The Mysterious Death Of The Boy In The Box

this week on BuzzFeed unsolved we covered the unfortunate murder of the unknown boy in the box this case has been highly requested and as this bizarre as it is mysterious I love bizarre and I love mysterious so I am titillated yeah you look like you're excited to hear about this boy and his box yeah oh let's get into it on February 25th 1957 the body of a boy was found in a box in an illegal dumping ground near Bury Road in Philadelphia the boy was estimated to be around 4 to 6 years old with 30 pounds and stood 3 feet 3 inches he was found naked but wrapped in a blanket the boy's hair was cut and his body was recently washed there were small scars in several places including his chin groin and left ankle some of which suggested he underwent a medical procedure head injuries were determined to be the cause of death and there were no witnesses wait so I was excited to hear about this boy who lived in a box I told you it's not as magical as its they just found a dead kid in a box that's it yeah I mean I'm sure there's gonna be more weird details but I thought it was gonna be like oh and he boy did he not like his box and he spent years in his box not liking his box I mean this was the titular moment we just went over why this boy was in a box because he was dead Oh what else do you want well the boy in the bubble the movie starring John Travolta he spent so much time in that box a lot of bubble content you have a habit for citing movies as I've never seen this movie well I just know it's about John Travolta and he can't go it's even worse if germs are will kill him and he has to stay in plastic how can you kisses a girl through the plastic okay the body was first found by a young man who was walking through the abandoned by strangely this man waited a full day before tipping off the police and even stranger it turns out that a second man had previously found the boy's body but had not contacted the police because he claimed he did not want to get involved that's fair yeah I thought that was odd and maybe damning at first but now that I think about if I found a boy in the Box you immediately make yourself a suspect when you say I found this boy in this box I found a boy in a box I had nothing to do with it and then the police sergeant of the other lines like you like oh tell me more about this boy in the boxes he liked his box he's like no use he hates it he was dead because he's dead exactly with the cold weather at the time of year and the delayed phone call from the person who found the body it wasn't possible to accurately estimate when the boy had passed away in hopes of finding his identity the police kept the boy at the morgue while visitors from over 10 different states tried to identify the boy by looking for any significant marks to no avail police sent out 400 thousand fliers of images of the boy to police stations post offices and courthouses all over the country even the American Medical Association sent out a description of the boy but it led nowhere what kind of description are they sending out it's just oh it's a boy he was in a box I mean there's they have like a finding came you know kids have faces I know but they all kind of look the same when babies are born everyone goes oh what a cute baby that's a baby either your baby's ugly or normal I mean when you came out I imagine they'd go whoa that's if we use noggin I was in a very ugly baby I imagine your first death with your head dragging along the floor like some kind of crab creature okay the police compared the child's footprints to hospital records in the area fingerprints were taken of the boy but no record was found to prove the boy ever existed I mean it's strange to just see that know somebody's completely off the grid what kind of box are we talking I know this is it's funny you would ask that because that's exactly we're about to get into I have the mind of a detective yeah it's the first clue good you don't have the mind of a detective you just you stumble upon a good a question for once though you know actually pertain to the story you could sip your tea all you want I'm just saying it's clearly coincidence let's run through some of the key clues left at the scene of the crime one promising clue came from the actual box itself the box contained a serial number which allowed investigators to pinpoint the shipment who were able to trace it back to a JC Penney store 15 miles away eerily before the boy the box was used to ship a bassinet the store had shipped 12 of these boxes of bats and nets however all of the purchasers paid in cash leaving no record eight purchasers ended up contacting the police when they read about the story in newspapers to go on record that they either still had the boxes or had put the boxes out for trash collection though the police were able to determine that the box was shipped to Upper Darby Pennsylvania this all makes sense I don't know it's quiet up there people got too much free time you know what happens next what do they even do what's Pennsylvania known for what putting boys and boxes I think that's I wouldn't say that Pennsylvanians are have a proclivity I think if you look at their state flag and you'll see a boy in a box false the blanket was examined by the Philadelphia textile Institute which believed the blanket was made either in Granby Quebec in Canada or Swannanoa North Carolina but there was