DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
The Lost and the Found
HTML https://theunidentified.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Pennsylvania
*****************************************************
#Post#: 94--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE BOY IN THE BOX: WM, 4-6, found in Philadelphia, PA, Feb
1957
By: Akoya Date: November 25, 2018, 9:50 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Continued
But Homicide Captain Roberts and his superior, Chief Inspector
of Detectives John Kelly, still had hopes for clues from the
box. For example, how long had the box been in the field? When
the officers had first arrived in that thicket-filled field, the
box was dry and without rain stains. This might be a clue - the
Weather Bureau said there had been rain on Saturday, the
twenty-third, just three days before the investigation started.
Yet, here again, the investigators ran into another of those
baffling frustrations that have marked this whole case. There is
no Weather Bureau station for recording rainfall in the area
where the body was found. The meteorologists have no way of
telling how much--if any-rain fell in Fox Chase that day. But
one thing is certain: The box was there at 1:30 on the afternoon
of Sunday, the twenty-fourth, one full day before student
Benonis first saw it.
That fact, however, did not come out until two weeks later. A
detective, specially assigned by Chief Kelly to make a
door-to-door survey of the homes in the immediate area of the
field, found the owner of the traps that Benonis had spotted in
early February. He was eighteen-year-old John Powroznik, whose
family had settled in the Fox Chase community after leaving
Poland in 1949. John, a high-school junior, said he had nineteen
traps around the death field, but had been checking them only
spasmodically because it was close to the trapping season's end.
And he told detectives that on Sunday the twenty-fourth, he was
bicycling to play basketball in a nearby church gymnasium when
he saw the box in the field.
A police report says, "He thought it looked suspicious, got off
his bicycle and walked to the box. Approaching it from the rear,
he reached down with his right hand, lifting the top of the box
up toward him, at which time he saw the body of a baby and a
blanket. He immediately dropped the box, got on his bicycle and
went back home and never mentioned this to anyone." Why? Many
people who have come from behind the iron curtain do not quickly
involve themselves with the police of any land.
There was yet another reason for John's silence. Some months
before, in another deserted Fox Chase field, John's brother had
come upon the body of a suicide hanging from a tree: the mere
questioning of him by the police had upset the whole family.
John's admission meant that the boy in the box had been dead at
least forty-eight hours before the police arrived at the field.
Could the box have been there for a week or even longer? If it
had gone unscathed for forty-eight hours, couldn't it have been
unmolested for ninety-six hours, or for an entire week? The
answer is: possibly.
This is a mystery for which everyone may logically advance his
own theory. Could it have been a kidnapping? It could have. But
then, wouldn't the boy's parents have reported him missing? In
fact, there was a sensational - and unsolved - missing-child
case on the books. In the June 9, 1956 issue of The Saturday
Evening Post, Mrs. Marilyn Damman told the story of how her
thirty-four-month-old son, Steven, had been kidnapped on Long
Island the previous October. Hundreds of police officials,
reading the newspaper and wire-service stories of Philadelphia's
unknown boy, immediately thought this might be the body of the
Damman child. At first, so did the Philadelphia police. But
Nassau County Detective Inspector James Farrell came to
Philadelphia and after carefully examining the unknown boy's
body said it was not that of the Damman child: "Completely
different in facial appearance, coloration and build."
This was not the only kidnapping lead. Page after page in the
Philadelphia files is filled with the suspicions of deserted
wives and husbands. From the South came a lawyer's letter saying
a client thought the unknown boy might be one of his children
taken by his wife when she left. The wife, found in New Jersey,
produced the children - alive. She explained she simply had no
desire to live with her husband. In Cleveland a wife was
positive the Philadelphia mystery explained what had happened to
the son her husband had taken when he left town. Grandmothers
wrote of their no-good sons-in-law; in one case, a young
serviceman told police he was sure the body was that of his
younger brother. That is, he was sure until the police checked
out every one of his fourteen brothers and sisters and found all
well. In police files, there are nearly 300 letters and reports
in which one member of a family suspects foul play by another;
some of these letters are shot through with sad and pathetic
stories of marital discord; some are mean and malicious. ("I
know my sister must have had an illegitimate baby, and she's the
kind that would kill it.") But all had this in common - not one
produced a single worthwhile lead to solve Philadelphia's
baffling murder.
