# "Boy in the Box" (1950s deceased child mystery) possibly identified
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boy-in-the-box-1950s-deceased-child-mystery-possibly-identified/975983
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 3, 2022, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boy-in-the-box-1950s-deceased-child-mystery-possibly-identified/975983 "2022-12-03T20:28:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2022, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boy-in-the-box-1950s-deceased-child-mystery-possibly-identified/975983/21 "2022-12-08T20:48:28Z")
[slight hijack] in our last election for county Sheriff, one of the candidates was named “Vice”.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2022, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boy-in-the-box-1950s-deceased-child-mystery-possibly-identified/975983/22 "2022-12-08T21:17:19Z")
I forget exactly when, but for a term Phill had Mayor Nutter.
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### Author:  [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2022, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boy-in-the-box-1950s-deceased-child-mystery-possibly-identified/975983/23 "2022-12-08T21:40:51Z")
Not releasing the parents’ names because he has living siblings.
No word about how it’s connected to a prominent Delaware family.
And in the litany regarding how he was traced, they talked about looking at adoption records, but not marriage records.
Amid wondering about all this, and how siblings didn’t notice he was gone, I’m wildly speculating he was surrendered for adoption, and may have been given the name Joseph Augustus Zarelli at birth, but surrendered later, and adopted by parents who were part of the Delaware family.
Reality usually isn’t that interesting, which is why we have fiction, but my brain is still racing.
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### Author:  [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2022, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boy-in-the-box-1950s-deceased-child-mystery-possibly-identified/975983/24 "2022-12-08T22:17:52Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#):
>
> Amid wondering about all this, and how siblings didn’t notice he was gone…
Maybe the siblings were younger than he was (like, infants), or not even alive yet?
One article I read mentioned living siblings on both the mother’s and father’s side. Which might suggest the parents were not married to one another, and could further allow us to discount any half-siblings on the father’s side, assuming this worked out the way such things all too often work out: dad goes on with his life like nothing happened, and mom is left caring for a child without support. Or, yeah, maybe he was adopted.
Point being, just because he has living siblings doesn’t mean he had siblings at the time of death that would have been old enough to remember him at all, even if they grew up in the same household.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2022, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boy-in-the-box-1950s-deceased-child-mystery-possibly-identified/975983/25 "2022-12-08T23:45:10Z")
Like I said earlier in this thread, it’s also very possible that the father never knew about the pregnancy. This may be yet another reason why they aren’t releasing his name.
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### Author:  [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2022, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boy-in-the-box-1950s-deceased-child-mystery-possibly-identified/975983/26 "2022-12-09T00:42:49Z")
At the press conference one of the speakers said that the father’s name was on the birth certificate.
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2022, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boy-in-the-box-1950s-deceased-child-mystery-possibly-identified/975983/27 "2022-12-09T00:59:12Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#):
>
> Point being, just because he has living siblings doesn’t mean he had siblings at the time of death that would have been old enough to remember him at all, even if they grew up in the same household.
A few weeks ago I found myself thinking about the first pet rabbits my brother and I had. His he named Baby and mine was Crystal, renamed Chris when we figured out it was a boy. I asked him about it and he had zero idea what I was talking about. We had those rabbits for more than 6 months before they had to be rehomed with our aunt’s neighbor when we unexpectedly had to move, and we visited them at least a couple of times.
But Baby made no lasting impression on his 2-year-old brain, even though he _loved_ rabbits growing up had a 3 more over the next 18 years.
So yeah, if the siblings were babies or toddlers, they might not remember Joseph even if they loved him at the time.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2022, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boy-in-the-box-1950s-deceased-child-mystery-possibly-identified/975983/28 "2022-12-11T23:43:46Z")
[Findagrave.com](http://Findagrave.com) has a man’s gravesite posted named Augustus Zarelli, who could possibly be this boy’s father, and at least for now, they’ve disabled the Virtual Flowers function and said it will stay that way until further notice.
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