I love what everyone has said here regarding the possibility of this young man having done time in a mental institution, and how that relates to his track marks (given that the mentally-ill often turn to illegal drug use). Really encouraging to see so much tireless research on such an old case.
May I contribute my two-cents (complete, utter speculation here)? I believe this young man to be of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. I saw the post-mortem picture and reconstruction - not to be stereotypical, but those are Jewish features. It is well known that there are many, many Jewish people in the Baltimore/DC metro area (I live in Maryland). We have a very sizable Jewish population in MD, particularly the southern part of the state (think Montgomery Co., PG Co.). Is there any chance that he was involved in a drug deal gone bad, or tried to venture outside the mental institution to go get his next fix, and for whatever reason it went awry
and then his killer wrote "Shalom" mockingly on his pants leg? The Doe Network page says "Crudely written on the left leg of the trousers is "Shalom" and multiple other crude writings." What do you guys make of the use of the term "crude"? As in, offensive (i.e. "kike") - or just hard to make out? "Crude" can have several meanings, so I just don't know, and the Doe Network seems to overwhelmingly present case files in a rather sanitized way; I suppose they don't want anything too lurid or disturbing on there, which is why there's rarely a picture of the deceased. If we're lucky, there's a reconstruction sketch, but it's not 100% of the time.
I also see in the postmortem picture that he looks "roughed up." I know it has been mentioned already that he technically died of pneumonia, but I suspect some degree of foul play. Maybe he was beat up a little, got knocked unconscious (it wouldn't be hard to do with a boy of his age/size), his attacker freaked out and left him in the woods for dead, where he then froze to death?? I can personally attest to the fact that we have some very cold Decembers in MD, and this is before global warming got bad (sorry, don't mean to bring politics into it!) so you just know it had to be nippy out in those woods, at the very least, with a strong possibility of snow on the ground. Add to this, that he was in no way dressed for the weather conditions for that time of year. A real tragedy that he never got to open presents with his family members, like a normal kid his age around the holidays. Really, you guys are presenting very good theories regarding the strong possibility of mental illness and institutionalization
I must say, this smacks of elements of a hate crime of some sort.