On this day, Feb. 25, in 1957, a college student stumbled across the body of a young child in Philadelphia in a case that attracted national attention and became known as the “Boy in the Box” mystery.
The child was found naked in a cardboard J.C. Penney box in an empty lot. Despite the publicity and the exhaustive efforts of homicide detectives, the FBI and the Vidocq Society, a group of retired policemen and profilers, the identity remains unsolved.
In 1998, the boy’s remains were exhumed to extract DNA samples, and the boy was subsequently re-buried as “America’s Unknown Child.”
– Scott McCabe
