Going West: True Crime - The Boy in the Box // 269

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

In February of 1957, a box containing the body of a boy was found in Pennsylvania, and for nearly 70 years, his identity remained a mystery. But in November of 2022, it was finally discovered. Although police are continuing the search for the boy’s killer now that they know the victim’s name, the identity of the murderer is still unknown. This is the story of the boy in the box. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. CBS: https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/the-boy-in-the-box-joseph-augustus-zarelli/ 2. Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/boy-box-joseph-augustus-zarelli-has-living-siblings-60-years-later-1765716 3. New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/08/us/boy-in-the-box-philadelphia-homicide.html#:~:text=His%20name%20is%20now%20known,case%20work%20in%20recent%20years. 4. FInd A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7207817/boy-in_the-box 5. Philly Voice: https://www.phillyvoice.com/boy-in-box-philadelphia-joseph-augustus-zarelli-homicide-victim-identfiied/ 6. The NetLine: https://thenetline.com/joseph-zarelli-family/ 7. Republican and Herald: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/114869310/joseph-augustus-zarelli-2281957/ 8. The Philadelphia Inquirer: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/114409749/boy-in-the-box-joseph-augustus-zarelli/ 9. ABC 27: https://www.abc27.com/news/remains-of-boy-in-the-box-identified-by-philadelphia-police-after-65-years/ 10. The Philadelphia Inquirer: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/114499080/gus-zarelli-theorized-to-be-bio-father/ 11. Gus' Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/131531160/augustus-john-zarelli 12. Grunge: https://www.grunge.com/901122/the-tragic-1957-murder-of-the-boy-in-the-box-explained/ 13. ABC 6: https://6abc.com/boy-in-the-box-identified-dna-philadelphia-cold-case-child-killed-50s/12546104/#:~:text=The%20%22Boy%20in%20the%20Box,forensic%20genealogist%20at%20Identifiers%20International. 14. Local Today: https://localtoday.news/us/chinas-strict-zero-covid-policy-may-be-over-but-it-has-been-replaced-by-chaos-confusion-and-risk-216647.html 15. The Philadelphia Inquirer: https://www.newspapers.com/image/176083075/?clipping_id=114408911&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjE3NjA4MzA3NSwiaWF0IjoxNjcyMjcxNDkzLCJleHAiOjE2NzIzNTc4OTN9.HjpbJDDP9n30ZQiYbXFH5bij7nGWMVyaFeY6M0s5U0U Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody, happy Tuesday. Big thank you to Alicia, Donna, Brittany, and Rachel for recommending today's case. This one has had a lot of recent updates, which I'm sure a lot of you have seen in the news the past month. This case is finally getting some answers after way too long. So we decided to do an episode about it. Yeah, this is one of those historical cases that a lot of people probably know about,

but may not know all the details to it. Yeah. So, yeah, really excited to get into this one today. Then let's do it. All right. This is episode 269 of Going West. So let's get into it! In February of 1957, a box containing the body of a boy was found in Pennsylvania, and for nearly 70 years, his identity remained a mystery.

But in November of 2022, it was finally discovered. But the identity of his killer remains unknown. This is the story of the boy in the box, also known as Joseph Augustus Zarelli. On a chilly day in late February of 1957, a college student driving in the Fox Chase neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia found a mysterious cardboard box. It was hidden from view of the road, but the student's odd account of how he found it turned out to be a stroke of luck. 26-year-old Frederick Bononis, who was a junior at Les Salles University in Philadelphia,

was driving on Susquehanna Road in between Veri Road and Pine Road, which was at the time a very rural area, although it's now just home to condos and housing developments of course. So the streets back onto a wooded area called Pennypack Park, which has hiking trails and a creek, and Frederick explained that he saw a rabbit dart in front of his car, which caused him to stop short, and that for some reason he got out to chase the rabbit into the brush on the side of the road, which is kind of weird.

That's a weird thing to do, yeah. But he did it. And while the rabbit eluded him, he found a few traps for catching muskrats that were not set. So he decided to set them in order to quote, see what happened. Again, very bizarre. Strange. But while doing this, Frederick said that he noticed a cardboard box that just looked out a place.

