Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar

Robert Clarence "Bobby" Dunbar, the first son of Lessie and Percy Dunbar of Opelousas, Louisiana, was born on May 23, 1908. On August 23, 1912, during a family fishing trip to Swayze Lake in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, the four-year-old boy disappeared. His parents offered a $1,000 reward, later raised to $6,000, for information leading to his recovery.

After an eight-month search, authorities located William Cantwell Walters, an itinerant piano and organ repairman, traveling through Mississippi with a boy resembling descriptions of Bobby Dunbar. Walters said the child was Charles Bruce Anderson, son of Julia Anderson, a woman who had worked for his family, and that she had willingly given him custody. Walters was arrested, and the Dunbars traveled to Mississippi to attempt an identification. Newspaper accounts of the initial encounter between the boy and Lessie Dunbar varied, with some describing immediate recognition and others describing uncertainty. After bathing the boy the following day, Lessie Dunbar said she identified moles and scars confirming he was her son, and the boy returned to Opelousas amid public celebration.

Julia Anderson subsequently traveled from North Carolina to assert that the boy was her son, Bruce. She said she had only allowed Walters to take the child for what was supposed to be a brief visit to a relative. Presented with the boy among several children of similar age, Anderson initially could not confirm his identity; the next day, after being allowed to undress him, she expressed greater certainty. Newspaper coverage of her out-of-wedlock children undermined her credibility, and lacking funds for a prolonged legal fight, she returned to North Carolina before later testifying at Walters' kidnapping trial. Despite testimony from Poplarville, Mississippi residents who said they had seen Walters with the boy prior to Bobby Dunbar's disappearance, the court determined the boy was Bobby Dunbar. Walters was extradited to Louisiana, convicted of kidnapping, and sentenced to life in prison. He served two years before the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned his conviction; prosecutors declined to retry him, citing cost, and he was released.

The boy raised as Bobby Dunbar lived the remainder of his life under that identity, marrying, raising four children, and running a gas station until his death on March 8, 1966. Julia Anderson settled in Poplarville, married, raised seven children, and became active in her church community until her death on February 1, 1940; her descendants maintained that she always believed her son had been taken by the Dunbars.

In 1999, Bobby Dunbar's granddaughter, Margaret Dunbar Cutright, began independently investigating the case, reviewing newspaper archives and Walters' defense records. In 2004, after being approached by an Associated Press reporter, Bobby Dunbar Jr. underwent DNA testing, which showed he was not biologically related to Alonzo Dunbar's son. This led both the Anderson and Walters families to view the result as vindication, while creating discord within the Dunbar family. The case was later detailed in the 2008 This American Life episode "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar" and the 2012 book A Case for Solomon by Tal McThenia and Cutright.