The Chilling Murder of The Boy in the Box
Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold Case mysteries with Rohith Koneru. I am your host, Rohith Koneru, and today we will be covering the chilling murder of The Boy in the Box, a case that has been left unsolved for over 65 years and is known as one of Philadelphia’s most baffling murder cases. A quick disclaimer, everything I say is for SATIRICAL purposes only and if you read this murder mystery, you probably won’t be able to sleep for the next couple of weeks and you probably will be scared of every cardboard box you see. With that out of the way, let’s get into the case.
On February 25th, 1957, a young hunter set out into the woods next to Susquehanna Road, Philadelphia when he came across a box, with a boy inside. I’m serious. The boy was 4-6 years old, naked, weighed 30lbs, and was 3’3” tall. He was found wrapped in a blanket,
his hair cut and body recently washed with scars in several places along his body. Funnily enough, the hunter did not report the dead body to the police because he didn’t want them to confiscate his muskrat traps. A few days later, a college student was investigating the woods when he also found the boy in the box, but he also didn’t call the police until the next day. There were no witnesses and the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
To be honest, I don’t even blame these guys for not reporting the body, there is a 50/50 chance that I wouldn’t report the body either. If you report the body, you are guaranteeing yourself a week of questioning and becoming a suspect, something that I am too lazy for. If you want to be a good citizen, go ahead, I’m just saying that I am an average citizen that may or may not report the body.
Police kept the boy at the morgue where investigators from 10 different states came to identify the body, to no avail. Police sent out 400,000 flyers with the boy’s face and tried fingerprinting the boy and found that there was no record that he EVER EXISTED. This is some nightmare fuel right here.
The box the boy was found in
The main piece of evidence that the police used was the box the boy was found in. The box, which originally contained a bassinet, had a serial number that the police used to trace it back to a JCPenny store 15 miles away. This JCPenny shipped 12 of these bassinets, however, every single buyer paid in cash, leaving no record of their purchase. Even
though 8 of the purchasers came forward, all of them either still had the box or put it out for trash collection. Although promising, the box ended up being a dead-end.
The next piece of evidence is the blanket the boy was wrapped in. Investigators found out that the blanket was made in either Quebec or North Carolina, however, thousands of these blankets were manufactured and purchased, leaving the blanket as useless evidence
Another clue was a blue corduroy Ivy league style hat found 15 feet away from the box. This hat was made by a small hat company in South Philadelphia, Eagle Hat & Cap Company. The hat was custom made and the owner of the company actually remembered the person who ordered it. She described the man as Blonde and 26-30 years old. Police asked all over Philly, however, no one recognized the hat or the man’s description. Another dead-end.
With all the evidence out of the way, let’s get to the theories.
THEORY #1
In 1960, Remington Bristow, a man who was so obsessed with this case that he carried a mask of the boy’s face in his bag, consulted a psychic, who told him to look for a house that matched a foster home only 1.5 miles away from the site of the body. At the foster home, Bristow found a bassinet that could have been the same one sold at JCPenny and blankets that were similar to the one that the boy was found in. Shortly after Bristow’s death in 1993, an investigator by the name of Tom Augustine continued where Bristow left off. He went to the home of Arthur Nicoletti, the previous owner of the foster home. Before Bristow died, he theorized that Nicoletti’s wife was the mother of the boy in the box, but had no proof. But, in a CRAZY turn of events, Nicoletti’s wife was also his STEPDAUGHTER. BRUUUUUUHHHHH.
I’m going to come clean: I am NOT making this up and I am dying of laughter right now. I also only told you about this theory because of this insane plot twist, I can’t make this stuff up. The theory concludes that Nicoletti’s wife/stepdaughter is the mother of the boy in the box, but honestly, I never even believed this theory was true.