no way to tell where this particular blanket was purchased since thousands were made and sold ultimately the blanket lead was a dead end poor guy working on that lead yeah you're really you're gonna find something with these blankets if you just follow the trail and you're like alright just we're doing some work here it looks like it was made in the country of Canada they only made a few thousand of them another propitious clue was a hat found 15 feet near the box a blue corduroy Ivy League style cap size 7 and 1/8 it was labeled Eagle hat and company and made by the small company owner mrs. Hannah Robbins in South Philadelphia dump a hat dump a boy people dump things and lots yeah there's a point a box in a lot also not always intentionally you lose a hat in a lot oh I'm pretty sure the boy in the box was dumping intentions probably intent ones like dragging a boy in the box and then like after they get home they're like getting something Janet we left them we left the boat our boy was in that box mrs. Robbins remembered the man who purchased the Hat because she had customized it for him the man who was described as blond between the ages 26 and 30 requested that a leather strap and buckle be added to the Hat he paid in cash and she never saw him again detectives visited over 100 stores within the area but nobody recognized the Hat nor the boy there was also strands of hair found on the boy's body suggesting a hasty haircut and one forensic artist named Frank bender believes the boy was possibly raised as a girl in fact bill Kelley an original investigator of the case recounts that in 1957 and 1958 a West Coast artist did circulate a rendition of the child as a girl but it never produced any leaves wow they're really going all out for this it could've been a girl on the box but it wasn't it was a boy maybe he had like long hair or maybe like I cut my hair through out most of college my own hair I mean it's cheap you did yeah how'd that turn out do we have any picture good people were actually pretty impressed when I told him with all these dead ends let's get into the theories of what could have possibly happened to this boy and who he could be the first theory comes from authors Lou Romano and Jim Hoffman who came across a lead from a man in Philadelphia who said that his family once rented a place to a man who sold his son possibly the boy in the box who sold his son yeah so he rented a place to this guy who sold his son he's holding which is weird because unless he was there to actually see the sale go down that's not something you really tell somebody in passing no wow the place is beautiful I'm selling my son tomorrow I'll take it how much how many bedrooms one box can you believe it how much is rent again a forensic pathologist looked at photos of the boys potential father and possible brother and agreed that similarities would warrant further laboratory testing he found similarities in the facial structure the helix of the right ear and the nose a DNA sample was taken from the man they believed to be the brother oddly investigators on Philadelphia police did not say whether they would test DNA to compare the potential brother to the DNA of the boy in the box they only said they would quote investigate further end quote okay here's what I don't get about that if we had a possible match on this boy in the box and you had an opportunity to compare it to DNA of a suspect or a person is possibly a relative why not just do it how much a DNA test costs that's true it doesn't make sense to me but apparently nothing came of you know maybe they did do it and nothing came of it and they just didn't report it could be or it's just you know bureaucracy man or covering up the second billion comes from medical examiner remington Bristow who investigated the case for over 36 years Bristow gathered newspaper clippings of the boy and spent thousands of dollars of his own money and countless hours trying to identify the boy he traveled all the way to Arizona and Texas for leaves Bristow even consulted with a psychic who held staples from the bassinet box hoping he or she could gather some clues Bristow went even as far as carrying a mask of the boys face in his briefcase okay let's think about some things here a little off the edge yeah especially the ladder that doesn't even seem helpful so what do you wear it and go to people and be like you you know do you know me you see my little boy face does this look familiar to you ah you was even weirder even if he didn't open with that and he's like interrogating someone like you've seen this kid no no all right let me pull out one more thing no now have you seen him and they're just like no can you please leave him out please leave Bristow theorized that the boy died accidentally his freshly cut hair and nails indicated that he was well taken care of perhaps the boy's family never came forward because they did not want to be charged with murder based off of a psychics clue Bristol looked into a foster family that lived nearby where the boy was found the foster family had already been interviewed by the police at his foster family's 1961 estate sale Bristol found a bassinet that he believed could have previously been stowed in the box the boy was founded they don't know what the other bassinets looked like yeah I guess I guess that must have nothing must have came of that because it's like it may have looked like it hmm