A four-year-old boy went missing from a family picnic and was never found again after years of investigation is as spooky as it sounds. Booby Dunbar was a little American kid, who went missing during a family fishing trip, and returned home eight months later, but later, after a DNA Test, it was clear that the boy who returned was Bruce Anderson. After 109 years of the incident, he is presumed dead in absentia. Bobby Dunbar was his parent’s firstborn son, his parents were completely devastated after their little boy just disappeared into thin air and never returned.
Investigators believed that they had found the child in Mississippi in the hands of William Cantwell Walters of Barnesville, North Carolina. Bobby Dunbar’s parents claimed that the boy was their missing son, but Walters and a woman named Julia Anderson were adamant that he was Anderson’s son Bruce. They later proceeded for the custody of the child, who proceeded to live as their son.
The Mystery Of Bobby Dunbar
An American boy who disappeared from his family trip had a huge mystery, Bobby Dunbar was the firstborn son of Lessie and Percy Dunbar on May 23, 1908. In August 1912, Dunbars went on a fishing trip to the nearby Swayze Lake. When his parents were enjoying the water adventure, Bobby went missing, his parents called him out, but they could not find him. Later, they called the authorities to help them get their boy back, and both of them were devastated. The authorities found a boy in Mississippi looking similar to Bobby Dunbar’s appearance after eight months, with a handyman William Cantwell Walters, who identified the boy as Charles Bruce Anderson.
He claimed that he was the son of Julia Anderon, a woman who worked for his family but left him in his custody as she left to find work. He was, however, arrested, even after Julia confirmed that she did so, and the authorities summoned the Dunbars to Mississippi to try to identify the boy.
Bobby or Bruce?
The return of Bobby Dunbar to his family is still disputed as different newspapers had to say different things about the reunion. Some said that Bobby realized it was his mother as soon as he saw her, while some claim that he started crying. The Durbans accepted that it was their four-year-old son who went missing and was extremely delighted to have him back. After a while, Julia Anderson returned to take her supposedly son Bruce Anderson with him and to prove that Walters was innocent. The court, however, presented five boys of her son’s age, but she wasn’t able to recognize who her son was, on this the authorities speculated Julia’s claim, and the boy who Dunbars claimed to be Bobby was returned to them, while Julia went back to North Carolina as she did not have enough for court trials. Later, she came back to testify Walter’s innocence, and to get her son back, she got acquainted with the few residents who claimed Walter’s innocence, but besides everyone’s testimony, Walter was convicted of kidnapping. The boy went by Bobby Dunbar his entire life.
Bobby Dunbar: A Strange Mystery
Years later, one of Bobby Anderson’s granddaughters decided to go deeper into the research and wanted to prove that her grandfather was Bobby Dunbar. She reached through newspapers and even interviewed Julia’s children that she had after her marriage and even went through the evidence that was provided by Walter, she hoped she could prove what she believed but her research ultimately led her to doubt her belief. The Associated Press approached the family in 2004, and Bob Dunbar Jr. agreed to share his sample for DNA tests, and the results did not match with his cousin, who was Alonzo (real Bobby’s younger brother) Dunbar’s grandkids. That established that the now dead man was actually Bruce Anderso and came out very strangely.
Julia Anderson did not have enough resources to challenge the Dunbars, but she was adamant that the child was her son, Bruce, which was true. The guy who lived as Bobby Dunbar later had four children of his own, later died of heart disease on March 8, 1966, and had always maintained that he knew that he was Bobby Dundar. However, the real Bobby Dunbar is presumed to be dead in his absence as no one ever knew what happened to him.