The possibility of kidnapping was raised also by Dr. Wilton M.
Krogman, noted University of Pennsylvania anthropologist, known
to police throughout the country as "the bone detective." His
specialty is human growth; he reads bones as accurately as
certified public accountants read balance sheets. Examining the
body of the unknown boy, Doctor Krogman found him to be forty
inches tall: in the technical phrase this gave the youngster a
"height age" of about three years, eight months. But the boy
weighed only thirty pounds, a "weight age" of about two years
and two months. This obviously suggested undernourishment, and
the bones confirmed that. With x-rays Doctor Krogman discovered
scars of arrested growth on the long bones of the legs. This, he
reported to police, "may have been enough to have slowed him
down six months to a year in his growth progress."
Doctor Krogman estimated that the boy had been in chronic ill
health - with the accompanying malnutrition - for about a year.
Under what circumstances is a child exposed to that condition?
Doctor Krogman said it might be typical of a family on the move.
A family of itinerant workers, perhaps; always following the sun
and the crops. Or perhaps kidnappers had taken the boy and just
kept moving, in constant fear of the police.
But do kidnappers keep a boy's fingernails and toenails neatly
trimmed? Not in the police view. So they turned back to Doctor
Krogman for other possible leads they could investigate. For
example, could he give them any clue to the boy's ancestry? The
scientist described the boy as having "a long narrow head, a
high narrow face, and a high narrow nose." That, to him, was
enough to speculate on Northwest European ancestry -
Scandinavia, West Germany, or England or Scotland. But, as
Doctor Krogman pointed out, that racial stock had pretty well
spread over Europe, especially during and after the Second World
War.
Was it possible that the unknown boy was the child of a
Hungarian refugee couple admitted to the United States after the
great freedom riots of 1956? For a time, Homicide's Captain
Roberts and his men thought they had a real possibility in that
question. But, once again, the blank wall. From lmmigration
authorities came the word that everyone who came during the
Hungarian refugee program had been vaccinated. And the boy's
body bore no mark of vaccination.
The haircut and the wrinkled "washerwoman" skin on the right
palm and the soles of the feet presented another puzzle. That
wrinkling comes only from immersion in water. Maybe just before
death the little boy had been playing in his bath. But, if that
were true, wouldn't the left hand be affected too? And if he had
been taking a bath, then why hadn't the water washed away the
strands of hair the police found on his body? Why, the
detectives asked themselves - why the wrinkling on the soles of
the feet?
One possible answer: Whoever killed the boy knew the footprints
were on file in some hospital, and was attempting to blur the
skin ridges so that the prints could never be traced. But, if
that's so, then why is the right hand also wrinkled? Detectives
speculate - with no real evidence to support their theory - that
this right hand might have been put in water to throw the
investigators off the trail, by adding a deliberately misleading
clue. And yet all that speculation founders on this point: If
the purpose was to conceal the footprints, then why weren't the
feet kept in water long enough to achieve that goal. As it
turned out, detectives checking sole prints in hospital files
found that the hospital prints in a number of cases were too
fuzzy to use for comparison. That didn't surprise them, for as
most topnotch investigators know, footprints are not always an
accurate means of identification.
The peculiar cropping of the hair also attracted close
attention. Why was it cut so high on the sides, almost as if it
had been shaped with a bowl, then flattened on top in a
half-inch-high crew style? And did the strands on his chest
indicate that the hair was clipped while the boy was nude - and
dead? Captain Robert's men followed this thinking to another
strange possibility - that the boy was the son of an unbalanced
mother who had raised him as a girl; then, after his death, had
cut the hair short to block recognition of the "girl". Certainly
the cropping had the appearance of an amateur's work, and the
strands on the chest could mean that the cut was made in such a
hurry - or panic - that the barber had no time to brush them
away.