So he kind of took like a cursory look and he observed what he thought was the face of a doll inside. He put the lid back on and he left again just thinking it was possibly a doll. And he returned the next day to check the traps probably just seeing if he was you know if he had caught the rabbit that had run in front of his car for whatever reason but he found that he hadn't caught anything but again again these weren't even his traps yeah they were just traps on the side of the road yeah they're like somebody else's traps like I said for muskrats and he just decides I'm gonna set one and see what happens.

He's like dinner tonight, baby! But it wasn't until he heard that a little girl was missing in New Jersey that he reported this box to the police finally. And while Frederick was never considered a suspect, he did submit to a voluntary lie detector test, which he passed. interi-lie detector test which he passed. Inside this cardboard box which was meant for a bassinet was the badly beaten body of a little boy. One article stated that Frederick was so frightened that he waited a full 24 hours before reporting it to the police, first consulting a priest who encouraged him to disclose what he saw. The little boy inside the box was found naked and wrapped in a brown and green blanket which

police believed had a tribal print. The blanket had a piece cut out of it, which is where the tag of this blanket was believed to have been, likely in order to avoid detectives from tracking where it had come from. His arms were folded neatly across the blanket, wrapped around his chest. Officers first to the scene agreed with Fredrick's account that the boy resembled a doll. He had been deceased for as many as 14 days, or as few as three days prior to the discovery of the body. The little boy, believed to be between 4 and 6 years old, had sustained grave injuries, including blunt force trauma to the head, which was his ultimate cause of death.

But in addition to the fresh injuries, the boy had about a dozen scars, abnormal for someone of such a young age. There were multiple scars on his forehead, one on his chin, and a few scattered around his small body. And how weird, you know, that there is this little boy that's found brutally murdered in a box in the woods, you know, off from the side of a road. Yeah. Like, just such a disturbing discovery.

So in the inner crook of his elbow, there was evidence that an IV had been placed in his arm at some point, indicating that maybe he had been hospitalized or even undergone surgery. He also had a few scars on his ankle and growing that were so severe that they looked surgical. He did not, however, have the small crater-like scar and his arm that usually came as a result of the smallpox vaccine, indicating that he had not been receiving adequate medical care. The boy was severely malnourished, so much so that investigators couldn't initially be sure of his age, like his ribs were so prominent in his tiny sunken chest.

Although he appeared to be mistreated, he was clean. Like his fingernails had been freshly cut, his hair had been newly trimmed, and actually so newly trimmed that there were hair trimmings found on his body, as if he had literally just gotten a haircut like right before he died. Right, which is very weird.

It's like, are they doing this? Is that on purpose that they're kind of grooming him before this? You know what I mean? Or or or maybe they did that after he was killed like it's just kind of a weird thing to find But this honestly was more likely to have been in order to help his murder or kind of cover his tracks or cover their tracks Then to keep him groomed and while taking care of. And actually, investigators noted that the choppy haircut did not look as if it had been done by professionals, which kind of leans into that theory even more. In the autopsy, baked beans were found in his stomach,

and he was about three feet, three inches tall tall and weighed only about 30 pounds. On February 26, 1957, after the college student called to report the body, police officers Elmer Palmer and Samuel Weinstein responded to the scene. But as they surveyed the area and made their report, more questions than answers emerged. No child matching that description had been reported missing anywhere in the city of Philadelphia or the surrounding areas. And the only item found in the vicinity that may lead them to their killer was a blue corduroy hat.

Police issued a poster urging nearby communities to come forward with any information about the boy and included pictures of his bruised and bloodied face taken posthumously. Which is sad because this is the only way that they can release his face because they don't have a photo. Exactly. So the poster read quote, photographs depict an unidentified boy whose nude body was found in a cardboard carton in a thicket near Susquehanna and Vary Rhodes Fox Chase, Philadelphia, 3.45 pm Monday, February 25th 1957. Death caused by head injuries. Multiple bruises all over the entire body, death estimated

to have occurred from 3 days to 2 weeks prior to discovery. No clothing found. Body covered by blanket, man's cloth cap found adjacent to body. Now authorities circulated as many as 400,000 flyers, even mailing them home to people who lived in the area. Tips came in, but none that led to the identity of the boy, his family, or his killer. Police also distributed pictures of the cardboard box in which the boy was found, the bass and net that was originally packaged inside the box, the cap found near his body, and also the blanket that he was

