This film is based on a true case in Philadelphia of a boy found dead in 1957. The boy's body, bruised and naked, was found in a cardboard box in a patch of woods off a dirt road on the city's outskirts in February 1957. He was a symbol of child abuse at its worst. To this day, he has no name.
In 2022, through DNA technology, the victim in the case that the movie was based on was finally identified as 4 year old Joseph Augustus Zarelli, of West Philadelphia. May he finally rest in peace.