America's Unknown Child: The Case Of The Boy In The Box

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The case of America’s unknown child, also known as the case of the boy in the box, has gone unsolved for 60 years ever since the discovery his body on the 25th of February, 1957. The boy was found beaten to death inside of a box left in an illegal dumping ground in Philadelphia. There was no real reason found as to why the boy was gruesomely murdered. There have been many theories established to try to make sense of the incident but none have been proven to be true. After years of trying to pinpoint who the boy was and having people from all over the country come to see if they could help, they could not identify him and the case still remains unsolved.
The boy was found naked and wrapped in a blanket. His hair was cut and his body looked recently …show more content…

The investigation revealed theories that he was an orphan who was living under foster care. It is said that he died accidentally in the foster home. Some believe that the boy fell out the window of the house and that’s why he had looked beaten. Others believed that he drowned in the lake because he his fingers were pruney at the time the body was discovered. Although it is a far stretch and highly impossible that he fell out of the window and then drowned in the lake, it is still a possibility that was not …show more content…

Over the course of the investigation, there were several tips given to the police by a woman named Martha who was a patient in a psychiatric facility. Martha stated that when she was a girl, her mother purchased the child whose name she said was Jonathan. Martha admitted to being sexually abused by her mother and said she wanted to do the same to Jonathan. One day Jonathan had vomited in the bathtub and in response, her mother slammed the boy on the floor so hard that she had killed him. After Jonathan died, Martha said she accompanied her mother when she went to dump the boy's body. According to investigators, Martha's story added up. But even with the lead Martha had given them, the police were unable to verify if the boy was who Martha claimed he

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