wrapped in. And when that didn't bring forth any leads, they published an article in a news digest for pediatricians, just hoping that the doctor who performed his surgeries would see it and recognize the boy, but no one ever did. Which again, so crazy, like you would think somebody would know who this little boy is, but nobody was coming forward. So, they started to zero in on the Bassenette and the hat that was found near the cardboard

box. So, the Bassenette was sold by J.C. Penny, packaged inside a box that read, furniture, fragile, do not open with knife. Police determined that it was purchased from the JC Penney in upper Darby township, which is a western suburb of Pennsylvania, about a 40-minute drive from where the boy was found in North Philadelphia. Only 11 of the bassinets were purchased from the JC Penney, and they were able to track down most of the customers who purchased them, which is wild, but of the 11, 9 were identified, but were found to have no link to the boy

in the box, and the other two were never found. The Men's Size 7.5 Cap, described by police as nearly new, was determined to have been sold by Robbins, Bald Eagle Hat, and Cap Company, which they traced to a local store. And unlike JC Penney, the store did not keep a record of who purchased their hats. But the couple who owned the store

remembered selling the hat to someone about 10 months prior to the murder. And somehow they were able to have a kind of basic description of this person and they said that it was a blonde man who stood about five feet 11 inches tall and looked to be about 25 years old. So again, this is ten months later. I don't know how accurate this is, but this is what the couple said. So police printed this account in the local newspapers

along with the sketch of what he was believed to look like, but they were never able to trace it back to the hats owner. Because of the lack of uproar that would normally accompany a family who, you know, was missing a child, police checked orphanages, foster homes, and even hospitals, but found no connection. So after following just about every lead that they had and coming up empty handed, the investigation turned cold. Many specialists took interest in the heartbreaking case of the little boy for whom no one seemed

to be looking for. Fingerprint expert Bill Kelly, who was called to the scene on the day that the boy was discovered, took it upon himself to utilize his expertise in matching the boy's hand and footprints to his birth records. Long after others had given up and long after he stopped getting paid for the task, Bill tirelessly examined birth records from area hospitals, as well as a local home for single mothers. He also developed the theory that the boy was the son of recent immigrants, which may have explained why the boy was not reported missing, and is said to have examined over 11,000 passport photos for similarities. An investigator in the medical examiner's office, Remington Bristow, was so touched by

the case that he offered up $1000 of his own money as a reward. He also published an article posing the theory that the boy died by accident, and his parents who couldn't afford a proper burial or funeral services had disposed of him in the box. I get why this theory would originally come up, but it just doesn't really click, especially with the police investigating it and putting his face out there, why the parents wouldn't say, oh my god, that's our son. But also, right, right, but also, you know, how badly this boy's body was beaten.

Yes, that is the biggest case in point. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. But neither of Remington's contributions led to any developments in this case. So with no name, family, or murderer to speak of, and no one that seemed to be looking for him, the boy in the box was buried in what the media called a Popper's grave. The first officer to arrive on the scene, Elmer Palmer, later said that he thought that it would be an open and shut case, but in reality, many investigators would take on the case only to retire or pass away without ever seeing

any answers. Investigators and concerned locals hatched a number of theories. In the press coverage about the case, there was speculation that he may be a Hungarian refugee, like maybe his family was fleeing during the revolution against communist forces in 1956. But another theory stated that he may have been the son of traveling carnival workers, trying to cover up the unsuitable living conditions

of the children of the employees, and Remington Bristo, the employee of the Medical Examiner's office, continued conducting his own investigation, even consulting a psychic. And this psychic confirmed the earlier theory that the boy had lived in a nearby foster home. Of course, you know, take that how you will, whether or not you believe in psychics, grain

assault, grain assault, just thrown it in. And although police had already searched the particular Philadelphia foster home that she had described, and even questioned the couple who ran it, Remington returned there to do more digging and hatched the theory that the boy was the son of the couple's unwed teenage daughter who died by accident, and he had been disposed of to cover up her situation, which in 1957 would have been very scandalous. And this is quite the webbed theory. But get this, after the couple moved out of the house, Remington attended the estate

sale and found the exact white bassinet that was housed by the box found containing the little boy. And he also found blankets similar to the one that he had been wrapped in. So that's obviously really strange that the police weren't the ones to investigate this, but it was this medical examiner. Yeah, and I mean, good thing he's doing this digging, because these are a couple very interesting points that he himself uncovered. So there was a strange occurrence in the days leading up to the discovery of the boy that also made its way into the paper, hoping that it would jog the memories of anyone else

who had witnessed it. So on February 28th, 1957, a local paper printed that a heavy-set woman who looked to be between 40 and 50 years old was driving around the area in a pickup truck with a boy believed to be between 12 and 14 years old shortly before the boy was found. According to the witness, the two had apparently parked near the site where the box was recovered and were digging around in the trunk. But this pair was never identified. And in the same article, the author posed the idea that the boy was the son of a rufor who lived in the area, although this was unsubstantiated.

