Joseph Augustus Zarelli

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1:52This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice.

2:15Today, I'm discussing the case of Joseph Augustus Zarelli. When Joseph's remains were discovered in 1957, the city of Philadelphia was horrified. He was only four years old, and his identity was unknown at that time. Hundreds of thousands of flyers with his photos were sent all across the country, and his case became one, if not the most notorious in the city's history. But now, investigators have his name and are still working hard to find his killer. This is the case of Joseph Augustus Zarelli. Joseph was born on January 13, 1953, likely in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. His mother was Mary Elizabeth Abel, but went by Betsy, and his father was Augustus J.

3:06Zarelli, and he went by Gus. Betsy was 21 years old and working in theater when Joseph came along, and she'd previously had a daughter three years prior, who was placed for adoption. It's not clear if Gus ever knew that Betsy was pregnant or that Joseph was born It's also unclear who took care of Joseph or if Betsy had maybe also placed him for adoption But we do know that both Betsy and Gus lived and stayed in the Philadelphia area until they passed away But they didn't appear to have a relationship Unfortunately, not much is known about Joseph or his short life But we do know that he had blue eyes and brown hair He lived near the intersection of 61st and Market Streets in West Philadelphia, and he had several half-siblings, some from Gus and some from Betsy.

3:58In a press conference about Joseph's case, Danielle Outlaw, the commissioner for the Philadelphia Police Department, or PPD, said, quote, In his very short life, it was apparent that this child experienced horrors that no one, no one should ever be subjected to, end quote. We also know that when he was killed, or even just appeared to be missing from whatever family and neighborhood he was being raised in, it was never reported to the police, despite him only being four years old. When Joseph's body was found, this also wasn't reported to the police at first. Not just once, but twice. The first person that we know of to find Joseph was a hunter who was checking his illegal animal traps.

4:45This was in a neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia called Fox Chase, specifically on Susquehanna Road. At the time, it was a wooded area with a lot of weeds and shrubs that was often used for hunting and as a dumping ground. This hunter sees what appears to be a deceased child partially concealed in a box, but he doesn't report it at this time out of fear for being caught for his illegal traps. The second person who found Joseph in this area was a 26-year-old LaSalle College student. According to reporting by several reporters at the Philadelphia Inquirer, he wouldn't report what he found until two days later, on February 26, 1957.

5:27This was prompted by a news report that he'd seen about a 4-year-old girl named Mary Jane Baker. She'd gone missing from a nearby town and was presumed to have been kidnapped. He thought that maybe the child he saw in the box was her, so he finally called it in. Now, he told investigators that he initially stopped in the area after seeing a rabbit run into the woods. He said he was concerned for the rabbit, and then he saw what he thought may have been a doll in a box. While I do want to say upfront that investigators did investigate, polygraph, and seemingly clear this man, he initially wasn't completely forthcoming about why he'd really been in this area.

6:07He'd apparently been known to spy on a local home for girls, so he was basically a peeping Tom. Just like the hunter, he didn't want to get in trouble, but apparently after talking to his priest, he changed his mind. Either way, it does eventually get reported to the PPD, and they go out to investigate. At 10.40 a.m. on February 26th, Officer Elmer Palmer was the first to arrive at the scene. According to an interview he gave with the New York Times in 2006, at first, he also thought that he just saw a discarded doll in a box. But of course, as he gets closer, the grim reality sets in. It was a small child, a small boy, clearly not Mary Jane Barker.

6:53And just as a side note, Mary Jane Barker would later be found deceased from natural causes. But now they had a brand new case, what appeared to be the homicide of an unidentified child. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Money is this invisible thread that ties us all together. It's something everyone has to deal with. That's why teaching kids about money isn't just smart, it's essential. Greenlight is a debit card and money app for families. It's a safe way to teach kids and teens about money. With Greenlight, parents can send money quickly, get spending notifications, and even assign chores.

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8:17Josie, it's your new nanny Polly. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, a Hulu original. What do you know about her? Now streaming. You think if you try hard enough, you can stop bad things from happening, but you can't. Good help. Get out! Is hard to find. You need me to do this. A Hulu original. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Rated R. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. For bundled subscribers, terms apply. In an effort to treat Joseph with respect, and really the identity that was stripped from him for so many years, I will be acknowledging his name throughout this episode. But again, authorities have no idea who he is at this point.