#Post#: 95--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE BOY IN THE BOX: WM, 4-6, found in Philadelphia, PA, Feb
1957
By: Akoya Date: November 25, 2018, 9:52 am
---------------------------------------------------------
The "unbalanced mother" thought flowed directly into another
theory that perhaps the boy, too, had been mentally incompetent
- was, in fact, a retarded child. Doctor Krogman recalls that
after the newspaper disclosed his entry into the case, he got a
telephone call from a woman with a calm, almost deliberately
ridged voice. "Can you tell whether that boy was weak-minded?"
she asked. Doctor Krogman asked her name. "Do you know what it
is to take care of an idiot?" she answered, the calmness
suddenly gone. "Sometimes you get so sick of their crying you
can kill them in a fit of anger." Now her voice was loud and
angry. "That," she said, "might be your explanation." Abruptly
she hung up. She never called again.
Actually, there was no way after death to determine the boy's
mental competency. But one thing the investigators could - and
did - do. This was to make a head count of children who had been
placed in nearby institutions for the retarded. But, in
institution after institution, in home after home, the story was
the same. All the children could be accounted for. And in not
one place was there a blanket even resembling the torn and faded
one the boy's body was wrapped in. But there was still something
compelling about the retarded child theory. Was it possible that
this was a case of unintentional killing, not premeditated
murder? Suppose the boy was retarded and his family had a new
baby. That new baby could account for the bassinet box. Suppose
further that the defective child tried to harm his infant
brother or sister. Would either parent, in a burst of rage,
strike the retarded one - again, again, and again? This is a mad
and frightening picture, but homicide is rarely otherwise.
The retarded child theory has never been disproved - or proved.
But, whatever this child might have been - normal, retarded,
healthy or ill - it would be only logical that he, or "she,"
would be known to some neighborhood. Young policemen were
assigned to wear the casual clothes of playground instructors
and mingle with youngsters of all ages in schoolyards, parks,
and recreation centers. They kept asking one question. Did any
of them remember a thin little boy - or girl - who'd been seen
around, and now was seen no more? Some did, and each lead was
traced out. In every case the children were alive. The
detectives wondered if perhaps the unknown boy's family had
moved from their own neighborhood or were newcomers to
Philadelphia. From every moving company in the city they got a
list of the customers in the weeks before and after the body had
been found. Interstate movers were asked to supply the names of
families they had moved into the city. Painstakingly the
detectives searched out every white customer. Net result -
another statistic for the files: 763 white families had hired
movers. Period. Not one of those 763 investigations led to the
tiniest clue about the boy.
All the while the police were investigating, the body of the
unknown boy lay in the city morgue. Periodically the homicide
squad got calls from men and women who thought they recognized
the boy from pictures they had seen in newspapers. One by one
they were taken to the morgue to view the body; one by one they
said no, this was not the boy they had in mind. Early in the
investigation there had come a call from a woman in Camden, New
Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. The boy's
picture, she said, reminded her of a small boy traveling with an
itinerant roofer she had hired at her home. She was brought to
the morgue - and instantly she said this was the child she had
seen. Armed with pictures of the boy, detectives rushed to her
neighborhood. They found three other persons who, on viewing the
body in the morgue, definitely identified this as a boy they had
seen with a stranger in the area. Two others were not so
positive, but said there was a real resemblance. With the help
of these witnesses, the detectives identified the itinerant
roofer as one Charles D. Speece, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A
year earlier, Speece had left Lancaster, taking with him his
eight-year-old son. It was established that Speece and the boy
had lived for a time in Camden, and then left town. Police sent
out a thirteen-state alarm asking that Speece be picked up. But
abruptly the investigation collapsed. Speece's estranged wife,
located in Lancaster, came to the Philadelphia morgue to see if
the unknown boy was her son. Emphatically she said, "It's not
him." And in Newark, New Jersey, Speece heard of the alarm for
him and came to Philadelphia. With him was his son.
Despite the calls that continued to come into the homicide
squad's city hall headquarters, that was the last time anyone
definitely identified the boy. And police knew, as each clue
collapsed, they were: "back where we started from."
But Philadelphia police - like police everywhere - are patient
people. Even though the case is now more than a year old, the
dogged investigation goes on. As both Chief Inspector Kelly and
Captain Roberts put it, "Somewhere in one of our files, there
may be one little sentence that will give us a clue. All we want
is a toe-hold on this case."
And there's a young civilian in the police department - a
fingerprint clerk - who, on his own time, still goes out to
check footprints in "just one more country hospital." While he
goes from hospital to hospital in the outlying counties,
detectives check back over those bulky files time after time.
