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Speaker 3: Welcome back, Thank you for tuning in Hope. Everyone is
Speaker 3: having a fantastic May. This week, I'm covering a case
Speaker 3: that involves children, So if that's not for you, just
Speaker 3: skip on over this episode. Just giving a heads up.
Speaker 3: This is a pretty well known case that is just
Speaker 3: sad and bizarre. This is the case of a four
Speaker 3: year old boy named Bobby Dunbar who just vanished during
Speaker 3: a family excursion in Louisiana. Eight months later, the family
Speaker 3: claims Bobby was found in Mississippi and reunited with them.
Speaker 3: And about a century later, that claim was tested by
Speaker 3: DNA and for those that don't know the results, you
Speaker 3: have to wait till the end. So let's just jump
Speaker 3: right in all the way back in August of nineteen twelve.
Speaker 3: It was August twenty third. It was a Friday. The
Speaker 3: Dunbar family was on vacation in Louisiana at their cabin
Speaker 3: by Swayze Lake at Saint Landry's Parish. It was the
Speaker 3: Dunbar family, Percy who was the father, and Lessie who
Speaker 3: was the mother, their children, Alonzo who was two years
Speaker 3: old and four year old Bobby, as well as some
Speaker 3: other friends and family members. There was a total of
Speaker 3: eleven people on this little getaway. That morning, Percy, the
Speaker 3: Dunbar father, he had to take a quick little trip
Speaker 3: to go back to work to take care of some stuff,
Speaker 3: and little four year old Bobby was not happy about this.
Speaker 3: He threw a little fit and he had a little
Speaker 3: straw hat on and he broke a piece of the
Speaker 3: strap that goes around his face to kind of hold
Speaker 3: it in place. Like he was on vacation, he wanted
Speaker 3: his dad to bring him around. They had plans to
Speaker 3: go fishing, but Paul Mizzy, who was a thirty year
Speaker 3: old family friend who was also part of the vacation,
Speaker 3: he was going down to the lake to look for garfish,
Speaker 3: so he ended up bringing the boys, including Bobby. I
Speaker 3: say lake, but it was a really swampy area with
Speaker 3: a lot of like alligators and it was just it's
Speaker 3: more of a swamp, but it is a lake, swamp,
Speaker 3: lake lake. So the boys headed down to go look
Speaker 3: for garfish. Unless he stayed behind, starting to prepare for
Speaker 3: a fish fry that they were going to have. They
Speaker 3: all went down to the lake and they shot some
Speaker 3: garfish and then they headed back towards the cabin. Alonzo,
Speaker 3: little two year old Alonzo, was propped up on Paul's
Speaker 3: back during the walk back, and during the walk back,
Speaker 3: Paul recalls saying to Bobby, get out of the way,
Speaker 3: Heavy or I'll run you over. Heavy being Paul's nickname
Speaker 3: for Bobby, and little four year old Bobby the little
Speaker 3: spitfire responded, you can't do it. You ain't no bigger
Speaker 3: than me, and then Paul kind of passed Bobby and
Speaker 3: walked around him, and the group just kept walking back
Speaker 3: towards they arrived at the cabin. They were starting to
Speaker 3: get ready to eat, and Lessie noticed that Bobby was
Speaker 3: not with the group. As any mother would, panic set in.
