Hi. I've Mo from the It's Our Truth podcast and I'm here with Angie.
Hi. I'm Angie for Angelina Wilson from Kidnesssing TV and Kidnesssing Radio.
And you probably recognize Angree's voice from our previous episode about the Boy in the
Box, which is what we're here to discuss today. Obviously, there was
a big press conference today that we have been waiting all week four, and
we're going to talk about it. We're also going to talk about some questions
that we still have and some speculation that's already floating out there. It's only
been an hour and a half people, but here we are, so let's
talk about out what we know. Well, we know his name was Joseph
Augustus Zarelli. What a middle name to resettle it really is. We know
that he was born on January thirteenth, nineteen fifty three, and making him
officially four years old at the time of his death, and then he was
for a month before. Yeah, and he was found on February twenty fifth,
nineteen fifty seven, which you know if you listen to our previous coverage
because both of our individual shows have covered it. Angie is the like go
get or team leader for the Facebook group that is like doggedly daily. Where's
the update from the votox society? Where is it? Where is it?
I've seen people posting it all the time and I'm like, I'm waiting too.
Did you also hear the rumors that they were going to identify him,
like a couple days before they announced it, Because the two days before they
announced, Hey, next week, there's going to be a press conference.
I kept seeing things on Reddit threads like they know who he is, and
I'm like, well, who is he? No. I first heard that
they were going to announce it when my friend Lynn Hanson got a hold of
me because she's coming here for the new year and she's from Alabama. We
had worked on Mississippi Delta Don together as well as the case of Daniel Burder,
and she had said, did you hear about the boy in the box?
I said, what about him? She said have a name? I
said what? And she to her Facebook and her Facebook had the article and
that was the first that I had. It's for two days before. Well,
so I had web alerts set up for him, and so I think
that's part of it. Because when we did the episode, Google alerts anymore.
I had Google alerts for just the Vodox Society in general, v Doc
Society in general, and America's Unknown Child and the Boy in the Box,
and like various Google alerts, and so I was seeing things on Reddit forums.
But it was like a day and a half before they announced, Hey,
we're going to do a press conference. We know who he is.
And so I was just going crazy for those two days, just thinking,
Okay, well, it's nothing. But I've had experience in the past with
fellow podcasters that I know that had to do with these Zodiac killer cipher being
solved. And I heard rumors about that two days before, and I'm like,
I don't know. This is how the true crime community works sometimes,
like leaks, there's leaks. There's always a week leak. So we know
that they identified the Boy in the Box. We know his name's Joseph Augustus
Zarelli. We also know that Italian. Yeah, we know that they used
genealogy to solve this case. First they identified who they the mother. So
they then once they had identified who they believed to be the mother, they
went back and looked at birth records. They found a birth record that basically
had no match for any other information, a death certificate, a social Security
car number. They realized that this particular birth certificate did not have a Social
Security number that was ever issued, so they believed that this must be him.
Then they did the paternal line of the person that was on the birth
record to try and make a conclusive match, and that is what they did.
Yeah, I found miss I missed the very beginning. Oh okay,
So the reason that I bring it up is because these are some other things
we know. We know that that Joseph Augustus Zarelli has siblings who are living.
We know that they are using this same technology now to try and solve
at least a dozen other cases. But something very interesting happened during the announcement
that I think some people missed, and that is a member of the press
asked a question and said that the father's line was denying the their involvement.
And then I heard that. So then both the genealogist who was actually the
chief medical officer and the current I think it was the current lead investigator both
said no, we have DNA proof that that that line is correct. So
there's a lot of speculation floating online. Should how much. How much it
I say. Um, so I will say that I'm not saying this.