Every possible lead that trickles in from police in other states
is investigated, but the clues remain the same - a box, a
blanket and a small body.
As they were back on July 24, 1957, when, with city detectives
standing at stiff attention, the body was buried in a small
white casket in the city cemetery. The tombstone was inscribed:
FEB 25, 1957. HEAVENLY FATHER, BLESS THIS UNKNOWN BOY....
#Post#: 96--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE BOY IN THE BOX: WM, 4-6, found in Philadelphia, PA, Feb
1957
By: Akoya Date: November 25, 2018, 9:55 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML http://americasunknownchild.net/
HTML http://i.imgur.com/48WCbhp.gif
A. Susquehanna Rd., Fox Chase - where the unknown boy's nude
body was discovered lying inside a large cardboard carton on
02/25/57. The carton had originally contained a white J.C.
Penney's bassinet. Nearby, a blue corduroy cap with a leather
strap was found.
B. #100 South 69th St., Upper Darby - site of the J.C. Penney
store where the white bassinet was purchased some time between
12/03/56 and 02/16/57. It was one of twelve bassinets purchased
at the store during that period.
C. #2603 South 7th St., Philadelphia - site of the Robbins Hat
Co., where the blue corduroy cap with leather strap was
purchased by a blond-haired man in his late twenties. According
to the owner of the hat company, the man's features resembled
those of the dead child.
1. The Philadelphia city cemetery (potter's field), where the
unknown boy was originally laid to rest on July 24, 1957.
Pursuant to a court order, the body was exhumed in November
1998, to obtain tissue for DNA analysis.
2. Ivy Hill Cemetery, where the boy was reburied on November 11,
1998 as "America's Unknown Child".
#Post#: 97--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE BOY IN THE BOX: WM, 4-6, found in Philadelphia, PA, Feb
1957
By: Akoya Date: November 25, 2018, 10:16 am
---------------------------------------------------------
M's Story
David Stout. The Boy in the Box: The Unsolved Case of America's
Unknown Child (Kindle Locations 1907-1909). Kindle Edition.
Then Mary's face hardens. Her eyes seem to be looking far, far
away. "My parents were educators. He was a high school teacher,
and she was a librarian. The students liked them very much. I
bet my parents autographed a thousand yearbooks.
"No one outside our house could have imagined what went on
inside those walls. All these years later, I can hardly imagine
it. My parents ... my parents did not have normal sexual
desires. My father molested me. Oh, I know it's more common than
people used to realize, especially back then. What was different
with us is that my mother didn't just silently let it happen,
which is the usual scenario. She was enthusiastic about it. Even
joined in. The agreement was that my father let her indulge her
taste in little boys. She preferred them to adult men because
she thought them purer, somehow. I think that was it. Anyhow,
one night a little boy came into our home, into our lives." The
cops listen, mesmerized, as Mary tells her story. "I was
thirteen when my mother took me in the car to get him... "
I didn't know the neighborhood. My mother drove for quite a
while, but we were still in Philadelphia. I'm pretty sure. The
houses were close together, and close to the street. Close
enough so I could hear after my mother parked the car in front
of this one house. My mother went up and rang the bell. The door
opened, and I saw a woman standing there. She was holding a baby
in diapers. She and my mother talked, just for a second. Then
there was a man's voice, from inside. "Did you get the money?"
the man said.
I thought he was talking to the woman standing in the doorway.
But right then my mother took an envelope from her purse and
handed it to the woman. Oh, I thought. The man was talking to my
mother. And very quickly the woman handed the baby to my mother
and almost slammed the door in her face, as though she never
wanted to see her or the baby again. My mother carried him down
to the car. I didn't know it was a boy then. It was a warm
August night-hot, even-so there was no need for a blanket.
"Here," my mother said, handing the baby to me. Because she had
to drive. But I didn't know anything about holding a baby. And
his diaper was wet. It smelled like pee, I remember that. But I
didn't mind holding him, I really didn't. I felt sorry for him,
because I remembered how the woman had slammed the door. As
though she was throwing the baby out. "He'll be okay," my mother
said. As though she could read my thoughts. So I held him as we
drove home. All these years later, I remember how he felt
against me. It got so I didn't even mind the diaper. I just felt
that this baby, this little human being, needed me. Needed
somebody. I hadn't put everything together yet, about my mother
and father and how dysfunctional we all were as a family, but I
wanted this little baby to be happy. Did I say "dysfunctional"?
