'Boy in the Box' Joseph Zarelli's Killer 'May Never' Be Caught, Cops Admit

The individual or individuals responsible for 4-year-old Joseph Augustus Zarelli's death "may never" be identified, authorities said Thursday.

For more than 65 years, Zarelli was known only as the "Boy in the Box" and "America's Unknown Child," a young child whose body was discovered in February 1957 inside a cardboard box left in a wooded area in northeastern Philadelphia. That changed on Thursday when the Philadelphia Police Department announced they had identified the boy and located his birth certificate, which said he was born on January 13, 1953.

Zarelli's case is one of Philadelphia's oldest unsolved murders. It remains an active homicide investigation, authorities said Thursday.

Philadelphia Homicide Captain Jason Smith said during a Thursday morning press conference that it will be "an uphill battle for us to definitively determine who caused this child's death."

Authorities "have our suspicions" about who was responsible for Zarelli's death, Smith said. He declined to share those suspicions with reporters, citing the ongoing investigation.

Zarelli was finally identified with the help of new DNA technology. If that technology had been available to authorities two decades ago, the chances of solving the murder "might have been a completely different story," Smith said.

At the time his body was found, Zarelli "appeared to be malnourished, and his body bore the signs of recent and past trauma," Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said.

Smith told reporters blunt force trauma was "more than likely" Zarelli's cause of death.

"At this point in time, a lot of the family members who would've been old enough to have a memory of any incident that might have occurred are, you know, normally long gone," Smith said. Authorities have identified who Zarelli's parents were but said they will not be releasing that information now "out of respect" for Zarelli's siblings, some of whom police said are still alive.

When asked by reporters whether the "uphill battle" he described meant Zarelli's killer or killers may not be identified, Smith said, "That's correct."

"We may not make an arrest. We may never make an identification," he said. "But we're going to do our darnedest to try."

Authorities said they are hopeful that the identification of the "Boy in the Box" will lead to an "avalanche" of new tips. Hundreds of tips were initially received back when Zarelli's body was found, Smith said, but none resulted in an identification.

Investigators continued working on the case as the decades passed. Zarelli's body was exhumed when DNA technology became available in the 1990s. Authorities said they received permission to exhume his body again in April 2019, after which new DNA technology helped to identify the child.

The Philadelphia Police Department shared a photo of Zarelli with Newsweek and said individuals who believe they may have information related to the case should contact the department's Homicide Division.