9:02Officer Palmer finds Joseph nude, but wrapped in a multicolored blanket inside the cardboard box. And he was covered in bruises. At this point, he calls for backup, and eventually, medical examiner Dr. Joseph Spellman gets to the scene to evaluate, and later performs an autopsy. His findings indicated that Joseph was between 4 and 6 years old, but was very malnourished, weighing only 30 pounds at a height of 3 foot 6. He had multiple abrasions, contusions, essentially he'd been beaten to death. It's obviously just horrific But Dr. Spellman and the investigators are able to gather some information and begin working Joseph's case Now because Joseph was found in winter in Philadelphia It was obviously pretty cold outside and this did help slow down the decomposition of his body This was good and bad for their investigation It was good because his face was still intact They could and would later use photos to try to identify him but the downside is they weren't exactly sure when he was killed.

10:13They also discovered scarring on his body that indicated he'd likely had some medical treatment in the past. It was also clear that his hair had recently been cut, possibly after his death. It's been described as crudely cut very close to the scalp, and they actually found chunks of hair stuck to his chest. That's how fresh it was. His nails had also recently been trimmed, and they found partially digested baked beans in his stomach, indicating that he'd likely eaten a few hours before his death. But they also found brown residue in his esophagus, likely from him throwing those up. So Joseph was cared for in some way.

10:56Obviously not well, but he was at least fed. Again, Joseph was four when he was killed, so I guess he could have found a can of beans, got them open and eaten them, or even cut his own nails or his own hair, but it feels more likely that these things were provided to him or done to him. In addition to trying to learn everything they could about Joseph, investigators of course also scour the location he was found for any clues they can find. And close to Joseph's body, they find a men's blue corduroy hat. And in this case, I think that there are some advantages and disadvantages to this happening in the 1950s.

11:35Because investigators were able to trace this hat to a local store, and the owner of the store remembered not only selling this hat, but attaching a strap to it that the man had specifically requested. She remembered him, she remembered the hat, the whole ordeal. But the police could never track him down or get a DNA sample from the hat. It was a dead end. They also looked into the box Joseph was found in and the blanket he'd been wrapped in. It had been cut in half, but after taking it to the Philadelphia Textile Institute to have it analyzed, they found out that unlike the custom hat, the blanket was mass-produced and essentially impossible to trace.

12:16They had better luck with the box, though. The shipping label indicated that it was shipped from Indiana to a J.C. Penney store in a municipality in Pennsylvania called Upper Darby, really right on the edge of Philadelphia. And after contacting the store, they discovered that the box had originally held a white bassinet, and only 12 had been sold from that particular store. So it was really easy to trace. But the downside of this time period was that JCPenney had a cash-only policy at this time, so they couldn't just use credit card data or even checks to track down the buyers. However, after the FBI stepped in and put out a call for buyers to step forward, 11 people came forward and were all ruled out.

13:03The 12th and final buyer was never found. Of course, another downside is that at this time, forensic science just wasn't nearly as evolved as it is today. So investigators really focused on prints. They take Joseph's fingerprints and prints of his feet. This part of the investigation really falls on a man named Bill Kelly. He was a fingerprinting expert and the head of the PPD's identification unit. He pours himself into Joseph's case. And he meticulously compares his footprints to, I mean, countless birth certificates from local hospitals. And he's doing all of this just by visual comparison.

13:44Day after day, he analyzes birth certificate after birth certificate. but he never finds a match. He also goes through over 11 ,000 pictures of refugee children, but never finds Joseph. Investigators also check with local hospitals to compare what they believe are medical scars across Joseph's body, but again, there's just no match. The same goes for local foster and group homes in the area. No one seemed to remember Joseph. And it seems really likely that whoever killed him or even just knew him was very aware that they were looking to identify Joseph and his killer because authorities propelled his case into the community and national media really aggressively.

14:31They actually used photos of him post-mortem and distributed hundreds of thousands of flyers across Philadelphia and the entire country. They had flyers at every local business that would take them. They were also put into Philadelphia gas works bills, and Joseph made front-page news for years, but no one came forward to identify him or his killer. He was only known as the boy in the box. While it doesn't seem that Joseph was shown much love during his life, he was cared for dearly after his death. A funeral was held for him on July 24, 1957, with detectives on his case as pallbearers. He was buried in a Philadelphia Sophia Pottersfield, and a headstone that was donated read, Heavenly Father, bless this unknown boy.