Sick, is what I meant. "Mom, how come we're taking this baby
home?" I remember asking. "Because he needs a place," my mother
said. She sounded cheerful and kind. "Can he be my brother?" I
asked. "Sure," my mother said. "Only, we can't keep him
upstairs." I wanted to ask, Why not? But I was afraid. I don't
really remember how he got his name-maybe my mother chose it, in
the car, I can't recall-but from then on, he was Jonathan.
As soon as we got home, my mother took him down to the basement
and put him in this little room that used to be a coal bin. That
was going to be his place, my mother said. I don't remember
where my father was at the time. I remember thinking, it's like
we just got a new puppy. Only, we never had a dog when I was
growing up. My mother took some blankets and some heavy dishes,
like dog dishes, down to the basement. "Don't you go down
there," I remember her saying. I was afraid to, anyhow. That
first night, I lay awake for a long time, worrying about
Jonathan. I listened for crying, but I never heard anything. I
knew it was warm enough down there, especially with the
blankets. And there was a big cardboard box in the coal bin from
the time we got a refrigerator. The cardboard was real thick,
like it could be a mattress. But I felt sorry for him, down
there in the dark. I didn't want him to be afraid. My mother
would take food down to him. I don't ever remember my father
doing it, for some reason. Sometimes I'd go down there with my
mother. We didn't talk to him much. When I would say something,
he wouldn't answer. After the first few times, I thought he
might be retarded. I'm not sure I even knew that word then. But
looking back, yes, I think he was. Oh, God! This poor child. All
the time he was with us, he never said a word. Not a word.
After a while, I used to sneak down to the basement to see him.
The smell. It was the first thing I noticed when I got to the
bottom of the basement stairs. It was so strong. But of course
it was; I mean, the little drain near the coal bin was his
toilet. Sometimes when my mother took food down to him, she'd
stay longer than other times. For whatever, I suppose. She'd
bring him upstairs maybe once a week and put him in the bathtub.
He'd splash a lot and make funny noises, but not real words. I
don't remember Jonathan ever saying any real words. Ever
talking.
I think he was hungry all the time. I know I was hungry a lot.
See, upstairs we didn't have meals like normal people. Sitting
down, talking and all. Once in a while, enough to eat, yes. But
most of the time, when I was awake, I was a little bit hungry.
Or a lot hungry. And when I'd ask my parents why the dinners
were so small, they'd get all upset. They'd talk about the
Depression, and how when they were younger, millions of families
didn't have enough to eat. All right, I remember thinking. That
was then. And this is now, when both of you, my parents, have
decent jobs. Sure, nobody got rich being teachers or librarians,
but they weren't poor either. I know my classmates weren't
hungry most of the time. And my father, he'd just stick his nose
in the newspaper when he didn't want to answer me. Time went by.
Two and a half years, I realize now. Jonathan never did talk.
Well, how could he learn, being down there all the time? Never
going outside. No playmates, except me. It got so I liked to
take his food down to him. The water we'd get from the sink near
the washing machine. Sometimes I'd stay with him for a while.
I'd sit on the cardboard with him. He always had coal dust on
himself,• my mother would get mad when she brought him up for a
bath, and his hair would be full of this black dust. But it
wasn't his fault. They kept him down there.
#Post#: 98--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE BOY IN THE BOX: WM, 4-6, found in Philadelphia, PA, Feb
1957
By: Akoya Date: November 25, 2018, 10:17 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I'm sorry. Just give me a minute.... He'd sit there, rocking
back and forth. Making these sounds that you'd expect from a
little baby. I'd talk to him, call him Jonathan. Sometimes he'd
look into my eyes, like he almost understood. I even got him to
smile. Oh! Here it comes again. I'm sorry.... His hair grew real
long. They never cut it. Why, I don't know. Time went by, and
I'd go to school each day thinking, I know a big secret. Of
course, I could never tell anybody. Not that I had any friends
to speak of Or that Jonathan was the only secret. The night it
happened, it was late February 1957. I was fifteen. Anyhow, my
mother hadmade baked beans-they weren't very good-and she took
some down to Jonathan. When she came back up, she said Jonathan
was going to get a bath that night. And I remember there was no
work or school the next day.
