Regarding the J. C. Penney bassinet box.
The label on the box indicated it had been shipped to the J. C. Penney store ("Penney's") in Upper Darby, PA .. ~15 miles from where the body was found.
I've not been able to determine if there were J. C. Penney's stores located closer to the discovery site .. the answer to this question might indicate the perp(s) as being either local or not-so-local.
At the time, J. C. Penney had not yet started its catalog business (not until 1962) so the bassinet was purchased at the Upper Darby store, not ordered via catalog.
Also at that time, J. C. Penney operated as a cash-only business, no credit cards (not until 1959), so no records existed of the purchasers of the twelve units that were sold from that shipment.
With the help of newspaper publicity, LE received calls from eight buyers, all of whom said they had either put the box out for trash or still had it in their homes. Local trash collectors said they had long since burned their loads of refuse which might have contained the other boxes. The four remaining purchasers of the white bassinets were never found.
Since there were no missing child reports that matched with the discovery, we might conclude the boy met his demise by the hand of and was disposed by:
1) Family
affluent or at least financially sound, based on assumed medical treatments
2) Guardian (adopted/fostered)
cavalier disposal
Regarding the boy's left eye / socket:
An autopsy picture reveals the left eye / socket to be sunken, more so than the right eye / socket. It is reported the boy was malnourished, this might account for the appearance of the sunken eye but given the cause of death is reported as a result from blows to the head, might we assume that includes a strong punch to that eye? Fractured?
Regarding the bruising on the boy's head, chest, arms and legs:
The bruising appears odd, as if more than one person was responsible. It could be older kids, maybe teens .. picking on the 'sickly kid' or, picking on the 'wild kid'?
It appears the boy was severely manhandled. Was the boy resistive or combative during the episode? Was he capable of resisting? I suspect the boy was ineffectual at defending himself and remained 'limp' during the episode, based on there being no 'defensive' markings on his hands .. or, assuming multiple perps, the boy was rendered helpless as they held his arms and legs during the attack? Perhaps being held down by two teens as another cut his hair (with intent to 'punish' or make him appear 'silly'?
Regarding the 'washerwoman' effects on the boy's right hand and the soles of both feet:
Could be that after the blows to the head the boy was rendered unconscious or even instantaneously killed and the responsible person(s) walked away and left the boy's limp body partially laying in a large wash basin or tub, not immediately realizing the boy was in severe distress of dead?
What about the boy's nails being trimmed? Does this eliminate all of the above conjecture? Was it really someone simply attending to the boy and he did not cooperate and that resulted in an accidental, frustration killing?
The contradiction of evidence is unforgiving.