Perspectologist

On Saturday evening I was visiting my mother, and we happened to watch the movie Zodiac.  It was was a bit long, but I liked it.  However I found it a little frustrating, but I shan’t say more, lest I give away the plot.    I happened to see a brief appearance by an actor who looked a great deal like Jon Hamm (from Mad Men).  I decided to look up the movie in IMDB just to confirm it was him.  It turns out that it probably was not him, or he was uncredited.  However I looked at Jon Hamm’s IMDB profile, and I saw that he was in a new movie called The Boy in the Box .  The synopsis of that movie sounded a great deal like a movie that had profoundly effected me in my youth called Deathmask .  Through the IMDB entry for the new movie I found a link to a site with information about the real event that both movies were based on.  I tend not to to believe in mysticism, but I am fascinated by how improbably tenuous threads tend to tie things together.  I know enough to know that I don’t know all the world’s mysteries.  And so today I must write about an unknown dead boy.

I had first seen the movie Deathmask one night many years ago on PBS.  It is based on the real life story of a investigator’s quest to discover the identity of a young boy whose body was found dumped in a box in an Philadelphia.  The mystery so frustrated the investigator that it become a driving obsession to him.  I found the theme of an innocent young victim and the struggle for not only justice, but even just an identity for the unknown boy to be very powerful.  There was finally closure in the movie.

I only recently became aware of the real life story from 1957 that inspired the movies.  Regrettably the closure of Deathmask was fictionalized.  The driven investigator was real.  He died believing that he ultimately knew the identity of the boy.  However there was never enough evidence to confirm his belief, and many other theories continue to exist.  To my mind there is no closure.

This world can be a hard place.  It saddens me that even young children bear so much of the pain of this place.  If you would like to learn more about the real life story of the boy in the box you can visit this site http://americasunknownchild.net/ .  Be warned that it is a difficult story to know.  The website contains a detailed description of the story, and photos of the boy.  If you are of an easily disturbed disposition then it may be best to avoid the site.  The case is still open.  I do hope that one day we will know his name and his story and that the perpetrator(s) will be brought to justice.  May he rest in peace.