then again keep in mind this is not an official investigation an with a passion I'm passion for justice yeah respectable Bristow then began to theorize that the boy was an illegitimate child of the daughter of the foster family and was perhaps abandoned by the daughter so she would not be revealed as a single mother Bristow would eventually pass away in 1993 but shortly after Philadelphia detective Tom Augustine took up the case where Bristow left off On February 23rd 1998 detective Augustin went to the home of Arthur Nicoletti the man who led the former foster care home nickel Eddie's wife Anna Marie was the woman Bristow theorized to be the mother of the boy in the box in addition to being Nikhil Eddie's wife Anna Marie was also Nicoletti stepdaughter so he married wait what are the way we had like a visual here so his what a man loves a woman answer but it's it's his it's his wife yes not incest technically because it's not jack anytime you have to say it's not incest technically that's not great Ryan true but it isn't it's not his blood okay Anna Marie told Augustine that she did have a boy who passed away in bizarre fashion with morgue records supporting her statement his cause of death was electrocution from a nickel ride outside of a store once again leading to a dead end that's pretty funny do you think she was like hey here's a Nicoll Timmy I'm gonna go inside and get some groceries I'll be right back or the more horrifying version of that do you think she made him ride the ride and sat there and watched as he was apparently having too much fun and got really excited if it was I get and then you think he screamed like r2d2 see that's kind of horrifying do you think about that sure is but there was a moment where she was probably like wow he's really enjoying that right yeah it's just one of those unfortunate deaths where obviously it's a tragedy but boy oh boy is that a laugh riot the third and final Theory comes from a woman named Martha a psychiatrist from Cincinnati contacted Augustine and said one of her patients insisted on speaking to the police the patient went by the name of Martha and said that when she was 11 years old her mother took her to a house where she handed an envelope over for a boy I just realized something what was happened well remember in the first theory I said there was the guy who said no he sold his son yeah did you just not realize that until now though yeah because Jesus I've never seen you Eureka you could put a white ball book can we play that back and put a light bulb over Ryan's head when that happens was that clear that what the connection I made there was a guy who they thought maybe sold his son yeah and here's the purchase hat and you couldn't make that until you've read it just now I'm so in each theory yeah you didn't Martha said that she was sexually abused by her mother and the mother wanted to do the same to the boy Martha said her mother beat the boy to death after struggling to bathe him and drove Martha and the boy to Philadelphia to abandon him Martha spoke with investigators Tom Augustine Joseph McQuillen and William Kelly McGill and Kelly were one of the first on the boy in the Box crime scene all three were allegedly convinced by Martha's story according to Bill Fleischer a retired FBI agent details of Martha's story add up the testimonies addresses and descriptions it is a strong theory but even with Martha's lead the police were not able to verify if the boy was who Martha claimed he was did I actually just saw something good I think you did to be honest I may have just saw something oh my god you've done it Ryan but what if it what if that's the case and the police would have just released it so obviously this that this is not right feels right Wow not doesn't take a lot to convince you either way to this day the boy's identity remains a mystery his grave is marked as America's unknown child at the Ivy Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia to this day people are mystified as to why nobody had come to claim him perhaps someday we will learn who this boy was and what happened to him but for now the case remains unsolved [Music] I'm gonna still say this is very unsolved yeah but for a moment there I thought I'd solved something yeah you could see it in your expression the day you solve something I'll give you 500 dollars oh wow five hundred real dollars yeah I could go to Disneyland of money that'll ask me a couple days maybe thank you Shane's make it two hundred two hundred dollars that's still good it's so generous must've been too much I got groceries to buy okay well there you have it Jane's gonna set me for life if I ever saw something with that 500 big one 200 Queens baby deers 200 shekels you

Channel: BuzzFeed Unsolved Network

Views: 15,699,222

Keywords: Boy in the Box, BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed Blue, BuzzFeed Eerie, BuzzFeed unsolved, Investigate, Mysterious, Mystery, NBSSC, SffZ, Unsolved, axeman, camping, camping stories, case, cold case, creepy, crime, criminal, demon, detective, ghost, haunted, investigation, investigator, monster, mystery, new orleans, scary stories, serial, serial killer, solved mysteries, spooky, strange, theories, theory, top 5, true crime, unexplained, unnatural, unsolved mysteries, unsolved mystery, vodoo, weird

Id: BnxfuvRHKDk

Length: 16min 35sec (995 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2017