Philadelphia's 'Boy in the Box' now has his name -- Joseph Augustus Zarelli -- on his headstone.
A slain child at the center of one of Philadelphia's oldest cold cases now has his name on a grave marker.
Patty Braxton grimaced as a priest led a few dozen mourners in prayer on a gray, drizzly Friday beside the grave of a small boy found dead in 1957 and long dubbed “America's Unknown Child” or the “Boy in the Box.” In 1957, a young boy was found dead and beaten inside a box in Philadelphia's Fox Chase neighborhood. The investigation into his death became one of the nation's most notorious cold cases. Now, 65 years later, police finally know the boy's name: Joseph Augusuts Zarelli. The NBC10 Investigators unveil the decades-long process it took to finally identify the "Boy in the Box.", police now hope to learn how he died, even if it's too late to make an arrest.
The revelations, and the truths they tell, can be hard to hear, especially for those learning of long-buried family secrets. The boy's paternal relatives on the Zarelli side have mostly declined to speak to the press as they grapple with news of their link to one of the city's most troubling homicides. Police have not yet identified the child's mother or said who was raising him.
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