The Boy In The Box (ft. Sarah Turney of Disappearances)
·44 min·3 clips
A full DNA sample and genetic genealogy finally identified Joseph Augustus Zarelli.
1. Cold Cases centers on Joseph Augustus Zarelli, the Philadelphia child found in a box in 1957 and identified by DNA in 2022.
2. Carter Roy hosts the episode, and Sarah Turney of Disappearances adds context about missing-person and homicide investigations.
3. The episode asks what it means to identify Joseph Augustus Zarelli after 66 years and whether the case is actually closed.
4. On February 26, 1957, a caller reports a cardboard box in Fox Chase, a wooded trash-strewn area of Philadelphia.
5. Police open the box and find a naked boy wrapped in a blanket, and Dr. Joseph Spellman estimates he is between four and six years old.
6. The autopsy shows bruises, malnutrition, recent nail trimming, shabby hair cutting, and brown residue in the esophagus.
7. Sarah Turney cites 2019 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data showing nearly 80% of child fatalities involve parents.
8. Detectives trace a white baby bassinet shipped from Indiana to a JCPenney in Upper Darby and learn it was one of 12 sold.
9. The FBI asks buyers to come forward, 11 do, and none are linked to the case.
10. Police also analyze a mass-produced blanket and note that it had been cut in half.
11. Bill Kelly, head of the Philadelphia police identification unit, spends nine years comparing inked footprints with hospital birth records.
12. Kelly and other officers visit foster homes, orphanages, and hospitals, but nobody identifies the child.
13. Philadelphia police post flyers with Joseph's autopsy photos in public places and enclose them in utility bills.
14. The city later holds a funeral in late July, with a cemetery plot, a donated suit, and homicide detectives serving as pallbearers.
15. Remington Bristow follows a psychic lead in 1961 and focuses on the Nicoletti foster home near the discovery site.
16. Bristow later finds a white bassinet and blankets cut in half at an estate sale and treats them as significant clues.
17. Bill Kelly later pursues a Hungarian-refugee theory, reviews 15,000 photos, and reaches a dead end after identifying the wrong boy.
18. In 2002, a woman called Mary tells police she knew a basement child named Jonathan and describes a February 1957 beating after he vomited baked beans.
19. The episode's tone is investigative and reflective, with Carter Roy and Sarah Turney weighing facts, dead ends, and public memory.
20. Listeners interested in cold cases, genetic genealogy, and Philadelphia crime history are most likely to stay with it.
