re: Four year old boy found dead in a box 65years ago identified

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Betsy — that’s what everyone called her — liked skating, and dancing, and swooned over Italian boys, wearing out the needle on Frank Sinatra records at her home in the Tioga neighborhood of post-World War II Philadelphia. “She was a real beauty,” a close family member recalled this week. Gus was a concrete-and-stone mason, a hard worker in a proud family of Italian immigrants in West Philly. In spring 1952, Augustus J. “Gus” Zarelli and Mary Elizabeth “Betsy” Abel produced a child whose short, painful life, became one of Philadelphia’s greatest unsolved mysteries. The Inquirer, based on interviews with members of both families and sources close to the investigation, now knows that police believe that Zarelli and Abel are the parents of Joseph Augustus Zarelli, a child known for 65 years only as “The Boy in the Box.”

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Betsy would have been 21 when Joseph was born Jan. 13, 1953. The close relative, who asked not to be identified, said she could have put him up for adoption because she had done that before, with a daughter. The Inquirer has been unable to confirm whether someone adopted Joseph. A police spokesperson declined to comment on The Inquirer’s findings.

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Mary Elizabeth “Betsy” Abel graduated from Murrell Dobbins Career & Technical Education High School in North Philly in 1949 and, like most graduates at the time, was quickly thrust into adulthood. A couple of years after she was planning proms, she was dealing with a pregnancy. A daughter was born in 1950 and immediately put up for adoption. The relative believes a Catholic organization handled it. Abel went on to become a cashier at the Goldman Theater, one of Center City’s late, great movie houses, on 15th Street. John J. Plunkett, a man she’d later marry, according to her obituary, was its manager. The relative does not recall her pregnancy at the time but expressed doubt that she was involved in the mistreatment or death of Joseph. “Betsy? No way in the world,” the relative said. “There was no cruelty, no meanness or cruelty that swelled within her heart and soul.”

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The media, along with internet sleuths and genealogists, quickly discovered the small, tight-knit family in the region. Gus Zarelli’s four children have not responded to repeated requests for comment, but on Thursday, Dan Bush, a West Chester attorney representing them, said in a statement to The Inquirer that both Gus and his family have been “attacked in every possible social media outlet, suggesting the most awful of things, all of which are baseless.” “Each of his children is extraordinarily sympathetic to the death of this young boy, and horrified by the events that are being discussed,” Bush said in the statement. “However, until recently, they had never heard of any of this. They have never been shown anything that links their father or any member of their family to this.” The Inquirer confirmed that Gus Zarelli’s niece submitted DNA that matched Joseph’s. Before that, Abel’s relatives had uploaded their DNA for genealogical research. Misty Gillis, a forensic genetic genealogist and cold-case liaison with Identifinders International, built out Betsy’s extended family tree. Eventually, police came knocking on doors to talk to her relatives. They asked about the five Abel sisters, including Betsy. Who was pregnant and when? What, if any, connection did they have to West Philly? The close relative of Betsy’s, who declined to be identified, said the Abel family learned the investigation was about the Boy in the Box only 48 hours before the news conference. “I was stunned,” the relative said. “I remembered the story. We used to get utility bills with his face on it, asking if anyone recognized him.”

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What remains unclear, for now, is how or where Zarelli met Abel, whether he knew she’d been pregnant and had a child. He was five years older and living in the Callowhill home with his family when the 1950 census was taken. Abel’s relative said one of her sisters may have lived in West Philadelphia. Abel did, too, the relative said, on the second floor of a walk-up apartment with Plunkett and their daughter, who was born in December 1956. The couple later moved to Ruffner Street in Nicetown. Plunkett drove a cab. They had four children together, one of them dying in childbirth. Gus Zarelli went on to marry in 1958, leaving Callowhill Street. The family’s businesses blossomed into a lucrative construction and real estate operation in Chester County, where most of his children still live. By all accounts, he was beloved by his children, well-respected by peers, and showed signs of grace in difficult times.

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On Jan. 13, some paternal relatives of Joseph attended a rededication of his headstone at Ivy Hill Cemetery. Some of them are trying to do their own research into the case. “Our family was blindsided by this,” one family member said at the grave. “We want to honor him by finding out his entire story. We want to put a real closure to the story.” Abel’s relative said she later worked at Crown Can company and other warehouses on Erie Avenue. She died in 1991 as Mary E. “Betsy” Plunkett after a “prolonged illness,” according to her obituary. Her relative said she died of lung cancer, likely from asbestos exposure. “She was kind and quiet,” the relative said. The death of Joseph A. Zarelli, who was 4, remains an active homicide investigation.

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