Morbid - Episode 645: The Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Two decades before the Lindbergh baby became America’s most famous missing child, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar, went missing in Opelousas, Louisiana, setting in motion one of the strangest kidnapping stories in the nation’s history.In the summer of 1912, the Dunbar family took a trip to Swayze Lake in St. Landry Parish, where Bobby wandered off and disappeared. The boy’s disappearance was followed by an eight-month search across the American south, until Bobby was ostensibly found in the company of William Walters, a handyman traveling through the Mississippi. Bobby’s parents were elated to have their son back after such a long absence, but the problem was, very few people seem convinced that the boy was in fact Bobby Dunbar.After extensive news coverage of the search, Walters’ trial for kidnapping, and the joyful return of Bobby to his family, interest in the case began to fade, but for the Dunbar family, questions remained about Bobby’s identity. Had the Dunbars, in their desperation to find their son, unintentionally kidnapped someone else’s child? Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesCrowley Post-Signal. 1913. "Charges fell to ground." Crowley Post-Signal , April 11: 5.Daily Advertiser. 1914. "Walters' trial at Opelousas." Daild Advertiser (Lafayette, LA), April 21: 1.—. 1914. "Supreme court frees Walters." Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, LA), June 30: 1.McThenia, Tal, and Ira Glass. 2008. "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar." This American Life. Chicago, IL: Chicago Public Media, March 14.New York Times. 1912. "$6,000 for missing boy." New York Times, November 10: 1.—. 1912. "Kidnapped boy murdered." New York Times, December 15: 14.Ray, S.W. 1914. "Opelousas jury hears life story of other mother." Times-Picayune, April 23: 8.St. Landry Clarion. 1912. "No trace of lost Bob Dunbar." St. Landry Clarion , September 7: 1.—. 1912. "Robert Dunbar, 4 years old, mysteriously disappears." St. Landry Clarion , August 31: 4.—. 1914. "Asks that fair play be given to the accused." St. Landry Clarion, April 18: 1.—. 1914. "Fair play for Walters." St. Landry Clarion, April 18: 1.Times-Democrat. 1913. "Recognizes playmates." Times- Democrat (New Orleans, LA), April 26: 1.—. 1913. "Does not identify boy." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), April 22: 1.—. 1913. "Dunbar boy talking." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), May 20: 4.—. 1913. "Hunting for kidnappers." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), April 27: 1.—. 1913. "Is not Bruce Anderson." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), April 26: 1.—. 1913. "Now believes boy hers." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), May 3: 1.—. 1912. "Scores search for missing lad." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), August 25: 1.—. 1912. "Suspicion turns toward negroes." Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA), September 2: 1.—. 1913. "Movements of Tinker." Times-Democrat, May 23: 1.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey weirdos, it's Ash. Before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about the spooky perks of Wondery+. It's like having a skeleton key that unlocks ad-free listening and early access to new episodes. So don't wait, try Wondery Plus today. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You're listening to a Morbid Network Podcast. In the depths of an Atlanta forest, a clash between activists and authorities ends in Network podcast. episodes of We Came to the Forest ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hey, weirdos. I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid, morbid, morbid, morbid.

Morbid and the world is falling apart around us. Caught everywhere. Everywhere. Yeah. All of it. And I assume when this comes out that the world will still be falling apart around us. So this is pretty relevant. Yeah.

Yeah. Everything sucks. But you know what? We're going to be just fine because we're all going to pull together as a community. Yeah. You know? And support local businesses, support local businesses, and remember you do not have to open your door to ICE unless they serve you a warrant. Hey. So just know that. Anything else fun? No, just facts at the top of the show. No, nothing fun is happening. Anything fun, I should say, anything else fun. Anything fun at all.

Something fun is happening. We got invited to go to the premiere of Heart Eyes. Yeah, we did. And I'm really excited to see that movie. It looks really fucking good. Guys, sometimes I'm all for a cerebral horror movie or cerebral thriller. I love like a deep one, like a moody one. But sometimes you just want a fucking gimmicky serial killer that only kills people on certain holidays.

Hell yeah. Sometimes you just want that. And it looks like Hard Eyes. It looks chef's kit. Like I need it. It's from the producers that did Scream, so you know it's gonna be good. And the same people that did Happy Death Day. Oh yeah we love that and Mason Gooding is in it and he is a snack. I'm excited to see him back

on a big screen. I said let's go. I said woo! It just looks like a lot of fun. I'm excited about it. This is not an ad by the way. Oh it's literally not an ad at all. They just invited us to go see it. We're fucking stoked. We're just excited about it. If you want to invite us to go see a movie, please do. Invite us to go see a movie? You know if you're like a producer or something. No you guys are be like. That'd be fun just a big movie with everyone. I mean. Hell yeah. Let's go let's figure it out. Let's figure it out man. We'll work on it. Yeah so that's a fun thing. You know we can look for the we can look for work on it. Yeah. So that's a fun thing. We can look for the bright spots.

Yeah. In fact, I started a notes app on my phone and I think you should too. And listener, hello? I think you should too. Dear listener. Dear listener, dear Abby, I made a note in my phone. Ash, bro. Hold on, I'm just rebooting Ash real quick.

