Amber Alerts: The Boy In The Box

Jaidyn’s body was found on New Year’s Day 1998, in a sleeping bag, weighted down by a crowbar, almost six months after Jaidyn’s disappearance.

On evening of June 9th 1959 in a small town named Clinton Ontario, a couple of hundred kilometres from London, Ontario, a fourteen year old Steven Truscott gave twelve year old classmate Cheryl ‘Lynne’ Harper a ride home on the crossbars of his bicycle, the pair rode along the Country Road. What occurred after this is still unknown, and is still debated due to the wealth of questionable information from varied sources. Around 11:20pm, Lynne’s father had notified officials of his daughter’s disappearance. Just two days later, Lynne Harper’s body was found in a forested area just next to the County Road. Lynne Harper had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

This renowned incident still remains as a ‘mystery’ to the world- purely because it remains unexplained, and no authorized evidence has ever been found to support any of the many assumed theories. However, this absence of truthful information has not deterred investigators into playing their part in resolving the mystery, and even today, there are many on the search to undo it.

“The Boy in the Box” has been a mystery for many years due to the extremely limited amount of information investigators know about the boy. On February 25th, 1957, Frederick Benosis, a college student, reported that he found a nude body of a little boy between 4 and 6 inside

According to the United States Department of Justice every forty seconds a child is being abducted. This works out to be about 2,000 abductions per day and 800,000 abductions per year. This would be 11.4 children per every 1,000 children being abducted. Seventy-five percent of abductions are committed by males. Sixty-seven percent of these perpetrators are under the age of twenty-nine. Seventy-four percent of children abducted are girls. Seventy-one percent of the kidnappers are strangers to the victims. Eighty percent of abductions occur within a quarter of a mile from where the child lives. Less than sixty of the children are returned to their families alive. Four percent of the children abducted are never found. Seventy-four

In February of 1957, a man came across a big box that contained what he thought was a doll, but upon further inspection, he found out that he had actually discovered the body of a little boy.

14 year old Steven Truscott gave his classmate Lynne Harper a ride on his bicycle on June 9, 1959. Truscott had dropped her off before they parted ways. Lynne was reported missing later that night, and two days later, her body was found on a nearby farm. She was sexually assaulted and strangled to death. The community was horrified by what happened to this young girl and everyone was determined to find the killer. Immediately, investigators became fixated on Truscott as the prime suspect since he was the last person to see Lynne. They didn’t consider any other suspects, even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the murder. He was arrested 24 hours later, and stood trial as an adult. (Steven Truscott |

What was believed to be a kidnapping of 6-year-old, JonBenet Ramsey, ended up to be the discovery of her dead body by her father in the basement, after multiple hours of searching in Ramsey's house (Saferstein, 2015.) A major issue with the case was that the house was not sealed off, and multiple people, including their pastor, were able to go to and from with no complications (Saferstein, 2015.) In defense of the police team, in the beginning, they had believed it to be a kidnapping with a note and all, and in the end, it turned out to be a murder. Of course the media's eyes immediately turned to the parents but one of the theories is, "The current theory stands that an intruder, with possible paedophilic motives, was responsible for her death, and while this has become a widely accepted working theory, there are several pieces of evidence that simply don’t add up" (Team, 2016.) The ransom note was 2 and a half pages long, her body was found in the basement of the families home, the cause of death showed strangulation and a blow to the head an hour or so before, and also pineapple that she had eaten recently with a bowl that led to her brother's fingerprints were all clues that didn't add up (Team, 2016.)

The "Boy in the Box" is the name given to an unidentified murder victim, 3 to 6 years old, whose naked, battered body was found in a cardboard box in the Fox Chase section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on February 25, 1957. There are many theories in this case, but the most convincing is the foster home theory. This theory concerns a foster home that was located approximately 1.5 miles from the site of the body. In 1960, Remington Bristow, an employee of the medical examiner's office who pursued the case until his death in 1993, contacted a New Jersey psychic, who told him to look for a house that matched the foster home. When the psychic was brought to the Philadelphia discovery site, she led Bristow directly to the foster home.Upon attending an estate sale at the foster home, Bristow discovered blankets hanging on the clothesline that were similar to the one in which the boy's body had been wrapped.

In an attempt to acquaint readers with the Indiana Amber Alert System’s technology, this report will review its source, users, funding and relationship with the Emergency Alert System, sometimes called the Emergency Broadcast System. History and criteria of the system will be examined, as well as collaboration, sharing and program funding. Local information will be discussed from the perspective of an area law enforcement officer. Statewide information will be touched upon from the perspective of the director of the Indiana Amber Alert Clearinghouse in Indianapolis.

An unexpected murder with unexplained evidence all surrounding a 6 year old pageant queen named JonBenet all happening on the day after Christmas. Although there are many theories about JonBenet, evidence shows that it was most likely her brother. Jonbenet Ramsey was a beauty pageant queen that was found dead on the day after Christmas in a storage room in her basement of her house in Boulder Colorado. Jonbenet was born on August 6, 1990 in Atlanta Georgia, and was only 6 years old when she was found dead. There was a ransom note left on the stairs addressed to the dad and when her mom woke up and came down stairs she found it and it was asking for the exact amount of money of the bonus that the dad got earlier that year.

This is an attempt to unravel the tangle by an objective and empirical examination of information from crime scene and post mortem examination of the victims. Pre-digested information such as speculative newspaper reports, and statements from witnesses other than those called in a professional capacity have been avoided since theirs is largely subjective testimony that confounds more than it informs.

Upon completion of the report, it is clear that an examination of the unresolved murder is necessary. No stone will be left unturned; no avenues left unexplored. To seek justice for Marilyn Monroe and her family, an in-depth analysis must be conducted in order to break down the data and identify a possible killer.

You seem to have a great understanding of the Amber Alert system. You did a very good job of explaining what is required in order to issue an Amber Alert. You mention that a person must be under the age of 17, but to my understanding the article seemed to mention that each state makes their own age requirements. Over the years this system has proven to be valuable and effective in the recovery of missing children.

On the shore of Somerton Beach December 1, 1948, a body was found. According to "The Somerton Man: An Unsolved History,” a well-dressed man was slumped against the seawall with a half-smoked cigarette on his lapel. There was no sign of violence or a struggle. The man carried no identification (para. 1). Initially, the case only had a passing interest in the local papers; however, as the mystery of his identity and the manner of his death deepened over the next few months, public awareness of the case grew and speculation about the Somerton man, as he came to be known with so much evidence lost or destroyed over the decades, and everyone close to the case now deceased, it seems unlikely that we will ever know the truth. For almost sixty years,