The Boy In The Box. Found Feb. 1957, Philadelphia, PA

[EastCoastAngel]

He is an unidentified child that was found in February 1957 in Pennsylvania. The case is still active. Here is the link:

http://americasunknownchild.net/

[The Kitchen Guy]

On February 15, 2005, CBS Television aired an episode of Cold Case (http://www2.warnerbros.com/television/tvShows/coldcase/) entitled, The Boy In The Box (http://www.tvguide.com/detail/tv-show.aspx?tvobjectid=100091&more=ucepisodelist&episodeid=4026513). A cursory look at the synopsis tells one that the episode was inspired by this case, right down to a large building that served as an orphanage. (The title is linked to a TV Guide website synopsis of the episode, the show title is linked to the Warner Brothers official site for the show.)

Of course, reality and art part company, as always, when the television drama is solved in 42 minutes.

According to an article about Cold Case on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Case), this episode came under fire for giving the false impression that the real case has been solved - the real case has not. While the fictional version has some parallel elements to the real case, it is not the same case by any means. Several other episodes of Cold Case were inspired by real life cases, although not true representations.

The Warner Brothers official Cold Case (http://www2.warnerbros.com/television/tvShows/coldcase/) site features the opening title of the show, complete with the haunting theme song, an excerpt from the album cut Nara on the album Unearthed by E.S. Posthumus (http://www.esposthumus.com/).

[Brianne]

I so hope they find out who this boy was someday

[Nut44x4]

This case drives me to the brink of insanity. I often look for a missing child match in case something that may have been obvious was overlooked by so many people who have researched this case.

[Nut44x4]

11/20/09 | 18 comments
Keeping hope alive, Milo woman hopes DNA will find sibling

MILO, Maine — Dorothy Brown sees her little brother Freddie Holmes in her mind every day. In the vision, his tiny arms are outstretched as he cries “tookie,” his way of asking her to take him because he wanted to be held.

No one knows for sure, but the 22-month-old boy may have said “tookie” to the person his family believes abducted the blue-eyed, blond-haired tot 54 years ago. Holmes disappeared from his family’s secluded home on Denman Mountain in Grahamsville, N.Y., on May 25, 1955. The thousands of searchers who scoured the area for weeks on the ground and from the air found no clues or clothing.

Dorothy Holmes Brown poses with a picture of her brother Freddie Holmes on Tuesday at her Milo home. Holmes was a 22-month-old toddler when he disappeared from the family’s home in the Catskill Mountains of New York in 1955. Brown recently donated DNA to help in locating her long-lost brother.
http://www.bangordailynews.com/uploads/inline/1258684749_a5d3.jpg
Haunted by the mysterious disappearance of her brother, Brown, 68, of Milo, firmly believes Freddie was taken by someone who wanted a handsome child. Although the case went cold and was shelved, the retired nurse never gave up looking for her sibling.

“I think of it all the time. I mean, there’s not a day goes by that you don’t give it some thought. You just can’t help it — it has become my pattern of being,” Brown said.

It was Brown’s inquiries this summer about a small boy whose beaten body was found in a box in Philadelphia in 1957 that prompted the cold case to become a little warmer. She had been searching the Internet for missing persons organizations when she happened upon the story about the “Boy in the Box.” Her inquiries about the boy, who had the same characteristics as her brother, caught the attention of Todd Matthews, a representative of NamUs, a national missing persons organization.

Matthews said Tuesday he was able to connect Brown and her sister Janet Haiss of Grahamsville, N.Y., Freddie’s sole surviving siblings, to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

In late October, Brown and Haiss submitted DNA samples to NCMEC in the hope that someday they can again embrace Freddie or at least find closure. The samples will be tested against those from the boy found in the box. Brown did not know how long it would take for results to come back.

On the morning Freddie disappeared, Brown recalled, she had dressed him for the day and then left for school with her brothers and sisters. Her father, Roderick Holmes, had left for his job at the town highway department.

Brown’s stay-at-home mother, Gertrude Holmes, had taken Freddie outside to play while she worked in the garden, according to Brown. Gertrude Holmes told police, after reporting her son’s disappearance, that when she last checked on Freddie, he had been talking with the landlord.

