Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found.
Before we get started, I just wanted to say that episodes contain disturbing discussions
on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this
podcast.
Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Hi everyone!
Welcome to episode number 42 of Dying to be Found.
My name is Deb.
And I'm Shelby.
And we are so glad that you're here today, Shelby.
Welcome back!
It's been a while since you've dropped in.
And like our logo says, it's a family thing.
You have to know us to understand, right Shelby?
That's right.
I'm excited to be back.
It's been a very, very busy last few months, I would say, between school starting and Halloween
and now it's our Thanksgiving.
How is that possible?
This year has flown by.
Yeah, like they say, time flies for sure.
But I'm glad you're here.
And by the time this episode is released, like you said, we will be in full-blown holiday
season.
So we wish our listeners well and thank you all for tuning in.
Just like I said, Shelby and I are a mother-daughter duo living a world apart.
And when we're not talking on the phone, practically every day, right Shelbs?
That is very true.
Yep.
We reconnect to bring you a true crime story or two.
Our episodes are left open to the interpretation of our listeners.
So if you have a storyline you would like to hear, be sure to message us on Instagram,
email us at dyingthenumber2theletterbefound at gmail.com or check out our Linktree account
in our show notes where you can find all of our contact information in one place.
So Shelby, I have been opening up our storylines by asking Aunt Beth a question.
Now I get to do the same with you.
I'm trying to recollect.
I don't even know how much time you spent outdoors.
I don't recall you doing very much of that unless you were on the ball field growing
up.
So did you play around the woods a lot or was that just your brother?
I was in the woods all the time.
All the time.
I remember behind the house we had a creek and if you actually walked far enough, there
was a waterfall.
I don't know if you know about that.
That's how far back we had to walk.
And then probably I'd say a 30 minute walk a little further into the woods we had the
rock quarry.
I don't know if you remember us getting into trouble a few times down there.
I do remember that because do you know how many people die every year in rock quarries?
Yes, it's so sad.
That's why the police always come around to make sure that the kids in the neighborhood
are not in the rock quarries.
But I do remember they actually made a movie with Kevin Costner and Elijah Wood.
Yeah, the two of them were making a movie back there.
So I don't even remember the name of that movie.
And that movie is called The War, Mom.
Yeah.
So there was a movie called The War with Kevin Costner and Elijah Wood.
In my opinion, it was sort of a slow movie, but it had Kevin Costner in the title and
I am an avid fan of him.
So I will watch anything that he puts out.
Yeah, if you see an old water tower, Elijah Wood is back in, I don't know, a rocky area.
That's the rock quarry that was just behind our house.
And that water tower stood for years and years and years.
I don't think I even remember the water tower being there.
Wow.
Yeah, it was there for a really long time.
They finally took it down, I think, when a new neighborhood went up.
Okay, I used to play in the woods too when I was a kid.
And let me just tell you a real quick story before we get started because back in the
day, there was not a ton of stuff that would stimulate your mind indoors like there is
today, gaming and everything that goes along with that.
We went out and used our imagination all day, every day.
So let me tell you about the time when I was a young lassie.
There was a day that Aunt Kathy and I and several of our neighborhood friends were exploring
in the woods on our property, which is down a steep hill.
One day we were walking through the woods and apparently we ended up on the property
next door.
Now, the couple that had moved in next door to us, we were terrified of them because they
were so mean.
Oh, they built a privacy fence when they came in and isolated themselves away from everybody
in the neighborhood.
One day while we were in the woods, I'm pretty sure I heard this really booming voice that
said, what are you doing down there?
And when we looked up Shelby, the man next door was standing there with his hands on
his hips glaring at us.
Think about this, a bunch of kids and how we just scattered.
As a young child, I'm sure that was scary.
Yes.
Well, of course we all screamed and we did scatter in all different directions, I'm sure.
And the problem was though, is that as we were running, I really don't remember if it
was Aunt Kathy or me, but one of us lost our shoe in the mud.
