Identified! PA - Philadelphia - 'Boy in the Box' - 4UMPA - Feb'57 - Joseph Augustus Zarelli #4

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Not isolated to humans -- a chimpanzee troop will often kill the first-born of a female who joins the group:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Female competition in chimpanzees

Female chimpanzees exhibit exceptionally slow rates of reproduction and raise their offspring without direct paternal care. Therefore, their reproductive success depends critically on long-term access to high-quality food resources over a long lifespan. ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

link.springer.com

Intra-community infanticide in wild, eastern chimpanzees: a 24-year review - Primates

Infanticide is well documented in chimpanzees and various hypotheses have been proposed to explain this behavior. However, since infanticide by chimpanzees is relatively rare, it has thus far not been possible to thoroughly test these hypotheses. Here we present an analysis of the largest...
link.springer.com link.springer.com

I remember learning about this as an undergrad in Anthropology, back in the '70's.
 
Alleykins said:
Here's an interesting article from the NY Post about the Cinderella Effect. I truly believe, based on what we know as of right now, this is what may have possibly happened to Joseph. I'm open to being wrong/corrected as more facts come to light.

nypost.com

The Cinderella Effect explains why stepparents may be a danger to kids

Stepdads are eight times more likely to kill children in their care, compared with genetic parents, according to research published in the journal Violence and Victims. Stepmothers are three times …
nypost.com nypost.com

Some info from the article
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If it is true that JAZ stayed with his mom (it was mentioned in one of the publications he stayed with a parent and the mom is more likely than the bio dad who was never involved) then we may indeed have that scenario. Either MA being stressed, pregnant out of wedlock again and creeping on the poverty line or the stepfather, being stressed from the divorce taking out all the stress on JAZ.
And there is still the bassinet box and a sighting of a blond man buying the cap. Was the stepfather blond? May be a red herring.

I mean it is still possible the big bad unknown foster/adoption home did it. Or some private off the radar foster like some acquaintance or relative or friend.
 
Susikatze said:
If it is true that JAZ stayed with his mom (it was mentioned in one of the publications he stayed with a parent and the mom is more likely than the bio dad who was never involved) then we may indeed have that scenario. Either MA being stressed, pregnant out of wedlock again and creeping on the poverty line or the stepfather, being stressed from the divorce taking out all the stress on JAZ.
And there is still the bassinet box and a sighting of a blond man buying the cap. Was the stepfather blond? May be a red herring.

I mean it is still possible the big bad unknown foster/adoption home did it. Or some private off the radar foster like some acquaintance or relative or friend.
Click to expand...
I think the cap was a red herring..JMO

Stepfather was blondish-brown. He appeared to have distinct features.
 
non_ducor_duco_ said:
I know that if he had been formally, legally adopted there would be court/legal documents/records supporting that, but in the 1950’s was there any sort of paper trail at time of surrender but prior to adoption?

I really don’t want to believe that investigators know for a fact that he was given up and haven’t said so - these families have been through a lot. And I’m a little surprised that no one has come forward publicly remembering his mother having him in her care. It was a long time ago but it wasn’t that long ago.
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A Catholic adoption agency would have been a legal route. It would have been a closed adoption like her first daughter's.
 
Friday Fan said:
We lived in Seattle early 60's. My dad always took our stuff our stuff to the city dump. Never burned anything. We had garbage pick up. I'm sure Philadelphia did too. People like to dump stuff in vacant lots because it's "easy". It's still an issue.
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Philly did indeed have separate garbage pickup. Garbage was placed in a small hot-dip galvanized lidded metal can, about knee-high, provided to every home by the city, and was collected by the garbage man, a man on foot with a big barrel on a hand truck, who would go door-to-door in the wee hours dumping set-out barrels into his big barrel. When it was full it would be taken to hog farms. The practice ended in the mid-70s when it began to be mixed with regular trash. Garbage pickup occurred once a week on days that, in most parts of the city except Center City, did not correspond with trash pickup by the big yellow (now white) trucks of the Philadelphia Streets Department.
 
ifindedout said:
Philly did indeed have separate garbage pickup. Garbage was placed in a small hot-dip galvanized lidded metal can, about knee-high, provided to every home by the city, and was collected by the garbage man, a man on foot with a big barrel on a hand truck, who would go door-to-door in the wee hours dumping set-out barrels into his big barrel. When it was full it would be taken to hog farms. The practice ended in the mid-70s when it began to be mixed with regular trash. Garbage pickup occurred once a week on days that, in most parts of the city except Center City, did not correspond with trash pickup by the big yellow (now white) trucks of the Philadelphia Streets Department.
Click to expand...
When you refer to garbage, are you referring to leftover food and foodscraps? If so, my grandma did this in Maine. I remember plates being scraped into a little metal can she kept in the mudroom, near the back door. Then a farmer would come along to collect it. My gram said it was for hogs. This would have been the early 70s.
 
Alleykins said:
When you refer to garbage, are you referring to leftover food and foodscraps? If so, my grandma did this in Maine. I remember plates being scraped into a little metal can she kept in the mudroom, near the back door. Then a farmer would come along to collect it. My gram said it was for hogs. This would have been the early 70s.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's how I define garbage, as some of my relatives from New England did exactly this too (also including eggshells and coffee grounds). In other places, "garbage" may be synonymous with trash. YMMV
 
scruffydog said:
I am very surprised that no more information has been made public since identification of this poor boy.
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i agree. but i also go back and forth about whether i want to know any more. i look at my own small sons and think of JZ's tiny little body being tossed out like garbage and my heart breaks into about a thousand pieces. i can't imagine his life was blissful and happy until the day he was beaten to death; do i really want to know just how lonely and painful his short life was?

on the other hand, i think we all, as a society, owe it to him to know his story, hold the people and institutions that failed him accountable and protect other children from the same fate.
 
scruffydog said:
I am very surprised that no more information has been made public since identification of this poor boy.
Click to expand...
I think that, although LE said they have a theory about who was responsible for his death, the problem is probably that they can't prove it for certain and the person is already dead and cannot be prosecuted.
 
Happy heavenly birthday Joseph. We may not have known you in life, but you are not forgotten. Thank goodness for the modern technology that we get to know who you are and celebrate your special day. I hope you’re celebrating it with your friends up in the clouds.
 
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