After a while, she went down to get Jonathan. Next thing, I
heard her stomping up the stairs, cursing Jonathan all the way,
his feet going thump, thump on the steps as she dragged him
along. When she got him upstairs, I saw from her face that she
was really unhappy with him, for some reason. God, his eyes
looked so scared. She made him sit on the bathroom floor as the
tub was filling. Back and forth, he rocked, making that little
moaning sound. He looked so pathetic. Too old for a diaper. All
these years later ... I'm sorry. Sorry. "Cut his fingernails,"
she told me. So I did. They were pretty dirty. I tried to be
gentle. When the tub was full, she picked him up, took off his
diaper, and put it in the wastebasket. I was embarrassed to
look. Then she picked him up under his arms and lowered him into
the water. He let out a little scream. The water was too hot. He
kicked and splashed; my mother got wet. She lifted him back out
and held him up on his feet. He was still complaining. You know,
whimpering. And dripping water.
"That's enough," my mother said. "That's enough!" Still, he kept
complaining. Stomping his feet and crying. Pretty soon he had
tears and stuff from his nose running down his front. "I said,
enough!" my mother said. Now I knew she was really angry with
him. Back into the tub he went. He didn't scream this time.
Maybe the water was cool enough. Or maybe he was afraid. And
then he threw up. Out came this brown mess-the baked beans-into
the bathwater. My mother let out a shriek like I'd never heard
before. She yanked him out of the tub and slapped him. I mean
hard. So, of course, he started to cry real hard. And when he
wouldn't quit, she slapped him some more. On the face. So, of
course, his crying only got worse. And that was when my mother
lost it entirely. She slapped him so hard, he fell and hit his
head on the floor with a loud sound. She kept hitting him with
both hands, on his head and around his body. My mother's head
was shaking from side to side, she was swinging so fast. Then
she wasn't slapping anymore, but punching as hard as she could.
Jonathan was just lying on the floor. He'd tried to curl up. I
don't think he was making any sounds by then. And then my mother
looked at me. "Get out!" she screamed. "Get out!"
So I ran to my room. Only, I stood in the doorway, because I
wanted to hear. I heard splashing noises, and a loud thud. I
knew she'd thrown him back into the tub. "Wake up!" my mother
hollered. "Wake up!" Nothing. Just silence. It seemed like the
longest time, but it was probably only a few seconds. "Jonathan?
I want you to wake up right now. Come on!" Again, nothing. Then
I heard the other bedroom door start to open. I knew it was my
father, coming to check on the commotion after hiding through it
all. Right then I ducked into my room and pulled my door shut. I
heard the two of them talking, very nervous. Finally I got tired
of standing there, so I got into bed. I lay there a long, long
time, my eyes open. I was afraid, so afraid. And sad, because I
thought Jonathan- Oh. Here it comes. Here it comes .... I'm
sorry. Where was I? In bed, lying awake. I know I fell asleep
eventually. Then there were times when I didn't know if I was
dreaming or not. But some of it must have been real. I heard
water draining out of the tub, my parents talking in the
hallway. The sound of scissors. I know that was real, because
the next morning when I snuck out to look into the bathroom,
Jonathan's hair was much shorter.
I could tell he was dead. His eyes were open but not seeing.
There was sadness on his face. If I live to be a hundred, I will
never feel as sorry for a human being as I did for Jonathan
right then. Something made me turn. My mother was there. I could
tell she'd been crying. I felt sorry for her too. "Jonathan
didn't wake up," she said. "But you should go back to bed. It's
too early for you to get up." Was that an odd thing for her to
say? But then, what's the appropriate thing to say in a
situation like that? Listen to me, trying to apply logic to
insanity.