Speaker 3: She started calling out Bobby's name. Everyone just joined in
Speaker 3: started calling out for Bobby and started searching for him
Speaker 3: because he had his little fit. When Percy went back
Speaker 3: to work, some searched in the direction towards Percy's work,
Speaker 3: and they did find some footprints that headed south that
Speaker 3: matched Bobby's sizing and they followed this trail that led
Speaker 3: to some railroad tracks, and then they just disappeared. While
Speaker 3: they were out looking, they encountered Percy, who had just
Speaker 3: returned from work, and he just joined right in in
Speaker 3: the search for Bobby. And they remembered that Bobby had
Speaker 3: that little tantrum that morning and he broke that piece
Speaker 3: off the strap of his straw hat, so they thought
Speaker 3: maybe it may have fallen off, so everyone kept an
Speaker 3: eye out for that. Everyone frantically searching everywhere they could
Speaker 3: think of. They looked down by the lake, but there
Speaker 3: was no sign of Bobby. The next day divers went out,
Speaker 3: they found nothing. Words spread of this missing child, and
Speaker 3: it said that five hundred people from the area came
Speaker 3: out to help search for Bobby. And back to Bobby's
Speaker 3: straw hat, so they thought that if Bobby did fall
Speaker 3: in the lake, his hat should float. And then this
Speaker 3: is really weird. They started using dynamite and dragging the
Speaker 3: lake with hooks in an attempt to at least retrieve
Speaker 3: Bobby's body, which seems kind of crazy to me, but
Speaker 3: I don't get there. Thinking back then, I just figure
Speaker 3: you could cause harm doing that. If Bobby was just
Speaker 3: along the lake or near the lake, but that was
Speaker 3: their choice. They thought that maybe Bobby was attacked or
Speaker 3: eaten by an animal, possibly an alligator, so some alligators
Speaker 3: were cut open to check to see if there were
Speaker 3: any signs of Bobby, but no physical evidence of Bobby
Speaker 3: was found. Despite all their efforts, no sign of Bobby
Speaker 3: was found, no straw hat, no remnants, nothing. So then
Speaker 3: they went to maybe Bobby was kidnapped, maybe a boat
Speaker 3: came in those footprints to the train track, as stragglers
Speaker 3: have been seen in the area. But besides the thought
Speaker 3: of possibly being kidnapped or eaten by an animal, they
Speaker 3: had nothing. Lessie, Who's was said to have fainted once
Speaker 3: Bobby went missing and during the search, was not doing
Speaker 3: well health wise. This whole ordeal understandably really got to
Speaker 3: her and the family eventually did have to return home
Speaker 3: to Apolosis, Louisiana, while a few of the men, including
Speaker 3: Paul Mizzy, stayed at the cabin and continued to search,
Speaker 3: but eventually everyone left a few weeks later. In the
Speaker 3: Dunbars town, they raised a reward, hoping that someone would
Speaker 3: come forward with information about the missing Bobby. They raised
Speaker 3: one thousand dollars, which today would be about thirty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars for the return of Bobby with no questions asked Percy,
Speaker 3: who was a respected man. He wasn't rich rich, but
Speaker 3: he was comfortable. He worked in insurance and real estate,
Speaker 3: so he was able to contact a detective agency that
Speaker 3: had a printer and they ended up making a bunch
Speaker 3: of missing posters or postcards that read missing. One thousand
Speaker 3: dollars has been subscribed by citizens of Opolosis and deposited
Speaker 3: with the planter's National Bank of Opolosis, Louisiana, to be
Speaker 3: paid to any person or persons who will deliver to
Speaker 3: parents alive. Little Robert Clarence Dunbar, no questions asked, aged
Speaker 3: four years in four months, full size for his age,
Speaker 3: stout but not fat, large round blue eyes, light hair,
Speaker 3: and very fair skin with rosy cheeks. Left foot had
Speaker 3: been burned when a baby and shows scar on big
Speaker 3: toe which is somewhat smaller than the big toe on
Speaker 3: the right foot. Wore blue rompers and straw hat without shoes.
Speaker 3: Full name Robert Clarence Dunbar. These were distributed over multiple
Speaker 3: states from Texas to Florida. Days past, then weeks, then months.
Speaker 3: The bank that held the reward money eventually returned it
Speaker 3: to all who had donated the townspeople and the family
Speaker 3: started to lose hope. Eight months having passed this, now
Speaker 3: April of nineteen thirteen, the Dunbars received a wire from Mississippi. There,
Speaker 3: authorities encountered a man traveling with a young boy that
Speaker 3: matched Bobby's description. The man was William Cantwell Walters, who
Speaker 3: had been seen whipping the boy. William was a traveler
Speaker 3: that took jobs as a hand man or fixing or
Speaker 3: tuning pianos. And when authorities asked who this boy was,
Speaker 3: like what was his relation, the man gave conflicting answers.
Speaker 3: He said, Oh, he's my son. Oh he's a coworker's son.
Speaker 3: Who he's my brother's son. And his mother gave me
Speaker 3: the boy. He told authorities, this is not Bobby Dunbar.
Speaker 3: His name is Charles Bruce Anderson, who goes by Bruce Anderson.
