Joseph Augustus Zarelli is only one of Philadelphia’s children whose killing needs to be solved
Despite a breakthrough in the 65-year-old killing, I find it hard not to think of so many others who are still waiting for answers.
Finally, we have a name.
Joseph Augustus Zarelli.
After more than six decades of being known as the “Boy in the Box,” we now know the identity of the remains of the once-anonymous little boy whose body — bruised and scarred from who-knows-how-many beatings — was found in a weed-strewn lot in Fox Chase in 1957.
“Because after all, what can we hope for in life and death but to be buried under a stone carrying our own name?” said Colleen Fitzpatrick, president of the Identifinders International genealogy group.
Fitzpatrick was one of about a half-dozen people who spoke at a news conference at the Police Department’s Broad Street headquarters on Thursday, where officials revealed the identity of the 4-year-old in one of the city’s most notorious cold cases.
Many of the people who had dedicated their lives to solving the case are gone. But their work — and the efforts of countless others — was the reason why the long-awaited identification was possible.
It was certainly cause for celebration, even if there are still many unanswered questions about Joseph’s death — and life. The police said that Joseph’s relatives once resided in West Philadelphia. Detectives also said they have their “suspicions” about who killed the child. But the police provided few other details — after 65 years, the case remains an active homicide investigation.
So here we are — with a small measure of dignity and peace for a little boy and his family. Police said his parents are deceased, but a number of Joseph’s relatives are still alive.
And yet — in a city where roughly half of all homicides go unsolved — I found it hard not to think of so many others left waiting.
This is a city where thousands of other grieving families routinely wait months, years and decades for answers — if they ever get them at all.
This is a city where the loved ones of homicide victims struggle to get in touch with the overworked detectives who are assigned their cases. Out of desperation, some family members turn into amateur sleuths themselves, trying to solve murders on their own.
This is a city where families hold fish fries to raise money for billboards begging the public for answers police haven’t given them.
And so, as I sat listening to officials talk about the time, energy, resources, and effort behind solving what is believed to be the longest continuously investigated homicide in the city’s history, I couldn’t help but wonder:
What about them?
“I would ask that everyone not lose hope,” said Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.
Ryan Gallagher, of the department’s forensic science office, said that the identification marks the first “but definitely not the last” in a new partnership between the medical examiner and the police. A key aspect of that collaboration is a committee made up primarily of detectives and forensics experts, which meets weekly to review cold cases and determine which might benefit from improved technology. Police said the committee is considering “dozens” of cases from the past seven decades.
That caught my attention. Detective Robert Hesser, who was among those present on Thursday, and his now-retired partner Gregory Santamala were the police officers who were able to track down the boy’s birth certificate.
Hesser also happens to be the detective on a haunting unsolved case from February 2016.
James Walke III was shot 12 times in broad daylight in Germantown.
Since that day, Walke’s mother, Yullio Robbins, has been one of those parents on their own mission to find some semblance of justice for their children.
As I left the news conference Thursday, I called Robbins.
She told me she had been watching the news of the “Boy in the Box” closely, wondering if there was something that helped the police in Joseph’s case that could be used to solve the murder of “my James.”
But she had no idea the detectives on her case were among those who were able to identify the boy.
“There’s still hope,” she told me.
That may be the prayer of every family who has lost a loved one to homicide — far too few of them in our city, though, ever have it answered.