‘Lunchbox baby’ laid to rest after nearly 70 years

Remains of infant found in 1958 finally given proper burial

Cambria County Coroner Jeff Lees announced that infant remains found in an Ehrenville Borough building in 1958 have finally been given a proper burial.

Lees, who made the announcement during a press conference Friday, called the closure of the case "a load off my shoulders."

The remains of the stillborn baby, estimated to be about 22 weeks gestation, have been in the possession of the coroner's office for decades due to the lack of legal documentation needed for burial.

In outlining the case, Lees said the "lunchbox baby" has been passed down over the years from one coroner to the next, but very little information was known.

The case was always described as "a baby found in a lunchbox in a partition wall somewhere up around South Fork," he said, but with so little to go on, many thought the mystery would never be solved.

Last year, though, while holding a news conference about an unrelated case, Lees told the story of the lunchbox baby to the news media, who in turn published articles and videos about the unresolved case.

The day after that July 2025 news conference, Lees received a phone call. That caller was James Koban, who saw the story on the news and in the newspaper and said, "'Jeff, I'm the one that found that baby,'" Lees said Friday.

"To me personally, it was like finding a pot of gold," Lees said. "So I sat down with him and a paper and pencil and wrote everything this gentleman had to say."

He found out that Koban, now 88 and living in the Portage area, was a young man when he purchased the property in 1958 after he got married. While Koban was tearing down the building, he found the baby wrapped in paper towels, inside a wall. He got a lunchbox from his grandfather and they placed the baby inside, then called the state police, Lees said.

The baby has been known as the "lunchbox baby" for decades due to those events.

While the state police and coroner's office investigated the case back in the 1950s, with no additional information to go on, it remained open.

Lees said with the new information Koban supplied, such as the exact location of the building and information about its past usage -- a doctor's office, a post office, a bowling alley in the basement and a series of apartments on the top floor -- the coroner's office did some digging and found the information needed to fill out the state-required paperwork to lay the baby to rest.

"So last week, I'm proud to say, the baby has been properly buried. I had a priest come and offer a blessing and the baby was buried in a vault," Lees said, noting that the remains were wrapped in a donated baby quilt.

Lees emphasized that the case could not have been closed if not for Koban stepping forward.

"I don't get to do too many positive press conferences," he said, "but this I can honestly say is a load off my shoulders. It's been a personal goal of mine."

The lunchbox will remain at the coroner's office forever, he said, as an educational tool, but in a completely different way.

"My goal in using this lunchbox ... is going to be about 'never give up,'" he said.

In addition, it's a reminder to not brush off old, open cases and to be transparent. Lees said if he wouldn't have been transparent about the Lunchbox baby, the news media wouldn't have published articles about it and Koban would have never seen the story and stepped forward, meaning the remains could not be buried.

"The lunchbox will remain here with the case in detail of what it took to accomplish this," Lees said.