The landlord, a cobbler in his 50s who had immigrated from Italy to Brooklyn, N.Y., owned the farmhouse and occasionally would stop in to work in a shed he kept locked on the property, according to Brown. “He would come and go, check on us and then return home,” she recalled.

When Brown was told by the school principal that her brother was missing, she boarded a bus with older students to join in the search, even though she figured her brother would be found quickly because he couldn’t walk very far, and when he did, he would sit down and cry.

Thousands turned out for the search, which continued for weeks. Police first thought an animal might have taken the boy, but no clothing was found. Even though the family lived in a remote area, Brown said the only animal she recalled seeing was a woodchuck.

When no clues were found, police zeroed in on Brown’s father and mother. They dug up her mother’s garden, pumped out a small farm pond, and ripped open floors and walls in their home, looking for the tot’s body.

“I was furious — I was only 14 — to think they would accuse my mother and my father,” Brown said. “I never got spanked in my entire life. That they would hurt their baby was just beyond my comprehension.” She said her parents were given lie detector tests, which they passed.

When police searched the landlord’s garage, they found stolen items — from chain saws to tools that had been hidden beneath the floorboards, Brown recalled. They also found communist literature, which incited some of the searchers, who wanted to lynch him on the spot, she said. The landlord, who was questioned about the missing child and the stolen items, was taken to jail, according to Brown. She said she never learned what happened to him afterward.

“We all feel that he had something to do with it,” Brown said of Freddie’s disappearance. Her sister remembers the landlord saying once that “‘somebody would pay a lot of money for that baby.’ Freddie has such long blond hair, you could put a dress on him; people were looking for a lost boy, not a girl. He was the cutest little bugger you can imagine.”

Brown believes Freddie might be alive. “I think somebody wanted him and took him and raised him as a child,” she said.

She noted that the same year Freddie went missing, another 2-year-old blond-haired, blue-eyed boy went missing from Long Island, N.Y., leading her mother and father to believe the children were being sold.

The family never stopped looking for Freddie, but the years took a toll, Brown said. “I guess for a long time I did think we’d get him back, but then after a couple of years, I knew,” she said. “They used to bring pictures to my mother of dead kids that they found and it would bring it all back again. My mother, poor thing. She was a simple country woman, and to be shown something like that was a constant reminder.”

Although the couple had an eighth child, a girl, four years later, their grief over the loss of their son consumed them, according to Brown. At 52, her father committed suicide not far from where his son disappeared. Her mother died on her 61st birthday of cardiac arrest. “She always said she has a hole in her heart,” Brown noted.

As she grew older, Brown chose a path where she would have contact with lots of people. She would examine the faces of men who were in college with her and in the emergency room where she later worked. When traveling, Brown said, she would arrive very early so she could watch the faces, hoping for a hint of resemblance.

When she learned of the “Boy in the Box,” Brown wrote to New York state officials to get copies of Freddie’s case, but was told there were no records. Brown was incredulous that with such a massive search for a child there were no records. “It’s just like he was an old pair of shoes. They just tossed it away,” she said.

Brown became more determined. She joined Peace4theMissing.com, working to follow up leads for the organization, which helps find missing persons.

“There’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in this country that have been missing for years and years on end; it just boggles my mind that this could happen,” she said.

Some searches have happy endings, while others only bring more grief. In one sense, Brown is praying that her DNA won’t find a match, because she knows it would mean her brother is dead. Instead, she hopes Freddie will walk into her life at some point. When and if he does, Brown said she’ll hug him tightly and will tell him that she never gave up looking for him.

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/130246.html

[lost indie]

I think a clue in this little guy's case is his hair. In the post-mortem photos his haircut is insane. It's patchy and cut to the scalp in places.

Was he "bad" during a haircut and killed?

Was someone drunk when they cut it?

Was someone trying to conceal his identity by cutting his hair? Why do such an inept job?

Did another child do it? Did another child kill him and the parents covered up for it?

His hair was so short in places that it had to happen right before his death.

RIP sweet baby...