I made a note on my phone and it says, good things are always happening to me. And each day I'm going to write one good thing that happened to me. I love that. It's manifesting more good things. I think we were talking about it on a recent episode that we were just saying like, you know, like one of our resolutions, I almost said revolution funny. Both. One of our resolutions is to be kinder to ourselves

and we wanted you guys to make sure you are also practicing that because it's important. And I think that's another good one to add to the list is like try and I think honestly with the bombardment of shit and news that is happening right now. That's why I'm doing it. And how overwhelmed everyone feels because I feel very overwhelmed.

Insanely. In fact, I think both of us have kind of like pulled back from social media a lot, just because it's like... Oh baby, I'm gone. And I'm pulling off really, because I'm just like, it's too much all at once. It is. Like I can't keep, I can't keep intaking it all. Yeah.

And you know what? We're not fucking meant to. No, we're not. There's a very good balance that everybody needs to strike between being informed and being inundated. And it's a hard balance to get. So like, you're doing fine. If you're listening, you're doing fine. Killing it. But I think it's like, thinking, like changing your mindset

to be like, okay, what is one good thing that happened to me today? Or one thing that I'm grateful or can celebrate today will at least give you a little bright spot in all the darkness that it feels like is everywhere. Yeah, even on like a bad day, like I had a day last week where I was just in a bitch mode. You know you were here.

Poor Mikey was here. Can you confer? I was in, no, I was in bitch mode. Like it was bad. We're all entitled to those days. But you get so wrapped up in a day like that and it's like at the end of that day, I hadn't started my note yet, but at the end now, like if another bitch mode day comes,

I can look back and be like, all right, but what's one good thing that happened that day instead of like focusing on all the shitty things that happened or the negativity wrapped up in all of it. Sometimes you just gotta, and you know what? Like, I don't know why this is turning into this, but I think whatever, it's nice. It's a health podcast.

Suddenly we've turned, guess what guys? Sometimes it's just like, go if you can, like take a walk, walk your dog, walk your kid, walk alone. Just get air. And just kind of like take a little walk, look around, look at the trees, it sounds silly. it sounds silly, passion, sometimes those things. Exactly. Sometimes those are the things that all of a sudden make you go like, you know what, I'm lucky to be here.

Yeah. Let me think of all the things that I have that I can make myself feel better about, you know, everything. It's a grounding exercise. It is. And we're here with you. We're here. So, you know. Oh, and one more thing, since we're a self-help podcast, I learned about love and kindness meditation the other day. I'm taking this really cool Wiccan class because I'm going to become a fucking Wiccan woman and hex the patriarchy. I'm going to become a Wiccan woman. I am. I'm going to become a... I love that. Hell yeah. but I learned about love and kindness meditation.

So if you're interested in meditation at all, look into that. It's very cool. And I liked the experience. Yeah. You know, we all need more of that. I'm really, I'm gonna, I'm a hippie. Best time to do it is right now. Get into the love, get into the kindness. Everybody be cool, man. Just don't be all uncool. Just be cool. Just be cool. Don't be all uncool. And you know, this story that I have for you today, is it uncool? Pretty uncool, but at the end of it, it does have... No, it's still a little... There's a lot of unknowns in this. Yeah. Some of them become more known. Yeah.

But then there's still a mystery at the end. So I am. That's kind of fun. I am sorry to say that I'm going to leave you slightly, slightly open to some things, but there's gonna be a couple of things that you're like, whoa. This is an interesting story. I remember hearing this. It's very interesting.

When I like first got on my like interest into crime and MFM covered it way back in the day. Yeah, they did. You're right. Shout out to Karen in Georgia. Shout out to Karen in Georgia. Uh this is the disappearance of Bobby Dunbar. Now again normally I don't love to do children's cases because it bums me out a lot. This one's bummed me out for sure but there was so much like shenanigans in this case that it felt like an important story to tell, for sure. So this goes all the way back to 1912.

Yeah, we're really back there. On August 23rd, 1912, Percy and Lessie Dunbar traveled with their two sons, Alonzo and Bobby. They had lived in Opelousas, I looked it up how to say it, I hope I said it correctly, Opelousas, Louisiana. They were traveling to a nearby Swayze Lake. They had planned to- Ooh, Patrick.

Right, there you go. They had planned to spend the day there, do some fishing, some camping, just a nice little family outing. That night, the family was sleeping in their tent, and their four-year-old, Bobby, apparently woke up and left the tent for some unknown reason. Apparently he wandered away from the campsite,

but nobody saw him do this. This is just assuming because he wasn't there. The next morning when Lessie and Percy woke up, they found Bobby missing, which I literally can't imagine what they felt in that moment. But they- Waking up to find your kid missing must be-

In the wilderness? Yeah, fuck that. So they, of course they panicked and started frantically searching the area around the tent for him. Now at the time Swayze Lake was really more of an undeveloped swamp than an actual recreation area. Oh, okay.

It was according to author Tal McThenia, I hope I'm saying that name right. It was, according to author Tal McThenya, I hope I'm saying that name right, it was apparently, quote, teaming with alligators and surrounded by dark thick woods. So not great. So their search was going to be very dangerous and very slow and very difficult. All of the above. And when they weren't able to find Bobby very quickly, Percy went into town to get help. And within hours, there were dozens of men that had arrived at the lake to help search for Bobby.

By that night, about 150 men had joined the search party, including a group of divers who searched the lake. Wow, which again, was more of a swamp. Was more of a swamp. With fucking alligators. Oh my God. Yeah. And these are divers that they got in here in 1912. Holy shit. That's crazy. Now, unfortunately, because the terrain

was so hard to maneuver and it was so dense, so thickly settled, it was super, super slow, this process of looking for him. According to one account, quote, the cane breaks and undergrowth at Swayze Lake are so thick that it's impossible to see 10 feet from the trail. Wow. And many of the searchers really quickly begin speculating, like, we're not going to find this kid. Yeah. They're like out loud being like, I don't think we're going to find him. Yeah.