This is just stuff that is already out there. It has nothing to do
with me. I didn't do it saying that they believe Cynthia Pashko to be
the mother and Augustus Jay Zarelli to be the father. Yes, this is
why I don't think that my st There is a chat that's separate on messenger
and you can join it if you want to. UM where somebody actually posted
August of Joseph Zarelli's death certificate. And that makes sense because the cops said
the name wasn't exact on the birth certificate of Yes. But also so this
is this is what just my personal belief, and I'm going to say why
So I do think personally that he's the father. Cannot prove it, but
I do not think that she is the mother. And the reason I don't
think she's the mother's because they were married a number of years later. Um.
Also, the way that the police phrase it is they said that he
had siblings on both sides, which to me indicates that the mother had had
children and the father had children that were separate from each other. And if
you actually look in the genealogy record. Cynthia eventually married Augustus and they have
children together. Yeah, I haven't had a chance to look at the genealogy.
I wanted to do that, but I watched the press conference and then
I was getting text messages nine ways from Sunday. Oh absolutely going crazy.
So I haven't had a chance to get on the computer and really look at
it yet. Yeah. So then it begs the question one, if the
father's line is saying like denying involvement, is it because the father never knew
he existed because they were not married. Maybe maybe he never knew. Maybe
he thought that she had given the child up for adoption, which then begs
the question of the M theory that we can't at this point discount just because
we know who his parents are, Because the whole idea was that M said
that her her mother had basically adopted bought, you know, actually bought who
they called Jonathan. And we also have the Johnny and the Jonathan of it
all that has been associated answer that. But J was um talkum. The
person that they thought he was would have been a cousin to M, and
his name would have been Jonathan Davis because m's name was Martha Davis. Interesting,
we can say that now everyone's dead, and that's very interesting. But
also doesn't her name out because she was a research scientist with Eli Lily and
she didn't want them to know she was in counseling at the time. But
it's still so even so with that, that's nice to have like a little
loose end tied up there. We don't know that the actual mother didn't give
the child up for adoption at some point because the police specifically said. This
goes into the things that the police aren't saying, and so everybody's speculating.
We're speculating. The police basically said that no one is currently alive that was
alive at the time that could kind of physically place like they have an eyewitness
to interview, And that makes me wonder if there's no eyewitness to interview,
was she in possession of her own child at the time of his death.
Well, interestingly, they said that they had one of this I think it
was one of the siblings in homicide yesterday in the press conference. It's so
interesting. Well, that's part of the reason too that they don't want to
release his name because he does have siblings his parents' names because they have siblings.
But that's what you said. More likely that he was the oldest if
there was no one alive. Yeah, or siblings that he had were one,
two, three, five, young enough to wear the trauma of a
missing sibling later, they were able to be gas lit into thinking that they
never had a sibling, that was just a neighborhood childs or that was just
a cousin or something like that. With children, your memory when you're reinforce
something is so extremely malleable. Yes, So what helse do we know?
We know that at the time, the police said that they were at the
sixty first and Market area. I believe he's talking about the mother's location.
But again that feeds back into Yeah, I really don't know. So I'm
not familiar with the city of Philadelphia, but somebody in the chat said that
that was the predominantly Italian American Italian part of the city, like the Little
Egaly kind of thing. So that makes sense. Zarelli, Yeah, it
does, It does make sense. But it also I don't know what the
laws were in Pennsylvania, but I do know that my mother was born a
year after him, and she was not given her father's last name because her
parents weren't married and she was considered what was called a bastard, and her
father could have been arrested for bastard dree it was a crime. That's very
interesting. I think it would have to do would together he would have had
his father's last name and his name on the certificate if that was a crime
in Pennsylvania at the time, which I do not know, that would be
very interesting to know, especially because at that time period, I personally am
a bastard. My parents eventually got married, but they weren't married when I
was born, and I have other members of my family that had the same
type of situation. But even when I was a kid, my great grandmother.
Everybody when my great grandma died got bonds and things like that, and
I didn't, even though my parents were married by the time she died.