Speaker 3: William Walters was arrested, and this resulted in the wire
Speaker 3: that was sent to the Dunbars for them to come
Speaker 3: and see if this little boy was in fact Bobby. Now,
Speaker 3: when Lessie Dunbar arrived to try to confirm or deny
Speaker 3: whether or not this was her son. The newspapers had
Speaker 3: very conflicting stories. This was a time where integrity wasn't
Speaker 3: top priority for journalism. It was like peak yellow journalism,
Speaker 3: time where selling stories mattered more than the truth. One
Speaker 3: article read how as soon as the boy saw Lessie,
Speaker 3: he yelled mother and they hugged. Another says that the
Speaker 3: boy burst into tears and Lessie could not say a
Speaker 3: certain if this was her son. Whatever happened the next day,
Speaker 3: Lessie he was allowed to bathe the boy, and after
Speaker 3: Lessie said that the scars and moles that this young
Speaker 3: boy had matched the scars and moles of Bobby Dunbar,
Speaker 3: she confirmed that this was Bobby. This was eight months
Speaker 3: after she last saw her son, and she had been
Speaker 3: under unthinkable stress. The Dunbars took the boy home. The
Speaker 3: whole town was thrilled. Opelosis threw a parade for bobby
Speaker 3: first homecoming. Bobby got to ride on a fire truck
Speaker 3: through town. He was doated on by the Dunbars. He
Speaker 3: got a pony a bike the end just kidding. So
Speaker 3: William Walters, who was in jail for kidnapping, begged for
Speaker 3: them to send someone who could exonerate him, as kidnapping
Speaker 3: was a capital offense and this was his life on
Speaker 3: the line. So when New Orleans newspapers sent for this
Speaker 3: person to come to Mississippi to try to help and
Speaker 3: get to the bottom of the truth, and this was
Speaker 3: Julia Anderson, Julia Anderson claimed that the young boy was
Speaker 3: in fact not Bobby Dunbar, but Bruce Anderson, and that
Speaker 3: she was the young boy's mother. She had a child
Speaker 3: out of wedlock with WILLIAMS Walter's brother, and that was Bruce,
Speaker 3: so William would be the young boy's uncle, so she
Speaker 3: claimed that William he was her son's uncle. She claims
Speaker 3: that she was working for Walter's elderly relatives in Barnesville,
Speaker 3: North Carolina when she had this young boy. Julia Anderson
Speaker 3: says that she allowed William Walters to take the young
Speaker 3: boy for a few days to visit William's sister, but
Speaker 3: that William never returned the young boy and kept him
Speaker 3: now for fifteen months. Some articles say that Julia Anderson
Speaker 3: was shown a lineup of five boys which included the
Speaker 3: young boy that was traveling with William and that was
Speaker 3: now said to be Bobby Dunbar, and it said in
Speaker 3: some that she did not recognize the young boy, like
Speaker 3: she couldn't positively identify with certainty, and that he did
Speaker 3: not recognize her. But this was a four year old
Speaker 3: boy who had been away from his mother for fifteen months.
Speaker 3: If it was her son, then like Lessie, Julie Anderson
Speaker 3: was giving opportunity to change to undress the young boy.
Speaker 3: And then Julia said, this is my son. But it
Speaker 3: was already spread through the media and in the area
Speaker 3: that the first time Lessie saw the young boy, she
Speaker 3: wasn't sure. Julia was unmarried and she had three children
Speaker 3: with two different men, all of this out of wedlock,
Speaker 3: and Julia had lost all three, so her status was
Speaker 3: seen as a lot lower than the Dunbars, because this
Speaker 3: was a time where perception and having children out of
Speaker 3: wedlock or being having multiple fathers of children was like
Speaker 3: a huge taboo. And the town seems like they already decided,
Speaker 3: and they were not very kind to Julia. To quote
Speaker 3: a newspaper article about Julia just to show their opinion, quote,
Speaker 3: animals don't forget, but this big coarse woman several times
Speaker 3: a mother, she forgot children were only regrettable incidents in
Speaker 3: her life. She hopes her son isn't dead, just as
Speaker 3: she hopes that the cotton crop will be good. This
Speaker 3: year of true mother love, she has none. Rude Julia
Speaker 3: didn't have the money to hire a lawyer or to
Speaker 3: fight this big court battle as the Dunbars did, along
Speaker 3: with her being an unwed mother, having multiple children, having
Speaker 3: lost multiple children. The court sided with the Dunbars and
Speaker 3: they ended up taking the boy home. So Julia Anderson
Speaker 3: returned home to North Carolina, and then there was the
Speaker 3: whole court proceedings for William Walters, and Julia Anderson did
Speaker 3: go to Mississippi to be a witness that Walters did
Speaker 3: not kidnap the boy. She said, like, that's my son.