The rufor had supposedly been staying in a local boarding house with his young son, who some reported resembled the boy in the box. According to the owner of the boarding house, the boy and his son disappeared two days before the boy's body was found. An account by a shop owner matched the description of the man believed to be the boy's father, and the owner said that he frequently came in to purchase clothes for the boy that he said was his son, but that he put them on his store tab and never returned to pay. Then yet another account came in about the two, saying that the man and the boy boarded a bus bound for New Jersey looking dirty and unkempt. The father and his son were actually never located.

So in 2002, another potential lead emerged, because every single one that we have talked about has pretty much fallen flat and they have not been able to properly trace it through. So in 2002, a woman only identified in the news as Martha came forward to say that she thought her own mother was responsible for the death of the little boy. This is almost 50 years later. Martha remembered being 11 years old when her mother purchased the little boy as an infant, claiming that she had purchased him solely to abuse him. What the fuck? It's disgusting and that's just so bizarre. Like what do you mean?

What do you mean purchased him to abuse him? Yeah, like why? So according to Martha, her mother had been extremely abusive to her children, both physically and sexually. Martha also remembered the boy being kept in the basement, sleeping in a cold bin and using a drain in the floor as a toilet. Okay, so this is weird because if this person that Martha's talking about is

not in fact the boy in the box, then I worry for whatever boy this was in her care. 100%. So on the night that the boy who Martha claimed was named Jonathan when this boy died, Martha recalled that he had thrown up his dinner of baked beans while taking a bath, and that their mother was so angry that she beat him to death. Now obviously, we remember that there were baked beans found in the boy in the boxest stomach, and that he was essentially beaten to death. So this matches. And actually only, at this time, only the police knew about the baked beans in the boy's stomach, and

they were the only ones that knew that his fingers were pruning, apparently from bathwater. So with the help of her psychiatrist, whom she was seeing to work through issues from her traumatic childhood, Martha reported her account to police. However, because she had a history of struggling with mental illness, her account was deemed unreliable and taken out of consideration. So he thought you were just saying, if this wasn't the boy in the box who was it, the real question is, did this happen at all? Yeah, exactly. But the behold baked beans and prudy fingers thing is really weird. Oh, definitely.

So, the Vinox Society, whom we've mentioned in multiple other episodes, is a private crime-solving organization made up of former law enforcement officers, FBI agents, and forensics experts, and they're based in Philadelphia. While after they're founding in 1990, they took on the case of the boy in the box, and they even erected a historical marker near where the body was found with the inscription, America's Unknown Child, February 26, 1957. Police officers Elmer Palmer and Samuel Weinstein responded to the then-rural Susquehanna Road to investigate a report of a body found in a box.

There they discovered the naked, battered body of a small boy believed to be 4 to 6 years old. The unknown child became known as the boy in the box. He has never been identified. His case remains open. He is now called America's Unknown Child. In 1998, a judge ordered his body exhumed for further examination and to obtain a DNA sample. He was finally given a

proper burial in Philadelphia's Ivy Hill Cemetery, just 20 minutes from where his body was discovered. He was interned with the inscription, Heavenly Father blessed this unknown boy, February 25th 1957. In 2015, he was granted another stone, with a drawing of a lamb above the words, America's Unknown Child, dedicated November 11th, 1998. The boy in the box became one of the nation's oldest unidentified person's murder cases. Then, in December of 2022, last way for the identification of the little boy whose identity was a mystery for over six decades. A man named Justin Thomas purchased a DNA kit from Ancestry.com as a Christmas gift for his girlfriend.

