'Boy in the Box' Identified 65 Years After his Badly Beaten Body was Found in Philadelphia

The identity of a boy found beaten to death inside a cardboard box has been revealed after 65 years.

Authorities announced that the "Boy in the Box" is 4-year-old Joseph Augustus Zarelli.

Police found his naked and badly bruised body in a wooded area on the outskirts of Philadelphia on February 25, 1957. 

At a news conference on Thursday, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said that the cold case has "haunted this community, the Philadelphia police department, our nation, and the world."

She went on to say: "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."

There are still no suspects in the case, but authorities are cautiously optimistic that this new development might help them get new information about this unsolved murder.

“It’s going to be an uphill battle for us to definitively determine who caused this child’s death,” said Philadelphia Police Captain Jason Smith. “We may not make an arrest. We may never make an identification. But we’re going to do our darndest to try.”

Smith, who heads up the homicide division, also said that the parents of the boy are both dead but he has siblings who are still alive.

This break in the case came after police were given permission to exhume the boy's body in 2019 and try to identify him through DNA.

The DNA then allowed authorities to identify the mother, and after combing through birth records they learned the boy's name and the identity of his father.

Meanwhile, there are no plans to move the boy from his spot in Ivy Hill Cemetery, where he is buried under a headstone that reads "America’s Unknown Child."

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