Like like the moral condrum from a different time, it's so antiquated. So
that's also a possibility. But also that that brings us back to then why
would the father's name beyond the birth certificate because we know that at least who
we suspect as the father wasn't married until six years later, right. I
didn't do the math but I saw in the uh what do you call it
in the obitu where how long they had been married, And yeah, I
didn't take note of the date and do the math um. But you're right,
it doesn't add up because he died in two thousand. What was it,
ah, something like that I haven't written down with me. Yeah,
which doesn't Which doesn't mean that they couldn't have had a kid and then later
got married. I just don't think in that time period that that's very likely,
especially since it was like a number of years later. To me,
it doesn't It doesn't add up for the person that is purported online to be
the mother to be the mother. I also don't think about money to get
him all the medical care that he had, and they didn't mention any of
the medical care or what his issues actually were. You'd think once they found
out his name, they would have known all that. Listen, I missed
something at the beginning. Yeah, I think that they just they're being very
careful with their information, especially because, let's face it, all of us
have thought pretty much since the beginning that this is a result of child abuse.
Now that it just has to do with how old some of the traumas
were. That of some of the trauma was old at the time of his
passing, So it wasn't like somebody kidnapped him, did bad things to him,
killed him. It was there. Yeah, he was recovering from what
seemed to be ongoing trauma. He was emaciated, all of these different different
factors. That's true. And so I think that that's another reason why they
don't want because their siblings involved, until they have concrete answers, they don't
want to talk about the parents because the parents are the first suspects, and
it would be that that in any case. And there's something else that I
saw in the chat apparently, and they said he came from a prominent family.
There is a local state legislator. I think it's a state senator who
is stepping down, whose name is Joseph Zarelli. Interesting. Yeah, I
thought it was interesting too. I'm like, well, he's got to be
a relative, but he's got to be I mean, looking at his age,
he's got to be a distant relative. Yeah, I mean, And
that's the thing with genealogy, especially when there's six families, there's cousins,
they're second cousins, there's third cousins, especially if either of the parents have
a large amount of siblings, especially if this or that a long time I
know. And let's face it, even if it would have been one of
Joseph Aubustus's siblings, they would have nothing to do with that, like,
they would have no culpability that would lead to political scandal. So I think
that might it might be related to him, but the stepping down is probably
it's just coincidence at this time. That's what I was thinking too. It
was just weird. When somebody posted it, I went, Okay, he
has to be related somehow. But I'm getting comments because this is a one
pm unscheduled live stream that no one knows exists really yet until they run across
it on the internet. I have lots of fun which bots that are like
want to promote your channel. So unfortunately we don't have a lot of feedback
going on right now in terms of people in the chat. But let's see
if we can solve that. See if anybody else wants to chat with us.
By the way, I will be having Jim Hoffman on Kid Missing Radio.
We are going to have a phone call this afternoon and talk about make
the arrangements. And he has connections in the Philadelphia, PD, so that'll
be interesting anyway. Okay, I'm glad I'm still here. I'm glad they
included Bill Fleischer and the Vida Society. Oh my gosh, which which brings
them to you? I just sent you a link to the live string so
you can go ahead and chare it around. But I had no idea that
Tom Augustine had died six weeks ago. Yeah, I was shocked. I
was legitimately shocked at that. Jim said to me, what, he just
died on MT But his daughter is involved, she knows. I'm so glad
that someone in his family knows. That's very good. Oh my, how
do I share this? Oh? The link took me to Facebook. Yeah,
that that's just the easiest one. I also have a YouTube link somewhere
if you would like me to get a hold of that instead, I'm gonna
share it on my Facebook hopefully people will watch it. But yeah, I
would definitely share the YouTube as well because I can. Well, but I'm
gonna let everyone know on my YouTube that we did this because I have to
go update my YouTube after. Well, I would I mean, I just
am thinking, Hey, it'd be really great to get some other people's perspective
going. But that's what happens when you live stream at me and Jim can't
be here because he's a school teacher, so and he's in California, so
it's a very different time of day. It very much is. I was
seeing in the group that there was lots of people that were saying, I'm
I'm in this country, I'm in that country. How am I going to
watch this live stream? Um? Personally for me? Because I'm in the
Detroit network. It wasn't on my TV at all. I heard that it
was on Peacock that you could stream it. I ended up just watching a
local news channel on the internet their live stream footage of That's what I did
too, NBC three I think it was or something. Yeah, I did
ADC thirteen, I believe something like that. Very very interesting in terms of
we are getting this information and sixty five years later, just absolutely crazy.