But when they broke up before the holiday, Justin kinda got curious and just decided to use it himself since he had it in his possession. He discovered that many of his relatives were from Italy but didn't think much of it. And he just kinda sat on this information for a few years until 2021 when he got a call from a genealogist working with Identifying Ders International, which is a forensic genealogy agency that specializes

in cold cases. Misty Gillis, who is one of the genealogists assisting in identifying the boy in the box, said, quote, I've actually known about this case since I was a child. I've followed true crime and was interested in it. It's been very personal to me because I have young children around the same age. I want to have his story told. I want to have it out in the world to do him justice. So Misty asked Justin if someone else in his family could provide a DNA sample

to which his mom obliged. But in December of 2022, when the boy's name was announced, Justin said he and his immediate family were absolutely shocked to learn what a close relative he actually was. Justin believes the boy was his mother's first cousin as she shared a last name with Justin's great uncle. Justin who is now married with two kids of his own around the same age the boy was when he died said quote, Now that I have two young girls and seeing his pictures and hearing the story, I'm really

upset about it. It strikes home. It's horrible. I can't imagine. I want to talk to everyone in the family to try to understand. So after comparing the DNA to living relatives on the boys' maternal side, detectives and genealogists establish the identity of the boys' birth mother. Now to track down his birth father, they obtained birth records from his mother between the years of 1953 and

1956 of which there were three. The third result that they found was for a baby boy, Zarelli, born on January 13, 1953. And strangely, he was never issued a social security number. In addition to the information on his birth mother, the birth record also listed his birth father, enabling detectives to make contact with the boy's relatives on his paternal side. So who was the boy in the box? Well on Thursday, December 8, 2022, Philadelphia Police held a press conference to announce that the boy's name was Joseph

Augustus Zarelli. Joseph was born on January 13th, 1954 in Philadelphia, and is believed to have died on February 25th, 1957. He had lived in West Philadelphia, and at the time of his death, was supposedly living near the intersection of 61st and Market Streets. They explained that he had been born to a quote, prominent family in Delaware County, which is the county in which West Philadelphia is located. They made no further announcements about his personal life in details, including whether

or not Joseph had been living with his parents. Now while both of his birth parents are now deceased, Joseph has living siblings who have been contacted, although none have publicly identified themselves. It's just crazy how this all came to be. If Justin had not broken up with his girlfriend or they did not split up and he had given her the ancestry DNA test and he didn't take it himself,

like this discovery might not have been made. The fact that he happened to just decide to take it himself after they broke up and then was contacted by Misty because of it. And then for this to lead to the boy's identity into his family and then to learn that he's from a prominent family, which is not what was imagined. They thought he was from like a foster home you know so it's it's just crazy how this was all uncovered yeah it really does feel like divine intervention and you know it's just so amazing what genealogy is doing nowadays the fact that it's connecting people

and it's also I mean we've seen so many cases of killers getting taken down by genealogy and DNA and it's just, it's just honestly so amazing. Yeah, so and also with Joseph Augustus Zarelli, he would have just turned like 69 years old if he was still alive. So, or actually his birthday's in a few days, sorry, he was, he would be about to turn sixty nine years old so knowing that he also has living siblings that are probably around that age

who have gone their whole lives you know i'm really interested to see what they would say about this and what they know about this right so because police chose to address Joseph's parents as his birth parents many theorize that he was given up for adoption or put into foster care, which would connect to that thought anyway. Yeah. You know, like I had said, him coming from a prominent family doesn't mean that he couldn't

have been adopted afterwards. But then it just makes us wonder, is this negligence on his birth family or is this something that happened to him after he was given up for adoption if that's even what happened? Yeah, and those are still lingering questions. So police also claim that he had siblings quote on both sides, which kind of sounds like his parents may not have stayed together after his birth

and maybe gone on to have two different sets of children with other partners. The Philadelphia homicide captain said, quote, at this point in time, we are not going to release that information. Joseph has a number of siblings of both the mother and father side who are living, and it is out of respect for them

that their parents' information remain confidential. But one burning question remains, you know, like I had just kind of brought up. Who the fuck did it? Who did it? So, police also announced that the investigation was open and ongoing and that they do not yet have a murder suspect. The homicide captain added, quote, may be responsible but it would be irresponsible of me to share these suspicions as this remains

an active and ongoing criminal investigation. Those words. I know. It's fair. It just makes you wonder. But it has been a couple of months, so hopefully I mean, I guarantee they're working on this night and day. So Colleen Fitzpatrick, who worked alongside Misty Gillis on the case for Identifying

Nurse International, said quote, this was the most challenging case of my whole career. It took two and a half years to get the DNA in shape. It was so bad to get to the point where we could create SNIP data that we could use for genealogy. We've solved cases in two hours and we've solved cases in three years. This is a brand new technology as of 2017-2018, so the oldest cases you're going to find are two or three years that haven't been solved. But as the databases grow and our tools develop and we go forward with the technology, there's going to be a lot more. It's going to go a lot more quickly.