Oh no.
I know.
It was that really thick mud that if you put your foot into it, it sinks deep and you just
can't get it out of there.
Well, Aunt Kathy and I were so terrified that even though we did try for just a split second
to grab it, we ran and left the shoe behind.
But guess what?
What's that?
The very next day we did go back to look for that shoe and it wasn't there.
Oh no.
Yep.
So I'm sure the neighbor went down the hill.
He probably got a good chuckle out of that, but he probably went down that hill and removed
the shoe, never to be seen again.
That's for sure.
I'm sure he threw it away, but he sure was not going to give it back.
Anyway, so yeah, that's my childhood memory of playing around the woods.
Well that's a very scary memory.
Yes it was.
All right, well today I'm going to bring you a mystery of a boy found in a box in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
And this episode does talk of the death of a child.
So I want to give our listeners the opportunity to opt out of this episode today.
We completely understand, but please make sure that you check back next Thursday or
you can go back and catch up on some of those other episodes.
I will recommend episode 39, Joyce McKinney.
If you've not heard that one yet, there is no death involved and it's actually a pretty
interesting story.
I can't wait to hear, but I already know that I'm going to cry.
Oh, do you know this story already?
No, anything involving a death of a child is going to make me cry.
I know.
Well in February of 1957, a hunter came across a bassinet box in the Fox Chase neighborhood
near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Inside the box was a boy's remains who to this day Shelbs, 65 years later has never
been identified.
Wow.
What would you do if you were in the woods and you came across something like this?
I would be terrified.
Yeah.
Well guess what the hunter did?
Left it?
Yep.
He went on his merry way and continued to hunt as usual.
No.
The hunter did because he did not want the police interfering with his illegal muskrat
traps that he had set in the woods when he came across the boy.
Well illegal or not, that's not what you should do if you find some remains.
Exactly.
Well, a few days later on February 25th, 1957, a college student by the name of Frederick
Bononice was walking near Susquehanna Road, which is in the 700 block near Vare Road and
Pennyback Park in Northeast Philadelphia.
And Shelby, basically what I like to do is I like to give a lot of identifiers when I'm
talking just because especially in cold cases, maybe some of our listeners may know the area
pretty well.
So I try to give as much of that information as possible so they could obviously go back
and refer to that if they needed to.
But what was Frederick doing in this area?
You ask?
What was he doing?
He was spying on some girls in a home for wayward youth, like a peeping Tom.
Oh my.
Frederick stated that he had seen a cute little bunny hopping into the woods and he knew that
this forest was known for hunting.
So he set off to save the bunny.
Isn't that sweet?
It is sweet, but that's not typically something I would think I would see a man doing, maybe
a woman.
Yeah, that's true.
His whole point of being in that area shelves later, he confessed that he was a peeping
Tom.
Oh.
Yep.
The story goes two ways here.
Frederick was either playing a peeping Tom near the Foxchase Woodline when he came across
the box or he really was looking around the woods for those traps in order to save the
bunny.
Regardless, when he came upon the box, Frederick didn't really think very much of it.
He thought it was a doll and went on his merry way, just like the hunter did.
Oh wow.
A doll?
Yeah.
There's a couple times when I've heard several stories, not just in our own podcast, but
other podcasts that I listen to, that sometimes eyewitnesses are just passing by and they
think they are looking at a mannequin or a doll or something of that sort.
So they don't really think anything of it.
Oh.
Well, the next day Frederick heard on the local news that a four-year-old girl had gone
missing.
So he did do the right thing and he called the police to mention his findings in the
woods thinking, okay, well, wait a minute.
I did see something odd yesterday, so maybe I'd better report that.
That's when everything clicked with him.
So he did call the police.
Before I continue, I just wanted to make mention that the little girl that was found or the
little girl that was missing was found in an abandoned home.
There was no foul play involved.
According to what I read though, it looked like she did starve to death.
Oh, that's so sad.