[Nut44x4]

Bangor Daily News (Maine)
March 24, 2010 Wednesday

Woman's DNA no match to boy in box;
Milo resident thought body of beaten child might have been her missing brother

It was sheer relief that Dorothy Holmes Brown of Milo felt Monday when she learned that her DNA had not matched the DNA samples taken from a boy whose beaten body was found in a box in 1957 in Philadelphia.

Brown had thought the boy, who was dubbed by the press as the "Boy in the Box," might have been her little brother Freddie Holmes, who disappeared from his family's secluded home on Denman Mountain in Grahamsville, N.Y., on May 25, 1955.

"The chances are better that he's alive," Brown said Tuesday, referring to the DNA results. "That makes me feel better."

Brown said the DNA samples taken from her and her sister Janet Haiss of Grahamsville in late October were profiled and uploaded into the national DNA database for missing persons. They have learned that to date their DNA has not matched any unidentified remains of children in the coding system, according to Brown.

"That gives us hope to keep looking, and he could be looking for us," Brown said.

B.J. Spamer, a forensic case manager for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, advised Brown in an e-mail Monday that her profiles also will be available in the database to compare against any living adults who might have been abduction victims in the past or who otherwise would be a match to her brother.

Brown said she was surprised at how quickly she had been notified. "I really and truly expected it wouldn't be this soon because they have such a backlog [of cases]," she said.

On the morning her 22-month-old brother disappeared, Brown recalled that she had dressed him for the day and then left for school with her brothers and sisters. Her father, Roderick Holmes, had left for his job at the town highway department.

Brown's stay-at-home mother, Gertrude Holmes, had taken Freddie outside to play while she worked in the garden, according to Brown. Gertrude Holmes told police, after reporting her son's disappearance, that when she last checked on Freddie, he had been talking with the landlord.

The landlord, a cobbler in his 50s who had immigrated from Italy to Brooklyn, N.Y., owned the farmhouse and occasionally would stop in to work in a shed he kept locked on the property, according to Brown. "He would come and go, check on us and then return home," she recalled.

When police searched the landlord's garage, they found stolen items - from chain saws to tools that had been hidden beneath the floorboards, Brown recalled. They also found communist literature, which incited some of the searchers, who wanted to lynch him on the spot, she said. The landlord, who was questioned about the missing child and the stolen items, was taken to jail, according to Brown. While family members believe he had something to do with Freddie's disappearance, she said she never learned what happened to the landlord afterward.

Thousands turned out to search for Freddie and the search continued for weeks. Police first thought an animal might have taken the boy, but no clothing was found. Even though the family lived in a remote area, Brown said the only animal she recalled seeing was a woodchuck.

Although through the years the case went cold and was shelved, Brown, who retired from the nursing field, never gave up looking for her sibling.

Brown first learned about the "Boy in the Box" last summer from a newspaper article. Her inquiries about the boy, whose physical characteristics were similar to her brother's, caught the attention of Todd Matthews, a representative of NamUs, a national missing persons organization. Matthews connected Brown and Haiss to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100020825&docId=l:1150296906&start=4

[packy]

So sad to know how agonizing it is for people to wait and wonder about missing loved ones. So many of us have known about the boy in the box but yet there are many that haven't heard about him. Hopefully someday they will find a match for the little guy.

And also hopefully Mrs. Brown will find out what happened to her little brother someday. Bless her heart.

[Amusedtdth]

I think a clue in this little guy's case is his hair. In the post-mortem photos his haircut is insane. It's patchy and cut to the scalp in places.

Was he "bad" during a haircut and killed?

Was someone drunk when they cut it?

Was someone trying to conceal his identity by cutting his hair? Why do such an inept job?

Did another child do it? Did another child kill him and the parents covered up for it?

His hair was so short in places that it had to happen right before his death.

RIP sweet baby...

I remember when I was around 5/6 I deceided that I didn't like the way my hair was cut. Mom took me to get it done for picture day at school the next day. I locked myself in the bathroom, got the sissors and "fixed" my hair. I thought Mom was having a heart attack when I finally opened the door and showed her "proudly" what I had done. I still can't look at my picture from school to this day....maybe he deceided to cut his own and was punished for it. You don't kill a child for something so mundane but some might get carried away. This case is so old but every time I read about I pray someone is still alive and will come forward with new information. He was beaten so bad :1187603408.CR.Mothe