Which must have been horrifying to hear. Nearby, a smaller group of men actually dynamited the stream for more than a mile in order to bring anything to the surface that was under the water. I like dynamited as a verb. Right? It really is. But nothing worked.

Nothing found. There was no sign of Bobby. He's poor parents. They had searched the area for 18 hours and they found no sign of him. And Percy and Lessie reluctantly returned to Opelousis while what remained of the search party continued to comb the area. But they had to bring their other son home. Can you imagine you just like go out for a cute family outing?

With two children and you come back with one. Like that is beyond. Unthinkable. Yeah. Unthinkable. That's so fucked. Now in the days after this, a smaller group continued to search the area. So people weren't giving up on this.

Several divers did their best to search through the murky waters, but they never found even the slightest bit of evidence that Bobby had even been there. By the third day, many of them had given him up for dead. Basically reasoning there was very little chance that a four-year-old could survive the elements alone for that long, much less in an area where there were gators. There were so much wildlife

there that was not going to be good. The main theory at the time was that Bobby had wandered away from the camp in the night and fallen into the lake and drowned. But some were holding out hope that he was still alive, saying that maybe he's still alive because if he had drowned, then we probably would have found some evidence, like a scrap of clothing, something which like, I don't know with gators. Yeah, exactly. Now within a week, news of Bobby's disappearance had reached the wider public, and it quickly became a big fascination with the press. One reporter wrote, never in the history of this parish has an incident created such profound interest and such profound sorrow. Which I think is a really great way of saying it. The idea that a child could simply disappear without a trace. That

was enough of a mystery and enough of like a horrifying situation to think about. That was enough to grab the attention of the public very quickly. But there was also this really like macabre angle that the press couldn't ignore. One reporter asked, is little Robert at the bottom of Swayze Lake? And then this is like, the way that he wrote this, I'm like, okay, what do you use this? I mean, immediately, like that's already jarring. Oh, it gets worse. Is little Robert at the bottom of the Swayze Lake? Is his little body the victim of the rapacious appetite of alligators, loggerhead turtles, garfish, or has the little fellow been gnawed to death by mosquitoes, gnats in the jungles of the Atchafalaya swamp?

So I feel like that writer probably should have gotten into like horror. Yeah, novels, fiction, you know? Nothing true. Use that prose for good. We don't need you using that flowery prose for someone's four-year-old. Yeah, real life situation. That they are holding out hope that they're alive.

Jesus. I feel like reading that, I hope his family never read that. No. Cause what the fuck? Oh, God. Yeah. Now, this was the moment that it became clear that the press was going to be a massive figure

in this case. Okay. And they are a big figure and probably the biggest, to be quite honest. Which can be so, so helpful and so, so helpful. Not in this case. Yeah. Not in this case. Bobby's disappearance coincided with a strange period in American journalism, actually.

It was guided way more by how much you could sell and how much readership you could gain than any kind of journalistic ethics code or anything like that, any kind of integrity, any kind of seeking, any kind of like seeking out the truth kind of situation. It was. That's big business. That is big business.

Numbers, numbers, numbers. Exactly. It's never like, can I actually give you the truth or dig something up? It's like, this is the most salacious version of the story. Who gives a shit if it's real? Let's make money off it. Because it's going to get people to pick it up. So as a result, newspapers frequently contradicted one another, embellished stories, and in some cases, just flat out lied in articles they published

because it sold. That's insane. They were tabloids, essentially. That's crazy. Yeah. Way back then. That never ceases to amaze me that they could just straight up lie.

Be like, yeah, this is what I think happened. And you're seeing all these newspapers contradicting themselves because this one's saying, it's just who which story the different newspaper grabbed onto and said, I think that our readers will grab this one. Yeah, they didn't care. Like, should we check the sources? Nah, like what? Let's just go. Let's just go with this one. That's good. Now, for example, in early reports, Bobby had disappeared from the camp in the middle of the night while Percy and Lissy were asleep, which is what happened. Days later, though, a new story appeared in several of the papers. And in

this story, Bobby had attempted to follow his father down to the lake, but Percy had turned around and told him to return to camp, which was a mile away. And he was last seen wandering alone back to the campsite. It's like, why make that up? Well, this distinction, like to some people at first might seem like kind of trivial and just like, okay, that's stupid. But the latter account of this story, it opens the door to many more scary possibilities, first of all, but it also kind of attempted to place some of the blame on the dad, even vaguely on Percy for sending his four year old a mile back to the campsite

by himself. Right. And it's like, that's fucked up. It is fucked up. Because it's like these people are going through a hell that you can't even comprehend. Right. Like, what the fuck? Now while many among the search party and in the press had given up Bobby for dead at this point, there were still those that hung on to hope that he could

still be alive somewhere. In Opelousas, a small group of residents actually fundraised a thousand dollars as a reward to anyone who returned Bobby alive and unharmed to his family. And think that's 1912. That's a lot of money. And that's like the community doing that. That's not just the family. And in response to the community support, Percy and Lessie published a letter of thanks in the local papers. They said, we are well aware that all has been done which human effort can accomplish. And it is a comfort to know that our country is with one of the kindest hearted peoples on earth. Which like, wow.