Yeah.
Think about it too, Shelbs.
At four years old, you don't have a sense of direction.
You really are not paying attention to your surroundings.
I can see her wandering off and getting lost.
I mean, I don't know what the neighborhood was like, but I'll be giving some statistics
at the end of this episode.
So my thoughts are that she would probably be amongst some of the children that go missing
that I will mention a little bit later and they just get lost and can't find their way
home.
Oh, yeah.
Frederick was investigated as a suspect in the boy's death, but took and passed a polygraph.
So he was cleared of any involvement beyond finding the boy in the box in the woods.
And for consistency going forward, I am going to refer to the boy as John Doe.
I'm going to kind of talk about the investigation of the boy first.
John Doe was believed to be between the ages of three and seven years old, primarily because
he still had all of his baby teeth when he was found.
And Shelby, I mean, it's pretty fresh in your mind.
I think that most children lose their teeth between seven and eight.
Is that right?
Yeah.
I think mine started losing them a little earlier.
My oldest still has quite a few baby teeth left and she's 12, but the eight-year-old
has lost all of her baby teeth.
Wow.
Okay.
Well, based on those findings, authorities believe that the boy was born somewhere around
the year of 1952.
And police believe someone may have passed this boy off as a girl because chunks of long
hair had been shaven from John Doe's head and some of the locks were still inside the
box.
He basically got a really choppy haircut.
It wasn't anything professional from a barbershop by any means.
There also appeared to be an evidence that someone had plucked John Doe's eyebrows to
make them appear a little more feminine.
Wow.
I was wondering before you mentioned the eyebrow plucking, if maybe the boy had just gotten
a hold of pair of scissors because that's very common for that age.
Oh, I think you know from experience, right?
Yes.
I think I remember you cutting your cousin's bangs one time and I got in trouble for that.
Thank you very much.
I vaguely remember that.
Yeah.
Well, my response was, what are you doing with scissors unattended in the toy room?
Right?
Anyway, John Doe was naked and wrapped in what appeared to be a flannel blanket with
a weird design.
I can't quite describe, but the best I can do is to say that it looks maybe like a Navajo
or Native American pattern.
You know what you would see from the Western States, Arizona, New Mexico, things like from
that region?
I do, yes.
Yeah.
So the blanket was later found to be mass produced in North Carolina or in Quebec, Canada,
which would have made it virtually impossible to track down or even figure out which stores
it had been sold to.
It was that mass produced.
It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
That's what it sounds like.
Police fingerprinted and footprinted John Doe, but never had any luck identifying him,
which led them to believe that the boy could possibly not have been born in any hospital
system.
He could have been born at home.
I don't think it was popular at that time, but it was not unheard of.
So he just wasn't documented possibly?
He was not documented.
Yeah, exactly.
I think so.
And I'll get into that in just a little bit.
So as far as theories are concerned, things look to be stacking up against the authorities
because they just didn't have a good identification of the boy.
They didn't really know because of the weather, Shelby, it was, what did I say, February?
They just didn't have a whole lot of information.
February in Pennsylvania is very, very cold.
So in those conditions...
Lots of snow, I would assume.
Yeah.
And the conditions would preserve the body.
So it was difficult for the police to come up with a timeline as far as how long the
boy was in the box.
And because he was so well preserved, let me talk to you now about the autopsy.
John Doe looked to be quite dirty and malnourished, which could have stunted his growth and could
have potentially made him appear younger than he actually was.
He had blue eyes, was fair-skinned, and was somewhere around three feet tall.
And Shelby, he only weighed 30 pounds.
Oh my.
Yeah.
I did go look up a chart to see how much a male would weigh.
And I would say that's probably a good 15 pounds lighter than he should be if he were
seven.
But if he were younger, then it could be on par.
I'm not really sure.
The medical examiner believed that John Doe had a chronic eye problem, which he had been
treated for because apparently they had found some sort of eye drops in his eyes.