15:24In the years following Joseph's murder, investigators chased countless leads. They believed he may have been a boy who'd been kidnapped from New York, the discarded child of a couple who worked at a carnival, possibly a refugee who'd come to the U.S. during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. These investigators were banging their heads against the wall for years, trying to track down any lead they could that would lead them to identifying Joseph and solving his case. In 1961, an investigator named Remington Bristow even turned to a psychic for help. This psychic says that she had a vision of a cabin, with apparently a very specific type of porch.

16:06Bristow takes a chance on this lead, and actually finds a foster home matching the description about a mile away from where Joseph's body was found. Now, this foster home was initially investigated years ago, and the couple who owned the home, Arthur and Catherine Nicoletti, were looked into and cleared. It's definitely a letdown for Bristow. But he decides to just kind of take another look at this lead, and he finds something that just feels a little off to him. Catherine has a daughter named Anna Marie from another relationship, so she's Arthur's stepdaughter. She's in like her mid-twenties, and she had four children.

16:44but three of them died shortly after birth. Her fourth child died at three years old after what seemed to just be a freak accident. They were apparently electrocuted on one of those small rides you pay with in coins at a department store. Obviously, it's all just really, really tragic, but Bristow just can't stop thinking about what the odds are that all four of her children died, and he begins to wonder if maybe Joseph, who again is still unidentified at this time, was maybe Anna Marie's child. Now, to be fair, there's no concrete tie to Joseph, but he pursues the lead, and later that year he sees that the Nicolettis are holding an estate sale at the foster home, and he decides to just take a look.

17:29It couldn't hurt, and then he sees it. Well, two things. He sees a white bassinet for sale, and when he's poking around the yard, He sees a clothesline full of blankets that have been cut in half. He fully believes that this is it. He tries to interview the Nicolettis, but at this point, they refuse. Bristow is truly committed to Joseph's case. He carried around photos of Joseph for years, and he wants to pursue this lead, but just can't. He does eventually convince other investigators to interview the family, but it doesn't go anywhere. And ultimately, he passes away without ever knowing that the boy in the box was Joseph Augustus Zarelli or what really happened to him.

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19:21Download the free Rakuten app or go to rakuten.com to start saving today. It's the most rewarding way to shop. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Rakuten.com. Of course, over the years, investigators followed up on countless leads in Joseph's case. But there wasn't really any movement until 1998. This is when Tom Augustine inherits the case. And unlike some previous investigators, he believes that Bristow may have been on to something. He wants to go back to the Nicolettis. But he's going to need more evidence beyond the white bassinet and some cut-up blankets. He wants DNA. And while technology has changed drastically since Joseph was found in 1957, he still needs some help.

20:07So he turns to the VDoc Society. Now, if you don't know what they do, they are absolutely incredible and are made up of professionals like prosecutors, criminologists, medical examiners, many, many professionals that are in law enforcement or adjacent. like forensic scientists that can help analyze things like DNA. The VDoc Society also just so happens to be based in Philadelphia and already has some interesting ties to the case. One is Bill Kelly, the fingerprinting expert I discussed earlier. He's since retired from the PPD and is now a member. But something that just really pulled at my heartstrings was that one of its co-founders, Bill Fleischer, grew up with Joseph's case, and it motivated him to get into law enforcement.

20:55So the VDoc Society votes and takes the case. They help obtain a court order to exhume Joseph's body and collect new DNA samples. He was then reburied at the Ivy Hill Cemetery. Now, of course, Joseph's body has been buried for decades. And obviously, this DNA is not exactly well preserved. But they are able to get a partial sample from one of his teeth. It's mitochondrial DNA, so their hope is to be able to find some relative on his mother's side, maybe one of the Nicolettis. But at this time, they aren't able to get a court order for anyone in the Nicoletti family to give a DNA sample. So that lead really just sits.

21:39But not too long after, in the year 2000, investigators get a brand new lead from what appears to be a pretty credible source. A psychiatrist in Cincinnati, Ohio calls the PPD and says, I have a patient you might want to know about. It appears that she has information about a case. Now, investigators and the psychiatrist exchanged some letters about the patient for a while, and eventually, in 2002, Tom Augustine and Bill Kelly traveled to Cincinnati to interview the patient. We don't know her real name, but she's often referred to as M, Martha, or Mary. So I'll just call her Mary. Mary says that she grew up in a very abusive household in Philadelphia in the 1950s.

