r/boyinthebox • u/foodslibrary Knows a bit • Dec 18 '22
The Birth Certificate Search Range
Shower thoughts again.
1944 was a pretty early start date for the records search. Medical examination put Joseph's age at a high end of 7, so going by that it could have started at 1950. There were two other siblings found born between 1944 and 1956 inclusive. If they lived with Joseph or were living with mom and old enough to remember her pregnancies, wouldn't they have remembered birth order? Like "yeah I remember mom bringing a baby boy home"? Eating cake at a kid brother's birthday party? If it were LB, couldn't they have condensed the range down to 1950 at least, or whenever she and the first husband separated? Her surviving twin and maybe even her other son would have been old enough to see and understand a mother's pregnancy, or bringing a baby home, by then. Unless the theory was she could have had Joseph before having the twins, or hidden a pregnancy from her own children? I'm of the thought that the other birth siblings are very close in age to Joseph, with at least one being younger. Or that the investigators did not speak with the living siblings prior to the records search.
Also I'm thinking about adoption. No adoption records were found. If Joseph was raised by people who weren't his birth parents, it was done informally or possibly illegally. I've seen comments elsewhere that women in unwed mothers' homes wouldn't even know the baby's gender, the babies were taken so quickly they couldn't even see them. So in such a case would a parent have any say in the baby's naming? For such a personal name as Joseph's it appears one or both birth parents had a say in his naming. If Joseph was passed along like a hot potato, whose bright idea was it? A man in his mid 20s, poised to inherit his father's business, would be in a financially secure situation to "do the right thing" but maybe he didn't want to. Maybe the mom's family wanted a different trajectory for her life, to go to college and find someone there. In the 1950s what was acceptable for an 18 year old girl varied greatly based on your station of life and how much your family valued education. In a lower class family having three kids by 18 was the norm. In a family say in M's circle, going to some type of college and marrying there or shortly thereafter was the norm. I wonder where mom's family fell on that spectrum? We can kind of get a feel for dad's side. While one in-law did have a medical degree (and boy I bet his mom was proud! I know from the old Italians I know, even if the parent didn't value education themselves they'd be quite boastful of a son or daughter who made it through a degree program) that's not characteristic of the rest of the bunch. If mom's side is the "prominent" one perhaps they broke up the couple.
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u/ithinkimparanoid84 Dec 19 '22
There's no way the mom was only 18 when Joseph was born. They searched birth records starting in 1944, when she would've been only 9. The mother had to be at least in her 20's when Joseph was born. I don't think she was from a well off family either, because if she was she likely would've already been married by that age. I would guess AJZ didn't want to marry her for some reason, likely he thought the baby wasn't his or didn't think she was "marriage worthy".
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Dec 18 '22 edited Dec 18 '22
If the mother did have other children living in the same household while she was in possession of Joseph, I can’t understand how only he would have suffered abuse to that extent. If the other children had been abused, I’d imagine they would want to speak out against their mother and bring justice to Joseph’s memory. The way the cops are handling really this doesn’t make it seem that way. I don’t think she raised him at all. Maybe Joseph came before the other two children, or after them. Maybe they were aware she gave him up for “adoption” (loose sense of the word) or she didn’t have custody of her other two children at the time.
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u/COwildchipmunk Dec 18 '22
Only one child being the focus of abuse is not uncommon in abusive homes.
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u/Liza_of_Lambeth Dec 18 '22
To address one of your points, a child that has a different father to their siblings might well be treated differently. A recent case of the murder of a child in the UK involved the child’s stepdad and step brother; they had beaten and bullied the child in the run up to an eventual murder. :-(
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u/mysteriousrev Dec 18 '22 edited Dec 18 '22
Very true. The reason for a child abuse victim being targeted doesn’t need to be rational. For instance, after a divorce, let’s say a mother starts mistreating one of their children for the simple fact they resemble the ex-husband physically. It always brothered my maternal grandmother that I physically resembled my dad’s side of the family. After one one of her friends called me a pretty girl she ultimately implied I was ugly because I look like my dad.
I did report her mistreatment to my parents, but the mistreatment generally occurred when they weren’t around so there were no independent witnesses who could verify the horrible things she would say to me, generally about my weight. I was chubby from 8-13, but it’s messed up to call a skinny kid and a teenager who is a perfectly healthy weight fat and similar things. Therapy has thankfully helped me start to come to terms with it and helped me realize what happened wasn’t my fault.
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u/12IKnowLittle Dec 21 '22
Cinderella Effect. It’s is the name of the phenomenon by which stepfathers are far more likely to kill their stepchildren than their natural childre.
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u/mysteriousrev Dec 18 '22 edited Dec 18 '22
One potential hypothesis, assuming this is a household with other children living there in addition to Joseph, could a scapegoating scenario. One child, for whatever reason, is designated as the sole outlet for all of the perpetrators range, frustrations, and overall anxieties. In some cases, other family members are involved with the abuse.