He had neatly trimmed fingernails, but his hair was matted.
And again, I had mentioned that he had lots of tufts of hair just on his person when he
was found in that box.
Now this was pretty interesting.
John Doe had some surgical scars on his ankle, groin, and chin.
So you would think that there would be some kind of documentation along the way where
he had had some kind of surgical procedures.
But I'll tell you why in just a little while why police couldn't find any information on
that.
John Doe's autopsy showed blunt force trauma to the skull and four bruises on his forehead.
He also had bruises all over his body and a bloody lip, and he was so malnourished that
you could distinctly see his ribs under his skin.
Oh, that's sad.
There were no signs that any of his bones had been broken and authorities believe that
he suffered years of abuse before he died.
That poor child.
Absolutely.
The autopsy also revealed baked beans in his system and his fingers were wrinkled like
what you would see if you were in the water too long, like in the bathtub.
I know that you've played in the bathtub long enough or your girls have been in the bathtub
long enough to get wrinkly fingers.
Yes, John Doe's throat still contained vomit residue indicating that he had gotten sick
before he died.
Although the medical examiner believed that he had not eaten for probably around three
hours before he passed.
Police did their best to locate any missing children in the area.
They checked local orphanages, hospitals and foster homes in and around Philadelphia, which
you know, Shelby is a metropolitan area.
So I want you to think about how big Atlanta is.
So again, trying to locate as much information on a child that they really have no leads
that would be extremely difficult to do.
And such a large area too.
Forensic teams eventually conducted facial reconstruction on John Doe and were able to
develop a better identification of the boy.
This allowed them to publish John Doe's picture on news media and placed over 400,000 flyers
in gas and electric bills mailed out to local residents throughout Pennsylvania.
And I've seen those flyers, those inserts.
That is a lot of flyers.
Yes it is.
And that tells you how big the area is.
So before distributing the flyers shelves, authorities dressed John Doe up, propped him
up on a chair and took his photo, making it appear that he was alive.
That is the most awful thing I have ever heard.
I think they did this because they did not want to give the perception that the boy was
deceased.
Just in case somebody came forward.
What do you think of that?
Is that what they sent in the flyers?
Yep, they sure did.
Did they not have sketch artists?
What year was this?
57.
So they should have had sketch artists by then.
That is a great point.
I don't know why I didn't think of that.
But yeah, that's what they sent out.
And if you were to look and I'll see if I can put this picture on our social media,
but I don't know what the tactic was all about.
I just think that they wanted it to appear that he was alive.
And if as realistic as possible, I guess that was their mindset.
But absolutely, you are so right.
I think a sketch artist photo would have been just as effective in this case.
I mean, had the parents come forward or somebody come forward to claim him thinking that he
was alive and then to find out that's what they did.
That is awful.
Police also published an article in a pediatric journal with the hopes that a physician might
come forward to say that they had performed that surgery on a boy with this description.
Nothing in the articles that I found say that the police followed up on local eye doctors.
I had mentioned the eye drops they had found in his eyes.
Maybe they were thinking that the journal would also attract eye doctors to the article.
And Shelbs, you had mentioned if parents had come forward, unfortunately, no one did.
From those flyers that were distributed, nobody came forward to report a missing boy.
I will say that families from 10 surrounding states drove all the way to Philadelphia to
attempt to identify John Doe to no avail.
I mean, how sad is that that 10 families came from all different directions to identify
a little boy under this description?
What does that tell you Shelbs?
That they probably didn't have the news outlets that we do today.
If they sent out the flyers, those can only go so far.
It makes me wonder, I guess, how they found, how the people, the families in the surrounding
states found out about the boy, but I just couldn't imagine that drive home knowing that
it wasn't who they were looking for.
I know, but the question to me is why were 10 families looking for a little boy with
that description?
That's a lot of people looking for lost boys, don't you think?
Very much so.
I'm wondering if the surgeries were done at home.
Yeah, or another state.