It's different. Hearing that, you're just like, fuck. Yeah. I feel like with every purchase we make, there's so many hidden fees. It's like you go to the movies and there's a hidden fee. Airline fees are insane. You think you have one total and really it's another. But when we're trying to make progress, life's curveballs often feel like taking one step forward and two steps back.

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SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Boosts are available to eligible CHIME members enrolled in SpotMe and are subject to monthly limits. Timing depends on submission of payment file. Fees apply at out of network ATMs. This show is sponsored by Liquid IV. I feel like starting a new year is all about starting new rituals. For me, that's waking up earlier, I want to be doing some workout classes, taking a

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a new theory had started circulating and it was alleging that the boy hadn't simply just wandered off but was kidnapped from the campsite. According to some press accounts, quote, the local police hold to the belief that the child was brought to New Orleans during the early part of the week by the woman who was seen to a light from the train station at Port Allen with a child answering the little fellow's description. That was in the Times Democrat in 1912. According to this account,

a passenger on a train from Baton Rouge, Louisiana had spotted a boy he believed to be Bobby Dunbar traveling in the company of a young black woman. The woman was reportedly very well dressed, but the police in New Orleans still just with no basis associated this woman with a group of men living on the outskirts of a nearby logging camp. And they quickly developed a theory that the group had kidnapped Bobby Dunbar to hold him for ransom. Very confused how they put one and one together there. Very confused about that. Hello?

It's like, wow, okay. So it's like, I hope they stretched before they made that leap. Yeah. Now, soon after the reports of Bobby being seen in the company of this young woman, investigators began receiving other reports of sightings, which is, this happens a lot. And they were as far away as California. The St. Landry clarion alleged, it is now believed by many that little Robert Dunbar, who disappeared from the fishing camp at Swayze Lake, has been kidnapped. There was no basis for this. They just said, you know what, we decided. They said, you know what, he's kidnapped now. Just a week after Bobby was supposedly spotted in the company of that young woman, another report came in of his being seen with an Italian woman who

was clearly not his mother. The kidnapping narrative just kept on going into the fall, just different people kidnapping this kid for different reasons. Which is giving his family hope. Yeah, and making them probably terrified. So many emotions mixed up in that. Yeah, and by November, the reward amount had increased to $6,000. And again, this is 1912. Now, the reward notice, which had been circulated to every state in the country said, quote,

Bobby is presumed to have been taken away by a woman about 30 years old, and the boy might have been carried away for the purposes of securing a ransom for his return, although no demands have been received from any source. So why would you think that? So you have literally no reason to think that. You're like, we have not received any ransom demands.

It's been like a month. But is it we are of the mind that they are asking for ransom. Don't you think they would have asked for ransom if they wanted ransom? Yeah. What is it? How is it helping them to not ask? It's usually how ransom works is you request it.

So despite not having any evidence to support the belief and citing only a handful of possible random sightings several months earlier The press managed to keep the kidnap story alive and continued to promote the idea that Bobby had been kidnapped for ransom But interest in the story had started to actually kind of wane as the months went on You know, they weren't getting any new information, so there was not a lot of new stuff to print. Different things start to happen just the way it is. And the story though got a burst of energy the next month when a new story started circulating that Bobby had been killed by his captors. Oh. And now the press is printing this like it happened. Okay. According to one of the detectives on the case, Joseph and Robert Marshall, two men who had been arrested for the kidnapping now, they're saying, told investigators,

quote, the boy had been put out of the way because it was difficult to conceal him any longer. But they never asked for ransom. No idea why this happened. It is unclear why this story was given, and it's kind of unclear why it was given any credence by journalists. It was to sell newspapers. There was no physical evidence that the Marshall brothers or anyone else for that matter had Bobby in their possession, let alone had killed him. No evidence whatsoever. But for the press who had started to honestly keep, whatsoever. But for the press, who had started to honestly keep, you know, run out of ways at this point to keep the story alive, the murder narrative was a convenient way to kind of wind it up again and captivate the nation for another few months. Unfortunately for journalists, or fortunately, depending how you look at it, I guess, reports of Bobby's death were about to be seriously

undermined reviving the story in a way that I don't think anybody was ready to hear it revived. I wouldn't say so. Now after it was reported that Bobby was killed, the story kind of silently pulled back out of the public's view again for a little while, because that was kind of the end. Right. And it got wrapped up. We have a wrap up.

But a few months later in early April, 1913, the last of the men arrested for the supposed kidnapping were set free by a court order after the district attorney's quote, informed the court that there was absolutely no evidence for prosecution. Their release again seemed to signal kind of the end of the Dunbar story because now I guess he's been murdered but they have no evidence to prove anything that he's been murdered. So now it's like these little things keep happening but they're really just end points.

They're like periods on the story. But then a twist came because a few weeks later, Bobby Dunbar or at least someone resembling Bobby Dunbar was found in the company of a man named William Walters, who was a peddler in Columbia, Mississippi. Now Walters was arrested on a charge of kidnapping, and the boy with him was taken into custody. But from the moment of Walters' arrest,

the story was anything but simple. This was not just as simple like here he is. According to Walters, this boy was not Bobby Dunbar. This was Bruce Anderson. And he had been given to Walters by his mother, Julia Anderson. OK. At the time, Anderson was working as a field hand and caretaker to Walters elderly parents.

