A framed sketch of Joseph Augustus Zarelli sat between two candles by the church altar, and one by one, visitors who likely never met the boy came to pay respects on a sunny Wednesday after Christmas. Some kneeled and snapped pictures and others put their fingers to their lips, then touched his little face in black and white.
A few stood quietly, clasping their hands together in prayer.
“I just felt the need to be here, that I had to be here,” Pat Flood-Williams, 68, said in front of the portrait.
Approximately 200 people attended the noon Feast of the Holy Innocents Mass for 4-year-old Joseph at St. Cecilia’s on Rhawn Street in Fox Chase, including several members of the Vidocq Society, a Philadelphia-based group of crime solvers who often dig into cold cases.
“For six decades, the name Joseph Augustus Zarelli was known only to God,” said William C. Fleisher, a cofounder of the Vidocq Society. “Now his name is known to the world.”
Joseph’s body was discovered in a J.C. Penney bassinet box in a weedy Fox Chase lot, about a mile from the church, in February 1957. Investigators said the child died from blunt-force trauma, and for six decades he was known simply as the “Boy in the Box.” The case remained open, passing through the hands of several detectives, medical examiners, and investigators who have since died.
Genealogists first learned Joseph’s name in October 2021 and Philadelphia police announced it to the world earlier this month at a news conference on Broad Street. In the weeks that followed, few concrete details have been made public. Police did not release the name of Joseph’s parents, saying only he had lived near 61st and Market Streets in West Philly. On Wednesday, Sgt. Eric Gripp said the case remains under investigation and the department is still seeking tips.
While there are several people who share the Zarelli surname in the Philadelphia area, none have responded to requests for comment in recent weeks. A West Chester attorney who had told The Inquirer he’d been contacted by Zarelli family members also did not return requests for comment.
St. Cecilia’s was still lined with Christmas trees and poinsettias during Wednesday’s Mass. Attendees dabbed tears and shook their heads as the Rev. Christopher Walsh spoke of Joseph’s short life and the investigators compelled to uncover his identity and solve the case. He compared the individual or individuals who killed Joseph to the biblical story of King Herod and his quest to kill the “holy innocents.”
“Whoever was responsible for Joseph’s death was sick. It could have been a drug addiction or a mental illness,” he said. “We know that hurt people, hurt people.”
Fleisher said Joseph’s name would be placed on his gravestone at Ivy Hill Cemetery on Jan. 13, which would have been his 70th birthday. He said Wednesday’s Mass was not considered a funeral.
“Honestly, we don’t even know if he was baptized,” he said.
Ray Tancredi, of Fox Chase, said he runs in the neighborhood where Joseph’s body was found on Susquehanna Road, near Verree, and couldn’t get the case out of his mind. He came to the Mass for his children and grandchildren.
“The identity was so important,” he said. “The community needed that.”
After the Mass, approximately 50 people, including Pastor Walsh, traveled to the Susquehanna Road location for another prayer. They stood by the “boy in the box” historical marker, pine trees swaying in the wind behind them. A Christmas tree had been erected by the marker, the name “Joseph” written on toys and ornament.
When Walsh finished, he led a rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
“May Joseph’s memory remain eternal,” he said.
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