And it was also telling to me that the Yeah genealogists said that it was
an international effort, So that makes me wonder where his parents actually born in
Italy and came here and had him well they might have got DNA from the
paternal line that is still in another country, or one of the geneticists also
could have been in another country, because I also noticed that and wasn't sure
if that just meant that they were using geneticists that were like top in their
field from other countries or what. Yeah, and as far as you know,
he was born there and they had I know they had done comparisons of
baby footprints. Yeah, well they may very well, I've compared his footprint
because I learned later on that that is not very good. It's not very
accurate comparison. I learned it very recently actually involved in another case. They
so those are terrible for comparison. And I really, well, that's interesting
because that's what they used in the boy in the Box case. So I
just sort of made mental note of it that that was the case. So
so one question, you know, what questions do you still have? Personally?
I'm wondering, like you said, was he with his either of his
parents? And I hadn't thought of did his father not know? Because that's
possible too, because I know in my mother's own case, her father had
an idea that he had a daughter, but he wasn't sure or he didn't
know where you were. Or my grandmother, well, my grandmother had always
said that my mother belonged to the son of a first cousin of L.
L. Bean. Interesting he had paid another mother eight hundred dollars to go
away with a Mastard child of his. So we think my grandmother also got
paid by telling her that. But my mother, when the DNA came out,
was actually another man's child, and we ended up meeting her siblings.
Her siblings didn't deny her because they always knew that there was another sister out
there. Somebody existed in Massachusetts because and my mother said, it turns out
the man that came to visit me all those years ago and I hid under
the bed, and my mother told him she has a father because my grandfather
Schmidt, the one that I grew up with was I was I gonna say
my grandfather for all intents and purposes, and was Mom's father. He was
there from the time she was a year old, and he had told his
kid's dad, he said she had a daddy, and I didn't want to
upset the apple cart. But he didn't really know much more than that,
you know, And so and it's also possible that that woman could be his
mother. And I'll tell you why because I know, again going back to
my mother's family, my grandmother had her three kids with the man that I
call my grandfather, John Schmidt, before they were married, but after they
were married, he had to adopt his own children and their birth certificates were
changed. Interesting. Interesting, but we do know that they weren't They weren't
married until years after he had passed. If it wasn't add to birth certificate
situation. Also, I'm just so hung up on the police saying that he
had siblings on both sides of the family instead of saying, you know,
he has siblings, like the phrasing. I feel like everything they were saying
was so parsed out and particular about Yeah. Absolutely, net detective somebody noted
he seemed annoyed at one point toward the end, and he really did well.
I think when she was questioning it had already been said twice in the
press conference that he was identified using the maternal line DNA. They found the
birth certificate, and then they made sure that that paternal line was also correct
by DNA, so they already said that at the top and I just looked
at the TV and said, DNA lady, yeah, and then she said,
you know the family, the father's family is denying it. What like,
what proof do you have? And he said and then she said how
or something like. It was so strange. I felt like I understood why
she asked the original question. She wanted to get him to stay outright that
they use DNA, so that we could cut it off at the head,
like the question has been asked and answered, yeah, we now know the
DNA. DNA doesn't lie in that way. But she kept going. He
said it multiple times, the genealogists said it, or the chief medical officers
said it, and it still was being repeated. I felt it very strange.
