The words on the gravestone of the battered little boy cruelly stuffed into a butter box simply read: America’s Unknown Child.
To hardened Philadelphia homicide detectives, he was simply known as the Boy in the Box.
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Now, after 65 years of anonymity, cold-case investigators in the City of Brotherly Love are poised to identify the child at the centre of one of America’s most vexing mysteries
According to local media reports, DNA has helped finally identify the boy and the Philadelphia Police Department plans to publicly reveal the young victim’s name at a press conference next week.
The DNA led detectives to a yellowing birth certificate and, finally, a name, Philly media reports.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Dave Drysdale, Ivy Hill Cemetery secretary and treasurer, told KYW-TV. “Some day, there will be a name on there and it will be great. It will be great.”
He added: “I just wish that the police officers and all the people involved who long passed away were still here to see it because that was one of their goals, and a couple of them said, ‘I hope they live long enough to see a name put on there.'”
The mystery began on Feb. 25, 1957, when the body of the little boy — believed aged between three and seven — was discovered inside a cardboard butter box in Philly’s Fox Chase neighbourhood.
He was naked and had been severely beaten. His body was covered in bruises and had suffered severe head trauma. He was also severely malnourished.
In the intervening 65 years, homicide detectives have gone above and beyond to put a name to their little victim. What has resulted has been tears and frustration.
Among the clues left at the crime scene was a bassinet that had been purchased from JC Penney that retailed for $7.50. Cops also found a man’s royal blue corduroy newsboy cap they believe may belong to the killer.
Also found at the scene was a recently washed and mended flannel blanket that covered the boy.
Cops told local media that now they know his identity and criminal charges could still be laid.
Despite numerous public appeals over the decades, the Boy in the Box’s identity remained a mystery, equaling the 1947 unsolved dismemberment murder of Elizabeth Short, referred to by the Los Angeles newspapers of the time as the Black Dahlia.
Over the years, the murdered boy’s body has twice been exhumed and DNA was extracted in both cases.
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The charm was the use of cutting-edge genealogical DNA and detectives are believed to have found relatives of the boy, reconstructing his family tree.
His remains were transferred from the city’s Potter’s Field to Ivy Hill in 1998 and cops paid for the gravestone that read “America’s Unknown Child.”
bhunter@postmedia.com
@HunterTOSun