's bodies. Investigators figured that if the boy in the box had been his child. He would have admitted to disposing of his body as well, but he didn't. A few months later, Kenneth admitted to starving to death, six of his ten children. The Dudley stories checked out and were supported by statements from their two adult daughters who were questioned by police and Syracuse. Some newspapers reported that William Bill Kelly, a fingerprint expert who had investigated the case for many years, received a newspaper clipping, dated about one month before

the discovery of the boy in the box's body. The article was about new immigrants and had a picture of a little boy he thought for sure was the unidentified child. In 2003, Kelly said that he had gone through newspapers and came across a 1956 article about a tide of Hungarian refugees. The report contained a picture of a boy nearly identical to the boy in the box. box. Kelly sifted through over 11,000 passport photos before finding the Hungarian boys photograph, and he located the boy's family in North Carolina. North Carolina state troopers found the family at home, but the boy was alive and well on playing in the yard. On the 25th anniversary of the mystery boy's death, Raymond Bristow, a former investigator with the medical examiner's office,

said in an interview with the Philadelphia Daily News that the cardboard box was never fingerprinted. It was merely an oversight because there were too many people at the crime scene. Bill Kelly and Bristow often worked together on the case. Bristow started investigating the case after the burial of the child in July 1957. He retired from the medical examiner's office in 1975. 20,000 unidentified people. were brought in to the medical examiner's office during his time there, and he was able to identify all but 24, including the boy in the box. This case turned into a 36-year obsession

for him. During the 1982 interview, he said he still had the small plastered death mask of the little boy that was created during the months after his discovery. It was just one of many attempts to uncover the boy's identity. Over the years, Bristow had run down leads, spoke with psychics, traveled across the country, all in attempt to learn the boy's identity, and he offered rewards out of his own pocket. He never believed the unidentified boy was a victim of a homicide. Instead, he theorized that whoever killed him did so accidentally

and was in the process of burying his body when he or she was scared off by someone or something. he noted the boy's cut hair and trimmed nails and how his arms were carefully folded on his stomach as reasons to support his theory. For years, Bristow maintained the boy's grave by pulling weeds and placing flowers there. He continued investigating the case until he died in 1993. After his death, one of his grandsons picked up the tradition at the cemetery. On March 19, 1998, Police Homicide Detective Thomas Augustine, retired police detective Sam Weinstein, and Daily News Reporter Ron Avery, detailed the grim discovery of the boy's body and subsequent investigation at a meeting with members of the Vodak Society. Avery wrote a book called City of Brotherly Mayhem, Philadelphia Crimes and Criminals. and in that book he covered the boy in the box case.

At the Vydok meeting, members decided to open up the discussion to the press, something they usually never did. They had hoped the new publicity would help solve the case. When that didn't work, they contacted and convinced producers of the television show America's most wanted to air a segment on the case. The show hired forensic artist Frank Bender, best known for creating the bust of John List, the New Jersey man who murdered his entire family in 1971 and went on the run for 19 years until his capture in 1989.

Of course, we just covered the List case a few episodes back and we talked a great deal about Frank Bender. Frank created a bust of how he thought the boy in the box's father would have looked. America's Most Wanted episode on The Boy in the Box aired on October 3, 1998, and again in 2008. After the initial broadcast, authorities received about 60 tips, called into the show, and another eight to the homicide department. Many of them came from Philadelphia, or nearby South Jersey. They did receive one tip from Modesto, California,

saying the boy was the child of Arthur and Marie no. At that time, Marie had been charged with killing eight of her babies in the 1950s and 60s. She was convicted in 1999, and sentenced to 20 years probation. Marie No lived in Philadelphia. But after looking into the claim, authorities ruled the boy in the box out as being one of Marino's children.

In November 1998, detectives exhumed the boy's body from the potter's grave and extracted tissue samples for DNA analysis, hoping that new genetic technology could help solve his identity. On November 11, 19, 1990, he was reburied in Ivy Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia's Mount Airy section. Craig Mann of the Man Funeral Home, whose father initially buried the boy in 1957, donated the burial plot. A new black granite headstone carved with a lamb and a new name.

America's unknown child stood at the head of the grave. In September 1999, police released a color picture of how the little boy might have looked. if he was a happy and healthy child. A police employee wrote to Pope John Paul II and asked him for a blessing for the boy and the investigator's working the case. She then petition Cardinal Anthony Bevalocqua to offer a mass for him.