Speaker 3: And while she was in Mississippi she made many friends
Speaker 3: and Poplar. A lot of them also thought that William
Speaker 3: Walters was innocent because many had seen William Walters and
Speaker 3: this young boy traveling through before Bobby Dunbar ever went missing,
Speaker 3: and they testified to this. But the court decided, nah,
Speaker 3: this boy is Bobby Dunbar, and William Walters was extradited
Speaker 3: to Louisiana for his trial. William Walters was convicted of
Speaker 3: kidnapping and he was sentenced to life in prison in Louisiana,
Speaker 3: and this is a capital offense. After the trial, Julia
Speaker 3: moved to Poplar into a welcoming community. She married and
Speaker 3: she went on to have seven children. She worked as
Speaker 3: a midwife, a nurse, and she helped start a church.
Speaker 3: She never wavered that that young boy was her son
Speaker 3: and that he was kidnapped by the Dunbars. Julia died
Speaker 3: in nineteen forty and she's buried in Poplar, where she
Speaker 3: settled back to William Walters after serving two years. William
Speaker 3: Walters got an appeal and he got his conviction overturned
Speaker 3: by the Louisiana Supreme Court on a technicality, and they
Speaker 3: ended up not trying him again. They just released him.
Speaker 3: He went right back to his traveling lifestyle, and he
Speaker 3: never wavered that he was innocent of kidnapping, and he
Speaker 3: ended up dying in nineteen forty five. The young boy
Speaker 3: he grew up is Bobby Dunbar. He got married, he
Speaker 3: had four children, and he ran a gas station and
Speaker 3: he died in nineteen sixty six. Now fast forward to
Speaker 3: the late nineteen nineties. Bobby Dunbar's granddaughter, Margaret Dunbar Cutwright
Speaker 3: started looking into the story. This was a story she
Speaker 3: grew up hearing and all the family knew about it,
Speaker 3: about how her grandfather disappeared and then was found. She
Speaker 3: started looking at the newspaper articles and clippings because she
Speaker 3: received a scrap book from her father about the case,
Speaker 3: like just over the years, any clippings, they just compiled
Speaker 3: them all and through him in this scrap book. As
Speaker 3: she read through, she noticed a lot of inconsistencies in
Speaker 3: the timeline and in the narrative of what happened, like
Speaker 3: that some say Lessie recognized Bobby right away, some say
Speaker 3: she wasn't sure. And one article really stuck with her.
Speaker 3: There was like this editorial cartoon that was published in
Speaker 3: nineteen thirteen that read fifty years from now with a
Speaker 3: drawing of an older man and a child, and the
Speaker 3: child is asking the older man, Grandpa, do you think
Speaker 3: we'll ever know for certain what our right name is?
Speaker 3: And this lit a fire in her because it was
Speaker 3: like she was seeing herself in this article, like she
Speaker 3: wanted to get to the truth either way, like was
Speaker 3: this boy Bobby Dunbar? And she made her way to
Speaker 3: William Walter's defense attorney. William Walter is the man that
Speaker 3: was accused of kidnapping Bobby Dunbar. So she made it
Speaker 3: to his old house and by now he had passed,
Speaker 3: but she figured should try, and his granddaughter still lived
Speaker 3: in the house, and with a huge stroke of luck,
Speaker 3: the defense files were all still there, all nine hundred
Speaker 3: pages of them, so she could actually read the defense
Speaker 3: files from the court proceedings. She immersed herself into it
Speaker 3: because while the Dunbars, she wanted to know if this
Speaker 3: was really Bobby Dunbar, because you remember that Anderson family
Speaker 3: lore was that they had a family member kidnapped by
Speaker 3: the Dunbars. Margaret Dunbar Cartwright. Her father was Bobby Dunbar Junior,
Speaker 3: and he actually agreed to a DNA test to get
Speaker 3: some answers once and for all. Bobby Dunbar Junior did
Speaker 3: say that one time when he asked his father, Bobby Dunbar,
Speaker 3: about the incident, like, how do we know where dunbars?
