The so-called Boy in the Box has become synonymous with unidentified decedent cases in the United States. The small child, aged approximately three to six, was found beaten to death outside of Philadelphia and remains unidentified over sixty years later. The age of the victim and the brutality of the crime resulted in large amounts of publicity surrounding the case, and investigators are still following possible leads to uncover his identity. In addition to his popular moniker of the Boy in the Box, he is also known as America’s Unknown Child.
But America has seen dozens of other unidentified children, many of their cases not getting a sliver of the attention that the Boy in the Box has. In fact, Philadelphia is home to another unidentified child, found only five years after the Boy in the Box. Despite sharing a final resting place with this boy, no more than a few newspaper articles and a NamUs page remain to show that she even existed. Unidentified since 1962, this girl’s brutal killing has been lost to history. It’s about time she gets the recognition she deserves.
Flash back to an unspecified date in the spring of 1962. A deckhand on a barge going down the Schuylkill River took notice of a suspicious milk crate in the water. Upon bringing the crate on board, he was shocked to find the decapitated remains of a young girl inside.
The girl, whose head has never been discovered, had been dead anywhere from five days to two months. NamUs lists her date of discovery as May 3rd, although a newspaper article detailing the crime was published March 11th. I’m not sure where May 3rd came from, although with the newspaper article coming out nearly two months before this date, it’s safe to assume she was found no later than March 11th, 1962.
She is described as being black, four to six years old, around 3’4″ inches tall, and approximately 35 pounds. Part of her right ring finger had been amputated when she was alive, likely shortly before her death as it was still wrapped in bandages. According to a past NamUs report, there were fractures to her arms, strongly suggesting that she had been abused in life. However, with Namus’s recent revamping this detail seems to have been removed. Her nude body was wrapped in a white plastic apron, similar to those worn in machine shops, and a copy of the Sunday newspaper was also found in the milk crate. If only the date of the newspaper was reported, the date of her death could have been narrowed down significantly.
Although the cause of her death is not known, it is very likely to be a homicide, and whoever was behind this horrendous act went to great lengths to try and conceal the crime. The milk crate was weighted down with bricks, and burns were found on the girl’s feet and back that suggested that her killer may have tried to dispose of her body by burning it in an incinerator. Her head, which was removed with a sharp blade, has never been recovered, preventing a forensic reconstruction or dental records from being obtained. Her DNA is also not on file, but her fingerprints are, which are currently the only way for this girl to possibly be identified.
Theories
Like many unidentified children, it is widely thought that this girl was never reported missing. If her family had attempted to report her missing, it is theorized that police may have not handled the case appropriately due to her ethnicity and the high racial tensions during the era. It could also be that she was never reported missing because her family was behind her death, as nearly all solved cases of formerly unidentified children turn out to be filicides.
The apron her body was wrapped in may be the biggest clue to what kind of life this girl lived and who could have been behind her death. It is possible that she was a child labourer herself, working in a machine shop and perhaps losing part of her finger in an accident on the job. (Side note: it would be great to know if she actually got medical care for the injury to her finger, or if it was just haphazardly bandaged. It would make sense to check hospital records for people matching her description with the same kind of injury that Jane Doe sustained, since it seems to have happened relatively recently before she died. I know confidentiality can be tricky, but she sustained a very specific injury which should be easy to search for. But alas, it seems this was not the case.)
Even if Jane Doe herself didn’t work in a machine shop, someone in her family- and/or her killer- might have. She may have also been brought with her parent to their workplace as an alternative to childcare, and she could have lost her finger by getting into something she wasn’t supposed to. If she was being abused, I doubt her family would risk sending her to daycare or school, where her injuries would be noticed. A connection to a machine shop would also explain how her killer would get access to an incinerator. Sadly, it seems as if she was another child who died at the hands of her family, something that is all too common with child UID cases.
At the time of the discovery, the girl was believed to be Hattie Jackson, a girl who was abducted in Washington, D.C. the year before. Jackson is the only girl who loosely matched the Jane Doe’s description to be reported missing at around that time, but there are some things that don’t add up between the two. Hattie was six years old when she was abducted in July of 1961, and since Jane Doe had been deceased for a maximum of two months, she would have had to be held captive for months before her death. This puts her at the upper end of Jane Doe’s age range, and perhaps out of the range altogether if she had her seventh birthday within this time frame. However, she was the same height as Jane Doe, and if she had been held in captivity and abused there it could account for her missing finger and the fractures to her arms. One newspaper account claimed Hattie Jackson was ruled out as being the Jane Doe, but this cannot be confirmed with certainty. While Jackson is the strongest candidate for the unidentified girl’s identity, it is still extremely likely that Jane Doe was never reported missing.
Lost To History?
While the Philadelphia Jane Doe’s case has long been overshadowed by the murder of the Boy in the Box and many other unidentified cases, she has not been forgotten. In August of 2018, her body was exhumed in hopes that analysis of her DNA may provide crucial evidence to her identity. As of now, no updates have been posted about the results of this testing, but I will update this post if and when new information comes to light.
It has been over fifty years. It’s about time that this little girl gets her identity back.
Morbid World 