That's true.
And you have to remember back in that era, a lot of these agencies did not communicate
with one another.
So if you were in the small town where you live, your authorities are going to manage
a case without talking to the next town down or the next town down or the big city.
They're just going to be treating it like a local case.
That's true, especially back then.
In the meantime, 270 investigators combed the crime scene in the woods outside of that
Fox Chase neighborhood and were able to come up with some possible evidence there.
A royal blue corduroy cap was discovered near the area where the box was found, as well
as a tan colored child's scarf, plus a handkerchief with the initial G embroidered in the corner.
And back in the day, Shelbs embroidery was very popular as were handkerchiefs.
So that would be difficult to follow up on, at least a handkerchief anyway.
The corduroy cap, on the other hand, held a manufacturer's tag inside and police were
able to track down the shop owner who had customized it.
The shop owner had identified a man who was blonde between the age of 26 and 30, had no
definable accent and paid cash for the purchase.
Of course, with cash purchases back in those days, at least police had absolutely no record
of the transaction.
So this led the suspect to an abrupt halt.
There was nothing more that they could do to try to track this person down.
I'm sure that made it a lot more difficult.
I know.
I am going to move on to the investigation of the box itself.
The police actually had a pretty good lead on it.
I had mentioned that the box John Doe had been found in was a bassinet box.
Police were able to trace the box back to a JCPenney store in Upper Derby, Pennsylvania,
located on 69th and Chestnut Street.
Authorities determined that a white bassinet had been sold between December 5th, 1956 and
February 16th, 1957.
Fortunately, it looks like JCPenney only sold 12 bassinets during that time period, but
unfortunately all identified purchasers led to a dead end in the investigation.
So there you go again.
There is another lead.
I wonder why that was.
I mean, I don't know.
I would assume they probably didn't have security cameras.
Not in 1957.
No, it really didn't come out.
I mean, surveillance as prevalent as it is today, it really didn't come out until after
the new millennium because that's when computers are now in every household.
We have this online streaming capabilities, Bluetooth and everything else.
So they absolutely did not have any of that functionality back in 1957.
Now I wanted to mention one of the medical examiner employees by the name of Remington
Bristow.
That is such a cool name.
Remington felt deeply connected to this case and worked more than 36 years on this case
on his own time with the hopes of finding the person responsible for John Doe's death.
36 years, Shelby.
Very dedicated.
Yeah.
Remington went so far as to publish a fake article in the paper hoping to draw out anyone
who may be responsible, but unfortunately this ploy was unsuccessful.
I believe that he did state that the boy had been found injured and made no mention of
the true details.
Kind of like that flyer that was sent out to 400,000 people.
They made it look like the boy was alive, which we know in this case was completely
opposite.
Remington also put $1,000 of his own money as a reward up for any information leading
to an arrest.
And I looked this up, Shelbs, that would be close to $10,000 today.
Wow.
What a good man.
Yeah, absolutely.
We need more people like that in this world, don't we?
We do.
Remington traveled extensively throughout the United States following leads on this
case and even kept a mask molded from John Doe's face in his briefcase so that he could
show people a true image of what the boy really looked like.
What do you think of that?
I think that's a little off.
I would say the same thing.
That's kind of what I was thinking.
Very a picture, a sketch, preferably.
Yeah, and it's bulky too.
Bulky in the briefcase.
For sure.
Yeah, it looks like a mask that you would wear at Halloween.
I was envisioning the Drew Carey, the mask.
Actually that would not be a, you're not far off.
Let's put it that way.
Okay.
All right.
So I'm going to talk about multiple theories behind the boy in the box, and I'm going to
say there are at least a half a dozen theories behind John Doe's identification, but I'm
just going to talk about three of them that seem to have a little bit more substance than
the rest.
Theory number one, a psychic, by the way, Shelby, back in the 50s, psychics were used
a lot in cases like this.
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah.
So a psychic reported that the boy had been in foster care and likely died in a mansion
where he had been placed.
