The Mysterious Death of the Boy in the Box
America’s Unknown Child was brutally beaten and placed in a box but he wasn’t identified until 2022
It was Philadelphia’s greatest unsolved mystery in 65 years and it involved a young four-old boy.
For decades, no one knew who he was and he came to be known as “America’s Unknown Child.”
The discovery of the body of the young boy took place in 1957 when a hunter checking his muskrat traps came across the body in the woods of Fox Chase, Philadelphia.
Unfortunately, he did not report that he had found the body. Instead, it was a college student who reported the body after chasing a rabbit into the woods.
The body of the unknown child was naked and badly bruised. He had been wrapped up in a blanket and placed in a J.C. Penney bassinet box constructed from cardboard.
Later, police would claim that the boy had suffered from malnutrition and physical abuse. There were also scars on the body that may have come from an IV line. The boy had been beaten to death.
However, the mystery remained. Who was the little boy and who would do this to him?
No one had any clue.