Hopefully you guys can follow that. But she lacked the resources to care for her son and left him in the Walters care. And he said, so he wrote in a statement after he was arrested, I got this child at the residence of JP Walters, Burnsville, North Carolina between November and Christmas, 1911. That's such a wild statement. I got this kid. I got this kid around this time. Julia Anderson claimed to be the mother of the child. I don't know the father. The child was about three years old when I got him.

Now, according to Walters, there were at least 100 people who had seen him and this boy, Bruce, together before and after Bobby Dunbar went missing. Okay. Which he said that's proof that this is not Bobby Dunbar. I mean, yeah. The following day, April 21st, Percy and Lesley Dunbar went missing, which he said, that's proof that this is not Bobby Dunbar. The following day, April 21st, Percy and Leslie Dunbar traveled 175 miles to Columbia, eager thinking that this is their son. Of course. But when they arrived, they were kind of surprised. Apparently, it was dark when they got there and the child was asleep.

Leslie said he, quote, looks more like her son than any child she has ever seen, but she couldn't be certain that it was him. With only oil lamp for light, because remember we're in 1912, she examined him and after looking him over, one journalist reported that she gasped and said, I do not know. I'm not quite sure. Okay. Another report published the next day said that the, that Lessee recognized him instantly. And it said, quote, Mrs. Dunbar made a careful examination

of the lad without awakening him and was standing over the bed a few hours later when the child opened his eyes. The boy recognized his mother instantly and stretched out his arms to her. Now is that what actually happened? And that's the thing. So you see that, and this is why it's so dangerous when people lie, do that. But it's like, because you're going to see that story and be like, oh my, that's so great. They're reunited. And oh, he knew her.

So that's it. Proof. But it's like, they're just writing whatever the fuck they want. To sell the papers. So the first of those two reports is probably the truer of the two. Yeah, she wasn't sure. According to Tal McThenna, quote, Percy and Lessee both told the papers the boy didn't look like their son. Among other things, his eyes were apparently much smaller than Bobby's and he was missing a scar on his foot that Bobby was known to have had. Yeah, and you don't really get rid of scars. Exactly.

Making things even more complicated was the fact that the boy seemed confused and didn't really seem to have any knowledge and familiarity that one would expect Bobby Dunbar to have with his family, with what was going on. How much time had passed? About a year. About a year, so he would still remember his family. Yeah, it's not like it's like 10 years down the road or something.

Despite that, Percy and Lessee returned the following day and Lessee gave the boy a bath, examining him more closely now that it was daylight. So she was bathing him to kind of look and see if there was marks, moles that she knows her son to have. Sure. And when she did this, she enthusiastically announced

that this was her son. Which she might've just tricked herself into thinking. Exactly. Like I can't. I feel like this was just, I want this to be my son. Yeah. So, you know. And not even in a way of like, I want this to be my son,

so I'm gonna pretend it's my son. No, I think her mind tricked her. Her brain might have literally been like, this is your son, we're going to go with this. But then again, maybe it was. Who's to say? I will at the end of this. In early accounts of this reunion, many among the press noted that Lessie had a lot of anxiety over her uncertainty and the boy's unfamiliarity with them. One journalist wrote, quote, Bobby at first meeting turns upon Alonzo with a scowl of anger. That's his brother. There appeared to be no recognition of his little brother. But after Lessie and Percy formally claimed this boy, most journalists reversed course and celebrated the reunion with, you

know, as like this heartwarming thing. According to one paper, quote, the instant they met, Robert said, there's my Bubba, Alonzo, and reached over and kissed him. Some papers went even further reporting that Bobby had, quote, asked frequently about his brother while he was in New Orleans and was very eager to see him. This is really fucked up of these papers. Of course it is.

This is really fucked up because none of this is confirmed. Which is writing fantasy. And Bobby returned home to Opelousas with Percy and Lessie in late April to much fanfare and excitement. The town, who again had fundraised to find this boy, had rallied around this family, they threw a huge parade with a big band to celebrate his return. William Walters was in custody now, so everyone was like, wow, this terrible story has a happy ending. This kidnapper being brought to justice and we have Bobby back.

Every time they thought it was over, it wasn't, but now it was. And now it was, except it wasn't, because one woman is going to come into the picture and put a little bit of a doubt in everyone's mind. All right. Now, in her statement to the authorities, Julia Andrews, who's supposedly Bruce's mom, confirmed some of the details of Walter's story while strongly refuting several of his claims. So it's getting weirder and weirder because now we have someone coming in and saying, oh, he's telling the truth

a little bit. But there's also parts of this that he's lying out of his fucking face. So now it's like, Jesus Christ, everybody. Who's telling the truth? Yeah. So she said, and this is in the Times Democrat 1913, William Walters left Barnesville, North Carolina with my son, Charles Bruce, in February 1912, saying that he only wanted to take the child with him for a few days on a visit to the home of his sister. I have not seen the child from that day to this. I did not give him the child. I merely consented for him to take my son for a few days." Okay. Now, according to Julia, she had known him.

Like this isn't some random guy that came and was just like, hey, can I take your son for a few days? And she was like, absolutely. Well, cause she worked for his parents, right? Yeah, so she knew him. And according to Julia, Bruce had taken a very strong liking to Walters. Her son had liked this man.