When police investigated, they uncovered a couple of interesting details.
Police originally theorized that John Doe could have belonged to the daughter of the
foster parents who lived in the house back in 1957, and that the boy's death could have
been accidental, or it was a cover up for an illegitimate child.
Now again, back in the 1950s, Shelbs, having a child out of wedlock was extremely taboo.
So they could have possibly covered up having the daughter having an illegitimate child
at the time, and authorities could not prove that theory.
But before the foster family moved away, Shelby, the foster father refused to take a polygraph
test.
That's interesting.
Isn't it?
I thought so too.
I mean, you can't make them, and plus it doesn't hold up in court.
So there's multiple reasons, but we know just from our obsession with true crime that when
people don't take a polygraph test, they're going to be bumped up on the suspect list,
right?
Absolutely.
Something's fishy.
After the foster family moved away, the new owners had an estate sale, and one of the
investigators happened to follow up and go to the estate sale amongst the items in the
sale was a white bassinet, which fit the description of the furniture box that John Doe was found
in.
Now remember, John Doe could have potentially been living in that house.
Blankets with the same pattern that John Doe was wrapped in were seen hanging on the clothesline
at the estate, but by this time the foster family was long gone.
I guess so my question is why would the new family have blankets that were similar to
the ones John Doe was wrapped in?
I was thinking the same thing.
Did the original family that lived there just leave everything because that's a bunch of
red flags.
I think so too.
Now I don't even know if authorities were able to follow up on where the foster family
moved to, but it does sound like they left a ton behind.
With all that, there's definitely some coincidences here with the bassinet at the estate sale
and the blankets hanging on the clothesline.
There was no other evidence that could be collected and the police moved on, which I
felt was a little odd.
Yeah, to me it just sounds like there's a little bit more there.
Well, moving on to theory number two, police believed John Doe could be the son of migrant
carnival workers, Kenneth and Irene Dudley.
It was not uncommon at the time during this era, Shelbs, for migrant children to die of
malnutrition or to simply go missing.
And the Dudleys had 10 kids to keep up with.
That's a lot.
Yes it is.
One of the Dudley children had already died of malnutrition and they had not given her
a proper burial.
Instead, the Dudleys wrapped their child up in a blanket and buried her in a shallow grave
in some woods close by.
How interesting is that?
That's a coincidence as well, I would say.
I know.
That's why we have so many of these theories, but it's interesting too how they're all coming
to a dead end.
It is.
But I will mention too, many times carnival workers in the day were very poor and did
not possess valid papers upon migrating to the US.
So as we would call that today, undocumented immigrants.
Based on these circumstances, the police were never able to validate John Doe's connection
to the Dudley family.
So of course, everything once again came to a dead end.
That theory to me doesn't seem as, I don't know, theory number one still stands out to
me.
Yeah, I think maybe because there was just a little bit more evidence and at this point
in time they could just be grasping at straws.
But again, if they were given a lead off of any of those 400,000 flyers, they have to
follow up on everything, eh?
Absolutely.
Theory number three, and to me this one sounds the most plausible and you'll see why in just
a moment, a woman that we are going to call M gave multiple accounts of events that she
believes should lead directly to John Doe's identity.
And here's why.
M reported to the police that John Doe was obtained through sex trafficking by her own
mother.
Oh my goodness.
And he was given the name Jonathan and lived in their residence for several years in the
basement of their home where he slept on a bed made out of a cardboard box, placed inside
a coal bin, and only had a drain for a bathroom.
I'm going to call this boy Jonathan just for a moment while we are talking about this theory
because M does refer to him frequently.
So just for consistency during this portion, I am going to refer to him as Jonathan.
One night, Jonathan vomited up his dinner, which included baked beans.
Now, I had mentioned to you that baked beans were found in John Doe's system, remember,
from the autopsy?
I do remember.