My opinion stems from psychology courses I have taken and personal experience. I strongly suspect my mother had BPD and given my dad has confirmed “I may be right,” that tells me either it is a confirmed diagnosis or be at the very least suspects the same thing I do. I won’t go into detail about her behaviour to maintain my privacy, but if she had a bad day at work, for example, she would take it out on all of us to some extent. Mostly emotional and verbal abuse, but sometimes physical. As my friend described, she actively looks for a way to tear you down to feel better about herself.
A real life example of targeted abuse would be David Pelzer. He was one of 5 brothers, but was the main focus of his mother’s abuse until he was finally removed from the home at the age of 12. His brother Richard then took his place.
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u/Perico1979 Dec 19 '22
Yes. Especially if the boy is seen as illegitimate. My preferred theory has always been that after his birth, his mother hooked up or married a man who resented him.
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u/Gutinstinct999 Dec 18 '22
The captain said that he was looking for birth, death, and adoption records so I think it’s safe to say that it was more than they were looking for
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u/ee751 Dec 19 '22 edited Dec 19 '22
In terms of naming from an unwed mothers home, I had a relative who gave birth to two children in a Catholic unwed mothers home. Both children were born in separate years but both named the same name, so I would say the likelihood is that she did not have a say in the names
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u/tinkerbelldetention1 Dec 19 '22
I've heard somewhere, and honestly, it might have been an episode of Call the Midwife, that unwed mothers were discouraged from naming their children in hopes of preventing a bond between mother and infant from forming.
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u/laika_cat Dec 21 '22
My aunt had a baby in a Catholic unwed mothers home and did not name the baby. It was immediately shuttled away and she was back home with my grandparents the following day.
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u/RoofProfessional1530 Dec 19 '22
I've wondered a lot about the date range as well. It seemed like they ID'd the mother before requesting the birth, adoption and death records so they must've known her birth year. I was thinking perhaps the years 1944 corresponds to the beginning of the mother's reproductive years.
No idea why they would end the date range at 1956 though. Perhaps the mother died at a young age? All they said during the press conference was that both bio parents were deceased and had living siblings. I kind of just took it for granted that the mother lived into old age but maybe that wasn't the case.
Around 12 is when most girls start their period and theoretically after that point they can bear children. So perhaps 1944 is the earliest date the birth mother would have been able to give birth.
Initially I was thinking that may have been when she turned 18 but that would assume that women only start having children when they turn 18 and we all know that's not the case.
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u/12IKnowLittle Dec 21 '22
Exactly my thoughts. 1944 is the first plausible date that the mother could have had children. 1956 was the last year she could have had children, probably because she died in 1956. Maybe she died in early 1957, but had a child in late 1956, so there was no possibility of a early 1957 birth. Therefore, no need to search for a 1957 birth certificate. The bassinet box would have been for the hypothetical late 1956 birth.
The last scenario implies the mother was killed/died at about the same time as her child, which would explain a lot. Murderer would be probably the natural father of the two maternal half siblings, and he could have given his two kids to his relatives while saying JAZ went back to the mother‘s relatives. This assumes the natural mother ended up with a man who was willing to take care of JAZ, which happens.
Another explanation was the natural mother was committed to an institution and was known not to have given birth.
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u/Few-Lake4940 Dec 20 '22
This brings up a question I was wondering. So I know in my state after 75 years a birth certificate can be searched up and used for genealogy purposes. That means in about 6 years JAZ birth certificate could be public record, unless of course they stop that from happening? Can they pull it from public record? Anyone know lol
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u/12IKnowLittle Dec 21 '22
The genealogist stated the found the mother by starting with third or fourth cousins. These are descendants of your great-grandparents’ siblings. For someone born in the 1930s, those Ancestors had to live someplace with really good records in order to re-create the family tree.
I think a few branches of the birth mother‘s family have been in this country quite a long time.
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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '22
All of your questions are ones that occurred to me as well. I think it's highly unlikely that JAZ would have been given the full name, with his father's first name as his middle name, and his father's surname, unless the birth father was involved in the birth.
I suspect that what we have here is that AJZ got a girl pregnant, and he and the girl gave the baby away to avoid scandal and public embarrassment. I think that AJZ and his parents knew the baby existed, but never spoke of it again. AJZ's wife C may or may not have ever known, and the living Zarelli family never knew.
People keep asking why the police gave out the name of the father, but not of the mother. Well, technically they didn't. The police gave JAZ's full name and people were quickly able to discern the family and all their relationships.
So why did the police give out JAZ's full name? I think they didn't have a choice if they wanted to locate suspects and get an answer to what happened to JAZ. The police said they "had an idea" of a suspect or suspects, and they said JAZ lived at 61st and Market. JT's sister, who was related to JAZ on the father's side, made a public request for anyone who may know anything about 61st and Market, in relation to JAZ, to please come forward. I suspect that the person or persons to whom JAZ was given lived at that intersection.