Creepy Facts, Conspiracies and Stories

Seven: The Boy in the Box

This case is hella disturbing, it's literally one of the reasons this book is labeled mature. So don't you dare get angry at me if you get triggered or something. Just putting this out here just in case. 

Known as "America's Unknown Child", the Boy in the Box has gone unsolved since the discovery of his body on February 25, 1957.

On February 25th, a college student named Fredrick Benosis reported finding the nude body of what appeared to be a young boy age 4 to 6 years old, wrapped in a flannel blanked inside a cardboard box from a JC Penny's store.

However, this wasn't the first discovery of the boy. Two days prior, a young man spotted the body when he was checking on his muskrat traps in this rural area. Knowing the traps were illegal, he didn't tell the police. A few days later Benosis came across the body, he waited an additional day before contacting the police because he was spying on young women at the Good Shepard School and was worried about telling the police why he was there.

See, this is already so many types of messed up.

The boys identity was never determined and the case has yet to be solved. The Boy in the Box was described as having blue eyes, fair competition and medium to light brown hair. He had deep bruises covering much of his face and body and face, experts speculated that due to the cold weather the child may have been in that box between 2-3 days to 2-3 weeks.

Police thought someone would report a missing child or the disturbing photo's that were all over the media would attract the murderer or someone that would know the identity of the young child. Nobody reported a missing child that fits his description and all the leads went to a dead end. 

There's not a lot of case evidence, but the evidence that is there is extremely disturbing. 

- The boys hair was crudely cut and located throughout his body, indicating it was either cut when he died or right before he died.

- His hands and feet were wrinkled, meaning he was submerged in water for a long time just before or after he died. 

- He had not eaten 2-3 hours before death

- His esophagus contained a dark, brown residue, meaning he possibly vomited shortly before death. 

- He was severely malnourished

-The cause of death was a blow to the death. 

There are also many theories about who possibly could've have killed the unknown boy, but most the following theories have been disproven or don't have enough evidence to find the killer. 

Frederick Benosis who was spying on young wayward girls was initially thought of as a suspect, but he was questioned and cleared via a lie detector. 

A foster home located about 1.5 miles from the crime sene was the first location the police went to investigate. There were 8 foster children in the home at the time. All the foster children were there and accounted for so the home a ruled out. However, a few people think that Arthur Nicoletti, the man who ran the foster home, in somehow involved. He refused to take a lie detector test and a psychic hired to assist in the case led investigators directly to the foster home (without ever visiting the area) 

The strongest lead occurred in May 2002, when a business woman (known as "M") from Cincinnati, Ohio, claimed her mother purchased the boy from his parents in 1954. They named the boy Jonathan. He was regularly abused and housed in the basement. He was described as being handicapped and could not speak. "M" claimed her mother killed him in February 1957 in a fit of rage by throwing him down on the floor after he vomited in the bathtub after eating baked beans. Investigators thought this was the lead they were looking for to finally solve the case. However, after six months of trying to corroborate her story, it was determined that "M" had a history of metal health problems and none of the information she passed could be proven. 

Hope of solving this 53 year old case is quickly fleeing.  The police officers and investigators who tried keeping this case moving forward are passing away or too old to continue pursuing the occasional lead that comes their way. Chances are, the individual(s) that commuted this crime have since died and will never face justice for their crime.