I'm just very glad, I guess, that they were feeding him on occasion, but don't understand
why they couldn't give him a decent place to sleep.
I know.
That's so sad.
I do want to mention too that at the time, the findings from the autopsy with the beans
being undigested in his system had not been released to any media outlets.
So this is one of the reasons why I would think that the police were looking at this
case or this theory a little more closely.
And according to M, her mother had become extremely angry when Jonathan threw up and
went to go give him a bath, but not before she bashed his head on the bathroom floor
several times.
That is so sad.
I know.
I know, Shelby, these poor little innocent children that just can't defend themselves.
Now, I know that you have a child who is not feeling really well and you were cleaning
up some stuff in the last 24 hours, but there's just no way I could even imagine taking it
out on a child.
You can't help it when they get sick and they definitely can't defend themselves.
Absolutely not.
Nope.
According to M, Jonathan died while he was in the bathtub, likely from his head injury.
M stated that her mother wrapped him in a blanket and they both went out into the woods
to dispose of his body.
Wouldn't she be able to show them where they disposed of the body?
I'm going to tell you, I did not put these in my notes, but I do remember seeing something
along those lines that she did take them out to the area that they had dropped John Doe
off.
It was accurate to the geographical location of where he was found.
To me, this is why it's so plausible.
This theory probably has the most substance and accuracy out of all of them.
So I'm not really sure why they didn't take her seriously, but I will say that the investigators
did interview several neighbors and friends of the woman who M had accused of killing
Jonathan and none of them had ever seen this boy around their house.
But that's understandable if he was kept in the basement.
Yeah, I agree.
Ultimately, police took M's accounts with a grain of salt and brushed off her reports
because of all things, Shelby, she had a history of mental illness.
What I don't understand is if she's providing information to the investigators that wasn't
released to the public, such as the baked beans, then how is her story not considered
credible?
Exactly.
Mental health issues are not.
Somebody has that much information to give.
I think they do need to take it a little bit seriously.
And maybe just because it was back in 1957, maybe mental illnesses weren't as normal.
Yeah, they didn't approach mental health the same way that they do today.
So you're right.
They had a lot of institutions, but were these people really being helped in those institutions
or were they just institutionalized?
Yeah, back in the day, they would just stick them in a mental health hospital and they
didn't treat them like they would today.
Long story short, they thought M was absolutely genuine in her accounts, but they did not
trust her because of her mental illness, which is a shame.
They really should have followed up on that a little bit more, I think.
They should have.
Well, a couple of noteworthy comments in this case.
John Walsh featured the boy in the box on one of his episodes, America's Most Wanted.
Now, he's an amazing man.
In 1998, John Doe's body was exhumed to extract DNA, but absolutely nothing came up in the
databases regarding his identification.
The same process occurred back again in the year 2000, basically with the same results.
They could not get anything as far as his identification.
And in 2001, DNA was removed from one of John Doe's teeth, but to this day, they simply
don't have any results.
Now in August 2018, Shelbs, you know, just a couple of years ago, the agency that helped
identify the Golden State Killer after all of these years announced that they are also
conducting testing to try to help identify John Doe through familial DNA.
And if our listeners listen to any of our other podcasts, we actually talk about familial
DNA quite a bit.
To this day, this case remains unsolved.
And the boy in the box was originally buried in a potter's field in Holmesburg, Pennsylvania,
where his headstone read, Heavenly Father, bless this unknown child.
That made me tear up.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I don't mean to make you do that.
Well, good news though, Shelbs.
If you really think about it, I mean, we're going to celebrate his life here for just a
moment because the detectives who worked on this case paid for John Doe to have a proper
burial and he was placed in Ivy Hill Cemetery located in Philadelphia.
The funeral home donated the burial plot and the Vidoch Society provided a grave marker
that now says America's unknown child.
Shelbs still bring flowers and stuffed animals and toys to his grave, which is amazing because
if you were to see a picture, it's just so heartwarming, Shelby, that this child is so
loved.