Yeah, she's comfortable. Followed him everywhere. So she didn't see any harm with a short trip. Yeah. Like just was like, this is going to be fine. So when Walters failed to return with Bruce, Julia became very concerned, but she didn't really know where he had gone or how to get in touch with him because it's 1912 and she can't just like, location share him or something. Like she's like, I don't know. She can't request his location. She's like, I can't, what do I do? She's like, hey, send me a ping. Yeah. So she just waited, hoping that he was going to come back. Yeah. She said, I am willing to go

anywhere to identify him on condition that my expenses be paid and that I be allowed to take my child away from Walters. I do not want him to have my child. Oh, that's really sad. Now the problem, at least for Julia, was that this child in question had just been claimed as Bobby Dunbar by the Dunbars. But Walters is still saying this is Bruce Anderson. It's not. Now, sensing a big story, the press in Louisiana just jumped on this opportunity and they paid to have Julia brought to the city to examine this boy. Okay. So she went on an overnight train ride to get there and was brought to the Dunbar home. Oh my God. Also, can we just, whoever the fuck this kid is, this poor child. This poor

child. Like this is traumatic. And this poor family, like the Dunbar family. Yeah, it's Snip Snaps. poor Julia, like nobody knows who's kid is there. Like everybody's affected here. Nobody wins in this situation. But especially the kids, he's like five years old. I feel awful for these kids. Probably like, who am I? Who am I and who are any of you? Like what is going on?

Now five different boys were presented to her for inspection. Oh, okay. Including... Smart to do it that way. Exactly. Including the boy the Dunbar's had claimed was Bobby. Yeah.

Julia didn't recognize most of the boys, but when Bobby Dunbar, who they claimed was Bobby Dunbar, was presented to her, he had tears in his eyes and seemed upset. He refused to say whether he recognized Julia, which is strange. And Julia, who is exhausted and very stressed out from travel, couldn't say whether that was Bruce. Which is like, I've never been in this situation. I can't imagine not recognizing my child, but again, who knows? Who knows?

Maybe it was dark. Once again, I have never been under this kind of stress. I have never been under this kind of situation. I am not in 1912. I don't know what the lighting is even like there. I don't know what any of this is. Well, and she's probably sitting there thinking, I don't want to fuck this kid up if it's not my kid, but I got to be totally sure. I can't imagine, but I also can't imagine the circumstances that all this is happening under. So I'm going to keep my own opinion out of this because there's nothing for me to say. I've never been in this position. So my opinion on this would be kind of moot

at this point. Speaking from 2025 over here with great lighting and all the running water I could hope for. No. So there's that. But she did ask whether this was the boy found traveling with Walters, but the lawyers in the room wouldn't answer her questions. Now, because she wasn't unable to identify this boy confidently or any of the children, really, everyone concluded that the entire test had been a failure and that was it.

According to Tal McThenna, quote, Julia begged for a second chance. And the next day, she was allowed to see the boy again and to look him over, like actually, which again, like this boy just keeps getting examined. Like that's really fucked up. This time, she felt more certain that it was her son. But her failure the night before was already national news.

And none of the press wanted to correct any of the countless articles that had already been published celebrating Bobby's return to the Dunbars. They wanted to stay with that story because that was a fun, heartwarming story. This is like a big old bummer. Yeah. A few miles from the glass spires of midtown Atlanta lies the South River Forest. In 2021 and 2022, the woods became a home to activists from all over the country who

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The abolitionist mission isn't done until every prison is empty and shut down. love and fellowship, It was probably the happiest I've ever been in my life. and the lengths will go to protect the things we hold closest to our hearts. Follow We Came to the Forest on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of We Came to the Forest early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. In the 1980s, a rose swept the country.

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You can binge listen to Blood Vines exclusively and ad free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts, or Spotify. Now, just as they had since Bobby disappeared nine months earlier, the press controlled the narrative around the Dunbar story and they had decided the outcome for themselves. They didn't want to hear anything else. They set about dismissing Julia's claims and they decided they were just going to portray her as an unfit mother.

Oh. In one article titled, Julia Has Forgotten. Oh God. Journalist Jerome G. Beatty described Julia's examination of the boy they were saying was Bobby Dunbar. And wow, it's a, I'm gonna give you a little, I'm gonna give you a little snippet from it. It's harsh, it's harsh as fuck.

It says her long journey had been in vain. She had not seen her son since February of 1912 and she had forgotten him. Animals don't forget, but this big coarse country woman, several times a mother, she forgot. She cared little for her young, children were only regrettable incidents in her life. She hopes her son isn't dead, just as she hopes that the cotton crop will be good this year. Of true mother love, she has none."

How do you know that? Well, first of all, shut the fuck up because you're not a mom. That's just really mean. And secondly, obviously she gives someone of a shit. She made the journey out here to determine if this is her kid or not. So that doesn't even really make any sense. It's just, you know what it is, like regardless of what you think about, you know, Julia or whatever the whole like, in the story of the situation, that's just like a really nasty

judgment to throw on someone that you don't know. Yeah. And it's adding insult to injury. That's the thing, there's a lot of emotions and emotional turmoil happening in every fucking part of this story. The Dunbars, Julia's, like, I don't know what's going on with Walter,

or William Walters, but like, some shit's going on over there too. Well, and if what she's saying is true, her child was fucking kidnapped. Yeah, that's the thing. And it's like- What she's saying is true, her child was fucking kidnapped. Yeah, that's the thing. And it's like, and then the Dunbars have lost their child and have no idea what happened to him and are thinking this is, there's so much emotion here.