I went back to bed and slept some more. I think I was in some
kind of shock, because waking up and having breakfast, getting
dressed-I don't remember any of it. Don't remember where my
father was. What I do remember is my mother lifting Jonathan out
of the tub, where he'd been all night, and wrapping him in a
blanket. "He'll be safe," she said, almost tenderly. "We're
going to put him somewhere safe." She carried him down to the
basement, with me right behind her. We had this side door in the
basement that opened onto the driveway. Nobody could see from
the street, and there was a hedge that blocked the neighbors'
view. The car was right there.
I was shivering. My mother made me run inside and get my warm
raincoat and a cap. It was a cold day, but I felt all nervous
and sad inside, too. I felt this deep, awful sadness. Because I
belonged to a family where such a thing could happen. That my
mother could do it, and my father ... I didn't know where we
were going at first. Then we came to this circle where there was
a big church. And pretty soon we turned down this road-almost a
country road, although it was just a little stretch. There was a
patch of woods alongside. My mother stopped the car. We sat
there for a few minutes. I remember her looking into the woods.
Then she said we were getting out. We went to the back of the
car. I was shivering hard. My mother looked up and down the road
before opening the trunk. And then along came this car. "Don't
open your mouth!" my mother said.
After he drove away, and we were sure no one else was coming, we
opened the trunk and took Jonathan out. He was wrapped in a
little blanket. We went into this patch of woods, not that far
from the road. Then my mother saw this box sitting there. "Oh,
good," my mother said. "Tilt it." So I did, standing it up
enough for her to lay Jonathan inside. She made sure he was out
of the rain. Did it matter? Then we hurried back to the car,
going back the same way we'd just come. On the way my mother
stopped at a little diner so I could get something to eat.
Imagine! I guess I was hungry. I think I had a donut. But before
we'd gone too far, I begged my mother to pull over. Then I
opened the car door and threw up. My mother was angry about
that, but I couldn't help it.
Then we went home and tried to act like everything was normal.
Like we were normal. My father died of a heart attack some years
ago. My mother went to live in Florida for a while. Then she got
sick, so I brought her up to Ohio and put her in a nursing home.
She didn't know me for a long time before she died.
David Stout. The Boy in the Box: The Unsolved Case of America's
Unknown Child (Kindle Locations 2026-2029). Kindle Edition.
#Post#: 99--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE BOY IN THE BOX: WM, 4-6, found in Philadelphia, PA, Feb
1957
By: Akoya Date: November 25, 2018, 10:19 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML http://i.imgur.com/r8jwufQ.jpg
#Post#: 100--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE BOY IN THE BOX: WM, 4-6, found in Philadelphia, PA, Feb
1957
By: Akoya Date: November 25, 2018, 10:20 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML http://i.imgur.com/pAzVKEK.jpg
#Post#: 101--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE BOY IN THE BOX: WM, 4-6, found in Philadelphia, PA, Feb
1957
By: Akoya Date: November 25, 2018, 10:21 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML http://americasunknownchild.net/summary.htm
Ohio Informant - In February 2002, a business woman from
Cincinnati, Ohio (hereinafter referred to as "M") contacted
investigators through her psychiatrist. "M" claimed that her
abusive mother purchased the unknown boy from his birth parents
in the summer of 1954, subjected him to extreme physical and
sexual abuse for two and a half years, and then killed him in a
fit of rage, by slamming him to the floor after he vomited in
the bathtub. (Allegedly, the boy had eaten baked beans just a
few minutes earlier.) "M" had originally recounted the story to
her psychiatrist in 1989 but declined to come forward and speak
with law enforcement officials until thirteen years later.
In May 2002, Philadelphia detective Tom Augustine, accompanied
by Vidocq Society investigators, Joseph McGillen and William
Kelly, traveled to Cincinnati and interviewed the woman at her
psychiatrist's office for three hours. "M" told them that she
had lived in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania (a well-to-do suburb of
Philadelphia) in the 1950's. Her parents were both employed by
the Lower Merion school district. Her mother was a librarian and
her father was a science teacher. "M" told the investigators
that the unknown boy's name was "Jonathan". She said that
"Jonathan" was very frail, mentally handicapped, and could not
speak. In August 1954, when she was 10, "M" told the
investigators, her mother drove her to a home, where she picked
the boy up in exchange for an envelope which she assumed
contained money. "M" claimed that her mother regularly sexually
abused her and purchased "Jonathan" so that she could sexually
abuse him, as well.