Yeah, I have talked to Colleen Fitzpatrick and she told me she wasn't
going to give up, and she didn't. She said the hardest part and
she said it in the press conference too, that that was one of her
most challenging cases because in the beginning she was only working with mitochondrial DNA,
which is the mother's. Until they finally got the whole profile, she was
only working with mitochondrial so she worked miracles. That's another thing that was that
was answered for me personally during this press conference is I think that after the
twenty nineteen after they had to exoom the body again to get more DNA,
we're sitting here, especially at the beginning of the year in twenty twenty two,
saying why is this taking so long if the DNA is already existing in
these ancestry databases, etc. Etc. And we got the answer, which
was that they had to basically clean up the DNA profile and that has to
be done very meticulously to make sure that there are no mistakes, and that
is what was helping to take so long from the time that they actually reexoomed,
exoomed, and reinterned before they could even start matching it. They had
questioning. Maybe they're questioning like the fact that they had to clean it up,
so to speak. But all that means is they use a technique where
they literally take the DNA that they have and make more of the same DNA.
They make copies so that they have more of it. Yeah, just
just very They don't move jeans around, you know, right, right,
so people are clear on how they do that. Oh my gosh, what
other questions do we have? Well, it's funny I was taking notes during
the press conference from I was too, they're they're a mess. Oh,
yeah, they're a mass too. You're sitting here with a clipboard one.
Actually, I'll grab one real quick. Uh that it's still this is still
considered an active investigation, which was many times FOR pointed out to various members
of the press as they asked invasive questions as the press does and should at
points now, but things that very obviously they were never going to answer,
such as do you have a suspect. It's like we're just announcing who he
is today. We're not doing that today. That's not what today's the beginning
of the year. What his name was? I did hear that, and
I don't know where they got that from exactly, but yeah, the chief
medical officer's name was Constance DeAngelo. Oh, I was talking about the chief
genealogist. Colleen Fitzpatrick got it. They're now looking for suspect DNA on clothing.
Say that again, They're now looking for what I think is suspect DNA
on clothing. That was I'm going to assume in the box with him,
because I said at the scene, and they did mention, they did mention
the red um handkerchief that they believed at first to be a red herring,
that sort of sea, and I thought that was really interesting, because yeah,
yeah, just very interesting wordy, and then immediately followed that up with
at the time, anybody could come in and view the body. And I
was like, well, how are these two things related? Did we just
make a jump because I was like, okay, why do you think it's
a red herring? But nothing We jumped straight to anybody come in, and
I'm like, are you saying somebody that it wasn't with him, that somebody
left it on him when they went to go see his body? What are
you saying? I wouldn't think it's that that wasn't in the box, that
was in the area. In area was a known dump site, right right
right. But it's when they said red herring and then immediately jumped to well
anyone could come in At the time, I was like, how are those
two things related? I don't think they are. I think there was just
a jump made there that that wasn't meant to write start contract. And his
name didn't have a letargy except the second letter of his first name the middle
name rather than it was obviously a red erring yes. For those just joining
us, we are talking about case updates about the Boy in the Box America
because now known child Joseph Augustus Cirelli. We're talking about online speculation that has
already started about his parents, what happened to him Specifically, We've talked about
the possibility of the different online speculation that who has speculated as his mother might
not be his mother, but that might be his father. We talked about
how that links to what the lead investigators said about the birth certificate name not
being exactly in terms of the father. And we're just talking about things that
we still would like answered. Obviously, we want answered who has done this
to him? Obviously that's the next biggest question that is much bigger than did
his father know about his existence, etc. Etc. Sorry, that's my
phone. I'm still getting texts. Oh no, do you not worry about
it? Did you see my email? I had emailed you and Jim last
week and I messaged Jim the link to the article, and then Jim messaged
me not as a reply, like forty minutes later, it was like,
hey, update, I'm like I just sent you this link forty five minutes
ago, I sent you this link. What are you talking about? He's
very busy. He is very busy. But he did reply to your message
because I saw it when I got your email, and I did reply to
it. Oh I didn't see a reply from you. Yeah, I replied
to it. Oh maybe why would it go to my spam folder? Oh,
I'll figure it out. Uh. Yeah, so just I am.