And the press was just not willing to look at it from a human level and say there's a lot of emotions and a lot of stress, anxiety, grief, trauma, just hope, hope dashed, hope brought back. You know what I mean? Like all these people have been snip snapped around like, thank you. Hope dashed, hope brought back. I wish you guys had seen her deliver that the arms were flailing. It just, it's such a situation that like none of us can conceive of. And in such a time where like shit was real dark, so it's like...

Literally anything. Literally anything. Literally, and it's like, I couldn't even say that word. So it's like... Fragmatively. For the press to be such dicks, it's like they were literally like trolls. Like the press were trolls, just like trying to make people upset. It's like, damn.

That's really mean. So the truth was Julia Anderson was very distressed and very heartbroken about not knowing where her son was and whether this was her son. And that same year, what they were failing to say in any of these articles saying, she's been a mother several times over and she doesn't give a shit. That same year, she had given up one baby for adoption

and another child of hers had died. Oh God. And nobody knows the circumstances under which that adoption happened. You don't know if there was a death of a child and she just couldn't do it. She was trying to do the right thing by the child. And it's like, you just don't know. There's no backstory. Everything was so stigmatized back then. And I mean, still is today, but. And the press strongly implied that the death of one of her children was her fault. Of course. That's awesome.

Yeah. In a single year, she had lost all her children. And lacking the resources or social status of people, you know, like the Dunbars, because they were of a higher status, like social status. It was unlikely she was gonna be able to regain custody of Bruce or convince anyone that this was her child. That's so sad.

She told reporters in May, 1913, I believe this is my son Bruce, but I can't swear to it and I won't try to take him away from the Dunbars. I have suffered so much myself that I don't wanna make anyone else suffer, but I just can't help it. I believe that is my boy."

And it's like, that's heartbreaking. Rip your heart out. Yeah, truly. And it's just like, whoa, I just, my brain won't wrap around this. No, and you have to sit there and think, one, like, if this, if this is Bruce Anderson, and he is getting claimed by the Dunbars as Bobby Dunbar, obviously he's living a different life now. So that might've been why he was a little hesitant to say like, yeah, that's my mom. Yeah.

Cause maybe he's just like, and it's like, I don't know. He's been away from her possibly since he was three. Yeah. So he might not even know. Or younger than that. So it's like, he might have very fuzzy memories. That might be why he was three. Yeah, so he might not even know. Or younger than that. So it's like, he might have very fuzzy memories. That might be why he was upset, because he was like, I'm trying to place why I know this lady. But I don't know. But I don't have the like full cognizance

to say this is my mom. And a baby five-year-old should not be put in that position. Yeah, like he's been gone since three, and now he's five. That's like, and he's been through, who knows what he's been through. I know. And it's like, I don't know. It just, it's a lot. Yeah. It's a lot. It is. Percy and Lissy Dunbar had decided that this was Bobby Dunbar and that's how they were living.

They were not going to question their decision. Percy told reporters after the second examination that Julia had of the boys, he said, this is the last time my child is going to be examined. I am tired of this foolishness. The woman could not identify the boy yesterday. Besides, the child does not know her and never did. He has identified himself in 1000 ways and he is my child. I'll never give him up, court order or not. I don't blame anybody here. You get it. I really can't. Cause also I can't imagine losing a child to begin with. And then I don't remember honestly, if it's, if it ends up being Bobby Dunbar, but it's like gaining him back, you would never let go again. No, that's the thing. Never. That's why when he says I will never give him up court order or not, you can, you feel the

desperation. Like you're never taking him from me again. Yeah. Oh, you can, you feel the desperation there. Like you're never taking him from me again. Yeah. Oh, but like, you can't blame anybody for this. And you also can't blame Julia for being like, I'm pretty sure that's my son, but I don't know what to do here. Oh, it's, there's so much like, it is, it's very tragic. And as it turned out, they would never have to, the Dunbars were never going to have to give up Bobby. Okay. Julia was unable to fight the Dunbars for custody. She returned to North Carolina without her, who she believed was her son. And from that point on he was Bobby Dunbar. What a tragic loss for her, like a series of tragic losses for

her. So right after this attention turned to William Walters and his upcoming kidnapping trial. It's his deal. Yeah. It's worth keeping in mind that from the moment he was arrested, his story hadn't changed. He insisted the boy in his company was Bruce Anderson, who had been given to him by Julia Anderson, who was the boy's mother. And Julia more or less confirmed that story, but with some slightly different details, obviously. And there were several other witnesses

in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana who had seen Walters and Bruce Anderson together before the day Bobby Dunbar went missing. And they came forward to corroborate Walter's story. Oh, shit. But the story had grown so large and so complicated since Bobby disappeared, mostly entirely because of the press, that someone, they needed someone to be held accountable for this. Yeah. The public was not going to allow this just to be blown into the wind, regardless of whether a crime had actually been committed or not. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because now William Walters is saying, I didn't kidnap him. She told me to take him.

Yeah. Like he's, which I'm like, what? I'm just so confused. But then she said that she kind of did. I thought he was just going for a little bit. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, so as- This is a rigmarole of he said, she said.

It's wild. So as they done all along, the press latched onto the kidnapping narrative and spun it into an even larger story involving a larger conspiracy to harm Percy Dunbar. Apparently, Percy Dunbar held a large amount of power in and around Opelousis. Percy's brother Wallace told a reporter, I make no accusations, but I feel confident that Walters was merely a tool in the hands of enemies of Percy Dunbar. Okay. According to the press, Percy was in charge of distributing government rations in and around Opelousas following the Great Flood of 1912. Okay. He

was apparently known allegedly to have cut rations for men refusing to work. Wallace Dunbar, his brother, said, I know on several occasions that men left the distributing offices saying they would get even. The popular theory was that a group of these men conspired to kidnap Bobby and hold him for ransom, but after several weeks when the interest of the press and local law enforcement became, you know, kind of like faded out, they gave up on their plan and they passed the boy off to William Walters. So they're saying he's a tool, but from these guys. I don't think so.

