Joseph Augustus Zarelli

Case background and investigation

On February 25, 1957, a young college student discovered the nude, battered body of a small boy wrapped in a plaid flannel blanket inside a large cardboard box in a wooded area of Fox Chase, northeast Philadelphia. The child, estimated to be between four and six years old, had been severely beaten, and his body showed signs of long-term malnourishment. His hair appeared to have been recently and crudely cut, with clippings still clinging to his skin. Despite an enormous investigation, no one came forward to identify him.

The Philadelphia Police Department launched one of the largest investigations in the city's history. Officers distributed flyers across the region showing a photograph of the boy, posed as if sleeping to appear less disturbing, but no leads materialized. The JCPenney box he was found in was traced to a nearby store, but that lead also went cold. The boy was buried in a potter's field in 1957 and later moved to a named grave in Ivy Hill Cemetery in 1998, marked 'America's Unknown Child.'

For over six decades, the case haunted investigators and the public alike. Multiple theories emerged, including that the boy had been a foster child or had been sold by his birth parents, but none could be confirmed. Advances in forensic genealogy finally led to a breakthrough in 2019 when DNA was extracted from the boy's remains after he was exhumed.

In December 2022, the Philadelphia Police Department announced that the boy had been identified as Joseph Augustus Zarelli through investigative genetic genealogy. Born on January 13, 1953, he was the son of a Philadelphia-area family. Despite the identification, his killer has never been charged, and the circumstances of his death remain under investigation, making it one of the longest-running open homicide cases in American history.