I was very sad to hear about Tom Augustine, but I'm glad that they
really At the beginning of the press conference paid homage to all of the investigators
that came before, especially because you have you have to remember and obviously you
remember the listener, the viewer has to remember that the police department is the
main cause of why there is a gravestone at all, why he was able
to be moved and have not a name but a moniker, something to remember
him by, and also just to preserve that memory. That moniker is part
of the reason this case is solved. America's unknown child slashed the boy in
the box, the intrigue of it, then the police keeping that alive is
the reason that we now know his name. Yeah, you know what I
think they should do in cases like this. Why not put a family tree,
a public family tree, on one of the family tree websites like ancestry
or my Heritage or somewhere of this little boy, you can it automatically.
If you're living, it automatically makes you private. If you do it on
like Ancestry, I think my Heritage you might do that too, And that
way genealogists like myself I have over twenty years experience, which really helps me
in these cases, by the way, because I know how to use the
tools of a genealogist, so it helps me to do these cases. And
that might by having genealogists like myself looking at the tree, somebody might find
a link to themselves. Put now that you have his name, put his
name in a DNA database as his name with his DNA and see who else
matches and comes forward. And I think, I think though, that they
don't want to do that because they don't want the parents' names released. Obviously,
we're all out here sleuthan on the ancestry sites. Instantly. As soon
as they gave us a birthday and then told us that there was an existing
birth record for him, we were all gone off to the races, all
of us trying to find something, trying to find things that matched, even
if we couldn't find the original birth certificate, which I'm sure is out there.
I also just don't have a lot of paid accounts in these various places
to be able to do one ancestry. And I'm sure you will be off
to the races later, especially because with the speculation, that's the one thing
we know that the birth mother's name is going to be on the birth record
and be one percent accurate because she was in a hospital having a child.
Well, not necessarily, because on the other side of my family, see,
we had a lot of births that happened outside of marriage in a time
period when that just was not okay. My grandmother had three daughters before she
married my grandfather, and she had them with a married man. Well,
they all ended up with different last names. The oldest ended up with her
maiden name, the next one ended up with her father's actual last name somehow,
and the youngest one, oh no, no, she didn't, I'm
sorry. The middle one ended up with her grandmother's maiden name, my grandmother's
mother's maiden name somehow, and the youngest one ended up with her actual father's
last name. But anyway, the point being when my grandmother delivered one of
the when my grandmother delivered the youngest daughter, she delivered her under the name
of the father's actual wife. Wow. So yeah, you find things in
genealogy when you start finding birth records and stuff that's very interesting. Well,
we do know though that they said they founded the birth her ticket for them
through the mother and then they confirmed it with DNA, So we do know
that the DNA profile of that is on the birth or tip kate of both
the mother and father has been confirmed. I understand that. I was just
that does happen, Yeah, it does, It does happen. It doesn't
matter. Now they're all, well, my aunt has severe demensions in her
eighties, doesn't have a clue and actually freely admitted that that happened. But
she's the one that told us, you know, and everyone else is dead,
so it doesn't matter, you know. It's just an example. Yeah,
well, I I think that's probably that's probably it for now for now
only. Yeah, now we know the name. I will send you a
link as soon as I um, actually, i'll send you an invite because
I'll do a um what I do when I do with it a podcast is
I do a an event on Facebook and send invite so people know, right
interesting, but they're not live now because I do it through anchor, so
I have to upload it after. But it's going many more places thanks to
you. You are the one. Well normally, normally I have Chip and
Mikey, so when we do record independently normally, but when we do live
streams, we use stream Yard because we have all kinds of fun banners and
we can highlight comments made by people and to discuss. So I really do
like stream Yard as a platform. Well until next time, I've been and
this is ANGI later got Truth and Kid Missing absolutely and you will see in
the description a link to Angie's show Kid Missing so that you don't miss it
in the future. Buy. Thank you, Bye bye,