When he granted her a request, she went to the police department's graphic artist, Roderick Scratchard, and asked him to draw the boy's likeness without injuries. Scratchard agreed and drew the picture using autopsy photographs. In June 2002, 45 years after the boy in the box's

death, police announced new information in the case. A woman in Ohio, known only as Mary, told investigators that she knew who killed the little boy. Back in February of 1957, Mary was around 13

years old. She said that her mother threw him to the bathroom floor after he vomited in the home, located in a wealthy lower Marion township section. The woman's doctor told the story to police in 1989. While police investigated the claim, the doctor maintained client confidentiality. It wasn't until years later that she gathered up the courage to speak with detectives. Detectives interviewed her for three hours. She told him the boy's name was Jonathan, and that a man and woman handed the child over to her parents two years before his death. While it wasn't an official adoption, money exchanged hands. According to

the investigators, the purpose of that transaction was unknown, though it could have been for reimbursement of expenses or a stipend of some sort. The boy was rarely seen outside. He was kept indoors in the basement, with nothing but a drain to use as a bathroom, and a cardboard refrigerator boxes of bed. Mary claimed the boy who was subjected to horrific physical and sexual abuse before he was fatally wounded in the bathroom. Mary went on to say that she accompanied her mother to the rural stretch of Susquehanna Road and Fox Chase where they dumped the dead child. While there, the woman said a man drove up and asked them if they needed help. Her mother forced her to stand in front of the license plate so the man couldn't see it. This part of the woman. This part of the woman. It was

of her story corroborated the witness's early account of seeing a woman and a juvenile long Susquehanna Road, who he thought had a flat tire. After the woman's name was leaked to the press, she refused to speak further and left the country. Detectives refused to give out her location to the press or the public. Detectives spent 13 years investigating the woman's claim, but in the end, they were no closer to solving the boy's identity. They just could not corroborate her claims and could not even say for sure that the boy's name was Jonathan. Current detectives on the case are not overly hopeful that DNA will solve the boy's identity. The sample of his DNA that they have is more than 25 years old and most likely degraded. And odds are the boy's killer is probably dead. Regardless,

Amateur genealogy expert Barbara Ray Ventor, who helped solve the Golden State Killer case using DNA and genetic research, confirmed to the Mercury News in August 2018 that she was working on the Boy in the Box case. 63 years later, the little boy remains America's unknown chop. The Vodok Society is still involved in the case. In 2019, members publicly announced they were interested in speaking with anyone, 55 years of age and older if they remember from

the early 50s, a young boy named Jonathan living within a 40 mile radius of Philadelphia. And morph as we wrap up this case, we said it up front. I mean, it's a fascinating case. It's had people perplexed for so many years. It's also one of those cases where you have a lot of. amateurs who have worked on it for many, many years. And you have detectives, like we mentioned, who really developed an obsession around this case for 30 plus years.

I think part of that dedication and that focus is because this victim was a child. And I think that just drove these people to work hard to try and put a name to this little boy. Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think you could also add the fact that there's no doubt that this child was mistreated. And that's that word is probably an understatement. You know, just based on the physical characteristics alone, the malnourishment and all of that, there, there was obvious mistreatment. So as an investigator, you're going to feel something there. Or as anyone would. Or as anyone would. You're going to feel something there. You're also going to feel something for the fact that this boy was killed or he died in a mysterious way. And nobody knows who he is. Yeah, that's the really sad part is someone just threw him out like a piece of trash out, the woods in a box. And unfortunately, in this episode, we had to wade through a lot of awful people that did really horrible things to kids.

many times the people we were talking about were their own parents, which is just, I think for any of us to have kids, you do anything in the world to protect your kids. And here we had cases of people harming their kids and just throwing them out like trash. It's, it's unbelievable. Yeah, that really did jump out at me. And it's no wonder that investigators really tried to look hard into some of those families, some of those individuals because what they did was horrific. So if they could do that to their kids, well, maybe the boy in the box was one of theirs. And they did the exact same thing.

Yeah. And we mentioned, too, that the police aren't overly optimistic that this case will be solved. But I'm hoping that it is solved. And even if the person that did this isn't alive, I would just hate the idea of them getting away with it and not ever their name, not even being brought up as the person that did this to this child. Yeah, chances are, is the person that did it if they figure out who it is going to be held responsible? Probably not based on how old this case is, but to publicly name that person,

to me is still something to figure it out and say, yes, this is the person responsible. And not just name that person publicly, but to give this little boy his name back, I think, would be a huge success. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, both of those things would be amazing. Thanks goes out to Debbie Buck at TruecrimeDiva.com for writing and research assistants in this episode. As always, if you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a

five-star rating, you can leave a review, and keep telling your true crime loving friends about the podcast. That word of mouth goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. So that's it for the case of the boy in the box. But Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode of criminology.

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