Fifty Years Without A Name- LONG

Fifty Years Without A Name
by Samantha Warner
"There were no homes, only the Good Shepard Home. The (road) was only wide enough for one vehicle. The initial call to police radio said they found a cardboard box from JC Penney's and inside was a doll." [Retired Police Detective Sam Weinstein, March 25, 1998] Sadly, it was no doll.
On February 25, 1957, a 26-year-old male La Salle college student wandered into a wooded area near Susquehanna and Veree Roads next to Pennypack Park in order to spy on the residents of the nearby Good Shepard Home for Wayward Girls. Instead, he discovered a box and one of the most famous unsolved murders in Philadelphia history.
"The Boy in the Box" has puzzled, intrigued and angered people across the United States for the past fifty years, particularly in the Fox Chase and Parkwood areas of Philadelphia. The lifeless image of the small boy has been seen by millions. His picture was posted everywhere from government offices and supermarkets to liquor stores and private businesses. Back in 1957, his likeness was even mailed to every Philadelphia Gas Works customer with their monthly bill. Over the decades, the case has been taken on by local and federal agencies dedicating countless hours pursing dozens of leads, none of which has led to closure. The case has gone cold and been re-opened several times.
Elmer Palmer and Sam Weinstein were the first two officers on the scene. Inside the officers found the naked body of a malnourished boy who, it was determined, had been dead anywhere from three days to two weeks. He was 40.5 inches long, weighed thirty pounds and was estimated to be four-years-old. He was covered in bruises from head to toe and both sides of his body, including large bruises on his forehead and temple. His blond hair had been chopped sloppily with blunt scissors, but his fingernails were neatly trimmed and his body was clean. The cause of death was listed as massive head trauma. The medical examiner also found small scars indicative of prior medical procedures and that the boy had been circumcised. Every physician in the area was sent a flyer of the boy and the American Medical Association circulated a description of the boy across the nation. No doctor has ever identified him.
The Philadelphia Police Forensics' lab had very little evidence to go on. The boy was covered in a blanket, which has been described as "Indian-style". The box, from JC Penny's, had originally contained a bassinet, and a blue corduroy "Jeff Cap" was found next to the box. Retailers and manufacturers were given details of these products, but none offered definitive information.
As leads wore thin and months passed, authorities decided to bury the boy in the city's Potter's Field in the Parkwood section of the city on July 24, 1957. So much attention and public sympathy were devoted to the boy that investigators were able to take up a collection for a tombstone, the only grave at the site to have such an honor. The small stone read "Heavenly Father, Bless This Unknown Boy."
For years, the grave was kept up and decorated with flowers. The people of Parkwood, who took a motherly attitude to the boy, were his caretakers along with the medical examiner's investigator, Remington Bristow. Solving the mystery became a life long obsession with Bristow, along with countless others, lasting through his retirement until his death in 1993. Bristow spent thirty-six years on the case, often following leads to distant parts of the country. He went to his grave believing he knew where the answer to the mystery could be found. Many different leads have come up over the past five decades, the most prominent and initially promising being "The Foster Home" (Bristow's theory) and "M".
Bristow believed the solution rested with a family that lived about a mile from the site where the boy was found. A psychic told him to "look for a house with children playing in it and with a log cabin. About a mile and a third away, he (found) a large house which turns out to be a foster home. On the property is a log cabin." [Ron Avery, City of Brotherly Mayhem.] The couple living there had five foster children at the time, as well as a 20-year-old stepdaughter. All five of the foster children were checked and accounted for. Bristow theorized that the dead boy was an illegitimate child of the stepdaughter and had died accidentally. In 1985, Bristow located the foster home couple, who had moved to the town of Dublin in upper Bucks County to and tried to get a lie-detector test for the man and DNA from the stepdaughter, who was now his wife. The lie-detector was refused. The stepdaughter admitted to having a son who died at the age of three in 1955, but that he was killed along Frankford Avenue on a department-store amusement ride. She also told investigators that she had three other children who were stillborn in the late 1940's and early 50's. Her stories were checked and confirmed.
Then there is the story of "M". In 1955, "M" was 11. She told the investigators her librarian mother drove her to a home, where she picked a boy up in exchange for an envelope which she thought contained money. The child, called Jonathan, then came to live with them in their Philadelphia home. There, he was raised in squalor in the basement, with a drain for a bathroom and a makeshift bed amid coal bins and discarded cardboard cartons. "M" claimed that her mother regularly sexually abused her and had purchased the child to do the same to him. The boy's death, "M" claimed, eventually came when her mother, in a fit of rage, slammed him down on the floor after he vomited in the tub. That day, her mother drove her into Philadelphia to dump the child. Investigators were amazed, but skeptical. At issue is whether "M", who has a history of mental problems, could have fabricated the story, but her claims are still being investigated.
In 1998, pursuant to a court order, the body was exhumed for DNA testing as well as investigation by Forensic Artists using the latest technology. It was decided to rebury the boy in a new and more prominent site, much to the sadness of the Parkwood community who had come to look on the boy as their own. On the morning of November 11, 1998, the boy was reburied in a place of honor just inside the main gate at Ivy Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia. At 11:00am the funeral service commenced with a bagpiper playing the tune "Going Home" and pallbearers including William Fleisher (co-founder and Commissioner of the Vidocq Society), Tom Augustine (the man in charge of the current investigation) and Sam Weinstein. He was given a new headstone which bears the image of a lamb and is inscribed with the words "America's Unknown Child… Dedicated November 11, 1998." The original headstone was set at the foot of the grave along with a floral bouquet containing toy cars and trucks.
Even after decades of searching, numerous books, documentaries, dedicated websites (the most informative being http://americasunknownchild.net/) and a fictionalized episode of "Cold Case", the case remains unsolved. But there are countless people who will dedicate their time and energy to give this small boy the one thing every human being deserves- an identity.