Police reveal identity of murdered ‘Boy in the Box’ six decades on

The marker of the grave of a small boy whose battered body body was found abandoned in a cardboard box 66 years ago (Matt Rourke/AP/PA)

Nearly 66 years after the battered body of a young boy was found stuffed inside a cardboard box, police in the US city of Philadelphia have named him as Joseph Augustus Zarelli.

The authorities hope it will bring them a step closer to the boy’s killer and give the victim — known to generations of Philadelphians as the “Boy in the Box” — a small measure of dignity.