Joseph Augustus Zarelli

For more than six decades, he was a ghost, a name on a headstone that read only "America's Unknown Child." He was the "Boy in the Box," a haunting symbol of one of Philadelphia's oldest and most profound unsolved mysteries. But in death, he finally reclaimed his name: Joseph Augustus Zarelli. Born on January 13, 1953, Joseph was a 4-year-old male from West Philadelphia with a family, including siblings on both his mother's and father's side who are still living. His life, however, was cut tragically short before he had a chance to make his mark on the world.

The grim discovery was made on February 25, 1957, in a desolate, wooded area off Susquehanna Road in the city's Fox Chase neighborhood. A young man checking animal traps stumbled upon a large cardboard box, the kind that once held a bassinet from a J.C. Penney store. Inside, wrapped in a plaid blanket, was the naked and battered body of a small boy. The child was severely malnourished, and his body was covered in bruises and multiple scars, some of which appeared to be surgical. His hair had been recently and crudely cut, with clumps of it still clinging to his body. An autopsy would later determine that Joseph had died from blunt force trauma.

The Philadelphia Police Department launched an immediate and massive investigation. Detectives took the boy's fingerprints, hoping for a quick identification. The Philadelphia Inquirer printed 400,000 flyers with the boy's likeness, which were posted across the region and included in every gas bill sent to city residents. Police distributed a post-mortem photograph of the boy, dressed and seated as he might have looked in life, praying it would jog someone's memory. Hundreds of police academy recruits scoured the crime scene, finding a man's blue corduroy cap and a child's scarf, but the clues led nowhere. Despite the intense publicity, no one ever came forward to report a missing child matching his description. He was buried in a potter's field, his identity a mystery.

For 65 years, generations of detectives and a dedicated community of volunteers refused to let the case go cold. The boy's remains were exhumed in 1998 to create a DNA profile, but it yielded no matches. He was exhumed again in 2019 as forensic technology advanced. This time, investigators were able to extract enough genetic material for investigative genetic genealogy. Working with forensic genealogists, detectives painstakingly built a family tree. The breakthrough came when a cousin uploaded their DNA to a public database, allowing experts to identify relatives on Joseph's maternal side. A court order for birth records eventually led them to a birth certificate for a boy born in 1953, which named his parents.

On December 8, 2022, Philadelphia Police announced they had finally given the "Boy in the Box" his name back. He was identified as Joseph Augustus Zarelli. His biological parents were identified as Mary Elizabeth Abel and Augustus John Zarelli, both of whom were deceased. The couple, who had other children, never reported Joseph missing. "This announcement only closes one chapter in this little boy's story while opening up a new one," then-Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw stated. "This is still an active homicide investigation and we still need the public's help in filling in this child's life story."

The identification brought a new wave of attention and a profound sense of resolution to the community that had long mourned the unknown child. In 2024, his headstone at Ivy Hill Cemetery was replaced with a new one bearing his name, finally giving him the dignity he was denied in life. Relatives from his father's side attended the memorial. "Now our lad is no longer that ‘Boy in the Box,’" said Bill Fleisher of the Vidocq Society, a group of volunteer investigators who worked on the case. "He has a name."

As of July 2026, the murder of Joseph Augustus Zarelli remains an open and active homicide investigation. While police have stated they have suspicions about who may be responsible, no arrests have been made and no charges have been filed. Authorities have not publicly released details on who may have killed him or why. A $20,000 reward has been offered for information that leads to an arrest and conviction in the case.