For two and a half years, "Jonathan" was raised in squalor in
the basement of the Lower Merion home. He slept in an empty
refrigerator box amid dusty coal bins and used a floor drain as
his toilet. "Jonathan" was never allowed to go outside or even
be seen by visitors to the home.
According to "M", after her mother killed "Jonathan" in February
1957, she cut his long hair to conceal his identity. "M" trimmed
the boy's nails. Then they wrapped the boy's nude body in an old
blanket, placed it in the trunk of their car, and drove into
Philadelphia, looking for a suitable place to dump the body. "M"
said that they eventually arrived at Susquehanna Road, a narrow,
secluded country lane in the sparsely-settled Fox Chase section
of northern Philadelphia. It was ideally suited for their
purpose. "M" recalled that, as she and her mother were preparing
to remove the boy's body from the trunk, a male driver
unexpectedly stopped and asked them if they were having car
trouble. They quickly turned their backs to the man, and said
nothing. They were careful to block the man's view of the
license plate on their car. After a few anxious moments that
must have seemed like an eternity, the man continued on his way.
("M's" account almost exactly matched the confidential testimony
of the anonymous male witness who had originally reported this
incident to the police in 1957.) After the man drove away, "M"
and her mother removed the boy's body from the trunk and placed
it in a large cardboard box that they found at the scene. What
role, if any, "M's" father may have played in the whole macabre
episode has not been revealed by the investigators.
The investigators were impressed by "M's" testimony, which
seemed quite plausible, but they remained skeptical. At issue
was whether "M", who has a history of mental problems, could
have fabricated the entire story. After the investigative team
returned to Philadelphia, the Philadelphia police department,
the Vidocq Society, and the Montgomery County District
Attorney's office launched an intensive follow-up investigation
in order to verify "M's" account of the unknown boy's death.
Unfortunately, six months later, having left "no stone unturned"
in their relentless search for corroborating evidence, the
investigators came up empty. Not a single one of "M's"
allegations could be substantiated. Also, a search for trace
evidence in the basement of the Lower Merion home where the boy
allegedly resided turned up nothing. The investigators are still
pursuing other clues in this phase of the Boy in the Box
investigation.
#Post#: 102--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE BOY IN THE BOX: WM, 4-6, found in Philadelphia, PA, Feb
1957
By: Akoya Date: November 25, 2018, 10:23 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML http://i.imgur.com/VQpb6Ku.jpg
HTML http://i.imgur.com/tw9qzuO.jpg
#Post#: 103--------------------------------------------------
Re: THE BOY IN THE BOX: WM, 4-6, found in Philadelphia, PA, Feb
1957
By: Akoya Date: November 25, 2018, 10:25 am
---------------------------------------------------------
In the late 1600s, Lawndale was a remote settlement of devout
Quakers. In the early 1700s, what is now Frankford Avenue was an
Indian trail. It later became a toll road, Bristol Pike, then in
Revolutionary War times it was Kings Highway, the main
Philadelphia-New York route.
HTML http://articles.philly.com/1988-12-01/news/26224861_1_rich-oral-histories-fox-chase-archives
Ten years ago, Gaupp watched with distress as Fox Chase
landmarks were destroyed and apartment buildings were put up in
their place. Finally, her anger over the destruction of the Ury
house on Pine Road motivated her to preserve some of Fox Chase's
rapidly disappearing history in a book.
"It was the original block house that the Swedes built to
protect themselves from the Indians," said Gaupp. "When the Ury
house was destroyed, a very significant piece of American
history was destroyed."
The Ury House in Fox Chase was an equally tragic loss. It was
believed that the earliest part of the mansion was built by the
Swedes in 1645, making it the oldest house in Pennsylvania. It
was later converted to a country mansion where lawyer Meirs
Fisher entertained John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
Ury House was destroyed by a developer without protest or
fanfare sometime in the 1970s.
HTML http://articles.philly.com/1994-11-21/news/25868879_1_new-bridge-higher-bridge-present-bridge
HTML http://i.imgur.com/w4kM0Ks.jpg
*****************************************************
DIR Previous Page
DIR Next Page