Speaker 3: Bobby Dunbar's response was, quote, I know who I am
Speaker 3: and I know who you are, and nothing else makes
Speaker 3: a difference. So some people take this as he wasn't sure,
Speaker 3: or maybe he knew, or maybe he was sure. In
Speaker 3: two thousand and four, DNA testing was done on one
Speaker 3: of Bobby's children and one of Alonso, who was Bobby
Speaker 3: Dunbar's brother, Alonzo Dunbar's children to determine if the young
Speaker 3: boy was a Dunbar or not, and it showed that
Speaker 3: there was no relation. So this young boy who was
Speaker 3: raised as Bobby Dunbar was not actually a Dunbar. Due
Speaker 3: to that, he was assumed to have been actually in Anderson.
Speaker 3: And if that was the case, this vindicated Julia Anderson
Speaker 3: and exonerated William Walters of kidnapping. Well, even though it
Speaker 3: was a few days he was supposed to take the
Speaker 3: young boy, not fifteen months. But you know, that's a
Speaker 3: whole other thing. But if that in fact was Bruce Anderson,
Speaker 3: that still leaves the question what happened to Bobby Dunbar.
Speaker 3: In nineteen thirty two, the young boy raised his Bobby
Speaker 3: Dunbar said of his time with William Walters that another
Speaker 3: boy was also with them while they were traveling, and
Speaker 3: that one day they were riding in a wagon and
Speaker 3: that other boy fell off, hit his head and died
Speaker 3: and he was buried, and they just kept going. Some
Speaker 3: take this to mean that William Walters had another young
Speaker 3: boy with them. Maybe he kidnapped another boy. Well, some
Speaker 3: think it was a false or in planted memory because
Speaker 3: no body was ever found. And if this boy was
Speaker 3: Bruce Anderson, maybe he just accepted being Bobby to stop
Speaker 3: the beating that he was receiving from William Walters, or
Speaker 3: to stop having that transient lifestyle. Or maybe for the
Speaker 3: pony or the bike, or the affection he got from
Speaker 3: the Dunbars he got a parade, you know. Or maybe
Speaker 3: Lessie did recognize the boy in her deep grieving state,
Speaker 3: convinced herself that this was Bobby because her mind couldn't
Speaker 3: take any other option. Maybe it was a delusion she
Speaker 3: needed to survive. Or maybe it was police pressure saying
Speaker 3: that this was him. You know, that's him. Let's close
Speaker 3: this because this was a huge disparity in wealth and
Speaker 3: social status that played a big part in the court case.
Speaker 3: I think that's my opinion. I just think that. In
Speaker 3: twenty twelve, tal mctheena and Cutwright published a Case for Solomon,
Speaker 3: a book about the case, which is an amazing read.
Speaker 3: I liked it below highly recommend that goes further into
Speaker 3: the case. But yeah, that's it. It's not a super
Speaker 3: If you do want more details, I'd highly recommend looking
Speaker 3: reading that book. But this is a tragic case of
Speaker 3: a four year old boy who vanished during a family
Speaker 3: outing and then eight months later was thought to have
Speaker 3: been reunited with his family. And it took one hundred
Speaker 3: years for DNA to reveal that young boy was not Bobby.
Speaker 3: So did he die from the wagonfall a perish in
Speaker 3: the swamp. While the Anderson family feels vindicated, the other
Speaker 3: has more questions. It's just a really tragic case that
Speaker 3: quite possibly never will be solved. We may never know
Speaker 3: what happened to the real Bobby Dunbar. I would love
Speaker 3: to hear what you guys think and that poor boy
Speaker 3: imagine going through all that trauma. I mean, children are
Speaker 3: very resilient, but to go from family to family, and
Speaker 3: if he was getting abused, I totally understand why he'd
Speaker 3: just accept another family. Just a crazy situation all around,
Speaker 3: a crazy tragic situation. Well, thank you everyone so much
Speaker 3: for listening, and I am getting a listener story ready,
Speaker 3: So if you do have any last minute listener stories
Speaker 3: you want to submit, you can email them to outwas
Speaker 3: at a ghost at Yahoo dot com. It can be
Speaker 3: personal encounters, paranormal, crazy, just anything anything weird. Well, thank
Speaker 3: you everybody so much for listening. Till next time.
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