THEORY #2
Now that we have moved on from that catastrophe of a theory, let us look at an actual theory that may be true. In 2002, a psychiatrist in Cincinnati contacted Tom Augustine because her patient, a woman named Martha, wanted to speak to the police. Martha claimed that when she was 11 years old, she and her mother went to a house where her mother purchased a boy from his birth parents. Martha said that she was sexually abused and beaten by her mother and that her mother wanted to do the same to the boy she just purchased. However, Martha says that her mother killed the boy 
after struggling to bathe him and drove to Philidelphia to abandon him. Martha spoke to three different investigators, and out of the three, all of them believed Martha’s story to be true. Even though this is a strong theory, there is no actual evidence to back it up, which means that it is an invalid theory.
Today, the boy’s grave is marked as “America’s unknown child” and due to a lack of evidence, witnesses, and suspects, this mystery remains unsolved.
SOURCES:
https://allthatsinteresting.com/boy-in-the-box
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_in_the_Box_(Philadelphia)
Wow. I was intrigued by the story and your style of writing. Adding in your reactions and anecdotes while telling the story made for a very entertaining read. I like how you offered two potential theories (1 more realistic, however).
I also like how you tell the account as if you’re a host of a news anchor or something of the sort.
The most intriguing part of the story you told may have been that the hair was cut and the body was recently washed. That is very strange for a murder. Blunt head force trauma is not a clean form of killing. I obviously have no experience with this, but from TV shows, this just seems like a different type of death would be used or the baby would be dirty from neglect or something. I’m not sure I will be coming back next week to read the next blog, but as always, this was an interesting read. I have watched some stories similar to this on youtube and recently Jeffery Dahmer has been popularized on Netflix, but I don’t seek murder stories out. Thanks for the entertaining read, Rohith.
Hi Rohith! I love the theme of your blog. As an avid criminal minds lover, I always found murder mysterious super intresting. I watched all 11 seasons of Criminal Mind in two months. This case was really interesting to read because there is so much ambiguity to it (not to mention it was super freaky). I loved the way you write your blogs, you have a great storytelling voice. Theory #1 is pretty crazy, I truly had no idea what your next sentence was going to be, and each word kept on surprising me. Honestly, with the volume of cases I have been exposed to, the twist of the marriage also having a familial relation is not as shocking… you would be surprised at how often that happens (it is very unfortunate). Theory 2 does make a lot more sense, cases like these usually have an abusive aspect to it and I am not surprised that it was a child left abandoned by their parents (again it is unfortunate how common this is). Usually the cases that intrigue me the most are cases involving families because usually close friends/family are involved and it is interesting to see how the closest relationships can result in the most horrendous crimes. Overall, a great blog, I loved your writing style as well as your content!
Wow, this blog post was scary. I was first drawn to your blog because of the picture of the three heads of the boy and just had to read it. I love watching shows like Forensic Files so I especially enjoyed reading this blog.
The story is just so random, and I cannot believe two people did not report the boy’s body. Personally, I think I would get freaked out and call my parents. When reading the two theories, I actually think there could be some substance to the first one. The foster home was only 1.5 miles away and the bassinet/blanket similarities cannot be ignored. I definitely think the child might be from the foster home. In fact, theory one seems more likely than theory two to me since the mother could have dropped the baby off anywhere in Philadelphia – and we don’t even know if the story is true. However, the plot twist of the first theory is quite unsettling, marrying your step daughter??? That’s crazy.
I love the style of your writing, it is like you are actually narrating a documentary in a 60 Minutes episode or Forensic Files. I look forward to reading your blogs every week!
Hi Rohith,
This case truly was a very scary and twisted-up cold case because the kid was just a toddler when he was killed and the reports also indicate he was malnourished and going through severe pain. Although you said you wouldn’t report the box I probably would just because, yes, it would lead to some questioning but it would also be really helpful in finding the killer. Also if you don’t report it the evidence could be damaged by the weather or not be found for quite a while which could slow the investigation, just my two sense. The first theory is in all likelihood outrageously false but the second theory, on the other hand, seems to hold a lot more weight. It was verified by multiple investigators and seems to have a lot more truth to it because a lot of the details match up like the boy being bought for money which makes sense because police couldn’t identify him at all almost like he has no existence. Unfortualtny stories like these are very hard to verify because there is no tangible evidence to back them up so it’s hard to determine the validity of what people are saying nonetheless the case is an interesting one due to the lack of evidence presented considering it was the murder of a child.