I think that's the worst of it, Shelbs.
For our listeners, the Vidoch Society was founded in 1990 in Philadelphia and consists
of volunteer forensics experts and investigators who assist law enforcement in unsolved homicides.
Many of the volunteers in the society hold professional careers in criminal profiling,
criminology, forensics, medical examiners, prosecutors, polygraph technicians, and retired
law enforcement.
Volunteers meet once per month to review cases and often offer assistance in unsolved cases.
People like you and I, Shelby, could request assistance on solving an unknown homicide
as long as we meet certain criteria.
There has to be a body associated with the crime, a known crime scene, plus the presence
of physical evidence.
How awesome is that that so many volunteers take time out of their day to help assist
with unsolved cases?
Oh, absolutely.
Thankfully, we haven't had anything like this go on in our town, but I would absolutely
volunteer my time to do that.
If I had that background, I sure would too.
Well, to be clear, the Vidoch Society does not conduct independent investigations nor
take over any investigations like the FBI would.
It's simply a society that assists with open cases.
And the Vidoch Society only becomes involved if local law enforcement asks them to, so
they're not going to come forward and offer anything.
They have to be invited.
And only then do they offer guidance in an ongoing case.
Very interesting.
Law enforcement officials' latest conclusion from this case is John Doe is an undocumented
immigrant, which is why they have never been able to solve this case.
They went so far as to review around 11,000 passports, but still cannot find anyone similar
to a person that might match John Doe's description.
So that shall be in a nutshell is the story of the Boy in the Box, which is a 65-year-old
unsolved case out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
And for our listeners, if you have any information on this case, you should contact the Philadelphia
Police Homicide Division at 215-686-3334 or the Philadelphia Medical Examiner at 215-685-7444.
Or 215-685-7458.
And that's the case of the Boy in the Box.
I enjoyed listening.
Thank you very much.
I do hope that someone comes forward with some more information so that they can solve
this case.
Absolutely.
In today's times, there's not one case that cannot be solved.
I know it may take some time, but surely we have enough tools and technology to help us
out.
But let's hope one day this case, let's give John a name and an identity.
I really hope so too.
Now, I'll tell you what.
Since you're filling in today, it's been a while and I've been giving teachable moments.
And I wondered if you are interested in listening to one today.
Absolutely.
What is your teachable moment for the day?
Well, it's not a teachable moment per se.
I'm actually going to give you some statistics that I believe will serve as my teachable
moment.
According to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there are about 1,000 to 1,300 unidentified
deceased children across the United States at any given time.
That's a pretty big number.
That's a huge number.
One in 10,000 are eventually found, unfortunately, deceased.
Some are endangered runaways, others are abducted.
And believe it or not, Shelby, some are simply abandoned.
35% of all missing cases involve a minor and have a lot to do with noncustodial parents
losing custody of their child.
In 2019, over 421,000 children were reported missing in the United States.
So you know this number is much higher today.
An estimated 40,000 sets of remains every year go unidentified.
Over 112,000 children go missing in the United Kingdom on average every year, which breaks
down to one child going missing every two minutes in Europe alone.
Oh my.
Millions, Shelby.
Millions of children in India go missing every year and are believed to be sent out into
forced labor or the sex trade.
Children in Africa face the same fate, although statistics are not clear other than to say
that Nigeria tops the list of missing and exploited children.
So that's it.
Just a little way to bring awareness to the mass amounts of children that go missing every
year.
To me, Shelby, this is very eye opening.
I hope it compels people to do something about it.
I know I feel compelled.
I just have to figure out what there is that I can do.
Just one little random act of kindness goes a long way.
And I don't know what it looks like for you because it's different for everyone.
But we've said it before.
It takes a village to keep our children safe.
We just need to act on it.
So yeah, I mean, I guess I got a little teachable moment out of this even for myself.
Wow.
So there you have it.
That is the case of the boy in the box.
That's a wrap.
That is a wrap.
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