22:23There was apparently a lot of sexual abuse. And she remembers that around the year 1954 when she was about 12, she went on a drive with her mom to a house in Philadelphia. Her mom gets out of the vehicle, hands someone an envelope filled with cash, and she comes back with a baby boy named Jonathan. But this baby wasn't raised like she was. He was kept in their basement. He never spoke and never left the home. Mary was also strictly instructed to keep his existence a secret. And she says that one day, in February 1957, her mom was giving Jonathan a bath and he wouldn't stop crying. Her mother asked her to cut Jonathan's nails, so she did, but he was crying so hard that he threw up the baked beans that they had for dinner, and this upset her mom so much that she beat him to death.

23:17Mary runs and hides in her room, but she distinctly remembers hearing the sound of scissors cutting someone's hair, and she says that the next morning she and her mom went to dispose of Jonathan's body in a wooded area. That was a lot, and this is a tough situation, because as Mary is telling them this story in 2002, all of this information is public knowledge. Joseph's case is by far one of the most notorious in Philadelphia history, so while this information about him eating and throwing up baked beans and having his nails and haircut recently does all match. It's all information that's been told to the public.

24:00But here's where it gets really tricky. According to the psychiatrist who'd been treating Mary, she'd been telling the same story with the same details since 1989, and the information about Joseph eating baked beans shortly before he was killed wasn't made public until 1999, a whole decade after Mary first mentioned that detail. Now, Bill Kelly believes Mary. He's ready to take this all the way. But Tom Augustine doesn't believe that they have enough to verify that Mary is telling the truth. And ultimately, this doesn't go anywhere. So they go back to the Nicolettis, and in 2007, they finally get a court order for Anna Marie's DNA.

24:44But it's not a match. After 50 years of investigating this case, of trying to identify Joseph, they are right back at square one. But Joseph isn't forgotten about. His case continued to be reviewed. His DNA was entered into CODIS and it's run again and again, but there were no hits. Then, in April 2019, the PPD gets another court order to exhume Joseph's body again. They take more DNA, they work with the FBI, and a very high-tech lab in Europe, and for the first time ever, they get a full sample of his DNA. He's then reburied again, but this time with a new headstone that read, America's Unknown Child.

25:34But of course, basically the entire world, and especially DNA technology, has changed so much since they got that partial sample over 20 years ago. There are more databases, the testing is much more sensitive, and it's just overall a lot easier to identify someone using DNA. And the VDoc Society is still helping, including Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick. She's not only a member, but a genetic genealogist and the founder of Identifiers International. Another genetic genealogist named Misty Gillis also joins the team to help identify Joseph. Misty is actually Identifier's senior forensic genealogist. They have the best and brightest working on this case, and it almost takes three years, but they get a match.

26:23It starts with some distant cousins, but as investigators follow up with these cousins and hunt down any record they can find, they find who they believe to be Joseph's mother, Betsy Abel. They get more court records to identify all her children. It turns out that she had six children in total, but only one boy is born before 1957, so they focus on him. They get his birth certificate and track down the father that's listed, Gus Zarelli. By this time, both Betsy and Gus have passed away, but they are able to obtain a DNA sample from another living relative. According to most sources, this was one of Joseph's half-siblings, and over 60 years since Joseph was found, they had their definitive match.

27:11The boy in the box, America's unknown child, was Joseph Augustus Zarelli. They announced this in December 2022, and Joseph's headstone was replaced once again, but this time with his name. This was not only just a huge moment in Joseph's case, a huge moment for genetic genealogy, but also for this community who had mourned Joseph for decades. This was another part that got me so choked up, but in my research I found some statements from an employee at the cemetery. His name is Dave Drysdale. He says that Joseph has always had visitors at his grave who stop by with flowers or just a short prayer for him.

27:54And at least twice a year, investigators and members of the VDoc Society would bring him flowers too. There's also been a marker in the area where he was first found for decades, where again, countless people have gathered to commemorate his life and show their love. Joseph has never been forgotten about, and I just think it's a really beautiful thing in the face of something so unspeakable. But while Joseph has now been identified, and this is a huge win, His case is still unsolved. So, what happened to Joseph Augustus Zarelli? Well, there are still a lot of unanswered questions in this case.