A riveting true account of the infamous child-murder mystery that has gripped Philadelphia and all of America for more than 50 years On February 25, 1957, the nude, badly bruised body of a young boy was found in a cardboard box in trash-strewn woods of north Philadelphia. Posters seeking information on the identity of the “Boy in the Box” dotted the city and police stations nationwide—but to no avail. In November 1998 the remains were exhumed for DNA analysis, and the boy was reburied as “America’s Unknown Child.” The Boy in the Box is the first book to thoroughly examine America’s most famous unsolved case of child murder—a case that ushered in a whole new era of public consciousness about missing children. Through first-hand interviews and thorough research, David Stout chronicles half a century of shocking and mysterious events surrounding the discovery of the body. He considers the case through the eyes of detectives, some of whom spent their entire adult lives working to solve it. Exploring every theory, profiling a wide array of suspects and informants, and following the national movement to help solve this case, Stout gives readers a compelling, haunting, and unique portrait of a city and a nation impacted by this mysterious crime from the 1950s to today.

On February 25, 1957, the nude, badly bruised body of a young boy was found in a cardboard box in trash-strewn woods of north Philadelphia. Posters of the “Boy in the Box” soon dotted the city and police stations nationwide—to no avail. In November 1998 the remains were exhumed for DNA analysis, and the boy was reburied as “America’s Unknown Child.” The Boy in the Box is the first book to examine America’s most famous unsolved case of child murder—one that led to the “Stranger Danger” child safety campaign and a Law & Order episode. Written in a fast-paced style and featuring never-before-seen photos, it examines half a century of shocking and mysterious events surrounding the discovery of the body. David Stout presents a timeline interwoven with flashbacks, theories, media reports, first-hand interviews, and urban myths—taking us back to the year America lost its innocence forever.