So Colleen remains very hopeful that Joseph's case will be solved. So many of question why the parents didn't report their missing son. Obviously, that's a question that we have. And they also speculate that that points to one or both of them being involved. Because the boy's name and neighborhood, as well as some hints to who his family was, are now readily available to internet sleuths, many have attempted to reveal the identity

of Joseph's birth parents. Only a few hits from local papers are available, and one was a recurring newspaper advertisement in the 1950s for masonry and concrete work, all types, which may be consistent with the tip from the local who said that Joseph's father was believed to be a rougher in the area. And the other is an obituary for Augustus J. Gus Zarelli. And remember, his name is Joseph Augustus Zarelli.

And actually, the obituary is even tagged with the note quote, theorized to be biofather of Boy in Box Joseph a Gustis Zarelli. But there's no concrete evidence linking the two, and none of Gustis' family is come forward to confirm the relation. But the details of his life, not to mention his name, seemed to line up. Gust was even from West Philadelphia, where police confirmed that Joseph had been living. He and his wife Cynthia shared six children, two of whom were deceased and eventually settled into Westchester, which is a suburb of Philadelphia.

Now people are so sure that that particular Zarelle family is related to Joseph that the Find-Agrave page for both Gus and his late wife Cynthia are marked with the note, there is absolutely no evidence that Augustus is the father of Joseph Augustus Zareli, 1953 to 1957 at this time. When definitive evidence surfaces, then a revisit to the issue will occur. Please don't send edits attempting to link the two. Thank you. Yes, some people guessed that Joseph was maybe even born with a learning disability that his family saw

as an inconvenience, which is horrible, and that they mistreated him to the point of death, at which point the family kind of joined forces to cover it up. But it's also possible that Gus was indeed the father and never knew of his son's existence. Others say that Gus was actually Joseph's uncle, and that his middle name was simply a nod to his brother. Another theory is that Zarelli was actually Joseph's mother's surname, which could be the

case if she was an unwed mother. However, with Joseph's living siblings staying kind of hushed on the topic right now, which is fair, and the police protecting their privacy, we may never know the real story. It just really just depends if his case is solved, or if his family decides to kind of come out and explain it for themselves, which they do not have to do. While many are skeptical that the case will never be solved because of the amount of time that has passed, others remain hopeful and tireless in their efforts. One former police officer and FBI agent who now works with the Vydox Society said, quote, Now our lad is no longer the boy in the box. He has a name,

and I was raised to believe that when you say the name out loud of a loved one, that person still lives in spirit amongst us. Joseph's case remains open, and authorities are offering a $20,000 reward for information. There are now plans to update one or both of his grave markers at the Ivy Hill Cemetery to reflect Joseph's actual identity. His grave was often adorned with wreaths, toys, flowers, and crosses, and this past Christmas, his first as a named victim, obviously, it was decorated for the holiday, including a large ornament engraved with his name.

for the holiday, including a large ornament engraved with his name. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at the press conference, quote, when people think about the boy in the box, a profound sadness is felt, not just because a child was murdered, but because his entire identity and his rightful claim to own his existence was taken away. The boy appeared to be malnourished, and his body bore the signs of recent and past trauma. In his very short life, it was apparent that this child experienced horrors that no one, no one should ever be subjected to. So if you have any information regarding the murder of Joseph Augustus Zarelli, please call

215-686-8477. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Friday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. This is one of those cases that I had heard about for so long but it just really didn't seem like there was any evidence that actually could help us put together a real theory and it was just pure speculation of just a million different wild theories. Yeah, and I'm so glad that he finally has a name.

We finally know who the boy in the box was. Yeah, so amazing. So now obviously police are working very hard to figure out exactly what happened to this poor boy. I mean, he was so young, this is such a horrible tragedy. So thank you everybody for listening to the case. Don't forget to share. Don't forget to follow us on social media

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