Because they never asked for a ransom. That's the biggest plot of that. The plot. That's the problem here is that you never ever ransom demands. Like, I'm like, you guys are talking a lot about ransom for never having received a ransom letter. Yep. So there's no evidence that this theory was any more realistic or even plausible than the other theories surrounding Bobby's kidnapping. It supported the kidnapping narrative

that had been built up around the case and justified everyone's actions following Walter's arrest, like basically. And it seemed that several people were willing to play along with investigators in order to support that belief. In late May, investigators started collecting affidavits from locals who were willing to testify against Walters, including Harvey Burke, who was a man from Picayune, who claimed, quote, Walters told him that the Dunbar boy was not stolen for money but for revenge, as Dunbar had given evidence against an old crippled man and caused him to be compelled to work on the streets as a convict.

It really didn't matter that statements like this one contradicted the prevailing theory of a conspiracy. It really only mattered that it supported the belief that the boy was Bobby Dunbar and had been taken by William Walters. Didn't really matter the details surrounding it. They were just like, oh, see, yep, he did it. And it's like, but none of these stories are adding up. People are telling 14 different stories of how he got with William Walters. In response to the growing number of just bonkers affidavits collected by the prosecution,

Walter's lawyers, Dale and Rawls, started collecting their own affidavits that established a timeline of events and traced Walter's movements at the time of Bobby's disappearance. They wrote in a statement to the press, we have sat silently by and seen so many false statements published in the columns of the public press that we feel that the public is entitled to know the real facts on these dates. Among those statements was sworn testimony from J.S. Thigpen of Pearl River County, Mississippi. He swore under oath that William Walters had been at his home on August 23rd and 24th, the day Bobby went missing, and spent the entire day working on the man's

sewing machine. Okay. Whole day that Bobby was missing. So boom, alibi. This statement confirms Walter's own story in which he told police on the day of the boy's disappearance, quote, I worked on a machine for young man Thigpen and went from there by old man Thigpens by Holden's, worked on a machine for Holden and doubled back and spent that night at old man thig pins.

Oh, it sounds like a country song. I want to be known as old woman Ashkel. Old man thig pin. Well, yeah, honestly, forget that. Just call me old man thig pin. Obsessed. I'm going to be that for the next Listener Tales, old man thing pin. Old man thing pin. That's iconic.

So this guy, like they are all like, he's saying yes, he was at my home working on my sewing machine. Just like he said he was. On those two days, like stayed at my home that night. Back to back. And then Walters is saying, I was at his home and I stayed there those two days working on that machine. It's all adding up. By the time Walters was extradited to Louisiana to stand trial, he was at a huge disadvantage.

Like Julia Anderson, William Walters was poor. He was uneducated. He lacked the resources or knowledge to mount any kind of proper defense against his accusers, who were honestly like part of a wealthier, higher social status than he is. More importantly, the majority of Walters' witnesses lived in Mississippi. And while it wasn't too crazy of a distance to travel, the majority of them lacked the funds to travel

to Louisiana and testify on his behalf. So a lot of people could see that this was a disadvantage, that a lot of the people that could come and testify on his behalf couldn't get there. So the residents of St. Landry Parish, particularly the ones who weren't convinced of Walters' guilt, many of them offered to pay to have Walters' witnesses put up in opulence

during the trial. They were that convinced. William Walters' trial put up in Opelousas during the trial. They were that convinced. Yeah. William Walters' trial for the kidnapping of Bobby Dunbar started in mid-April 1914 in Opelousas and was heavily attended by spectators from all over who had been following this case since Bobby disappeared. For Walters, the trial could mean life in prison

or the death penalty if he was found guilty. But for the Dunbars and Julia Anderson, it meant the opportunity to definitively prove the boy's identity and put any custody claims to rest. Now, the first witness called in the case was Percy Dunbar. He detailed the eight-month search for his son and testified that, quote, he recognized the child when he found him at Columbia. But he did acknowledge that, quote, he recognized some of the mark on the boy, but not all. Now, following his testimony were a number of witnesses for the prosecution, including Wallace Dunbar, his brother.

They all testified that the boy discovered in the company of William Walters was indeed Bobby Dunbar, but none appeared to have offered any proof beyond just like, I recognize him, he's Bobby Dunbar, but none appeared to have offered any proof beyond just like, I recognize him. He's Bobby Dunbar. Which I understand that like, that's really all you got. Have you ever gotten a message out of the blue? Maybe you ignore them, or maybe you end up in conversation. Maybe they tell you about an amazing offer.

I can really show you how to make some money. And maybe that gets you into a lot of trouble. But this isn't a story about people like you, the people receiving these messages. This is a story about the people behind the messages, on the other end of the line, thousands of them, working in a micro city built for scammers. From Wondery, the makers of Dr. Death and Kill List, comes Scam Factory, a new series about survival

at the expense of others. Follow Scam Factory on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scam Factory early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. As predicted, Walters' case was hampered by a lack of witnesses and a jury that was almost certainly biased against him from all the press that was covering the story. In an open letter to the people of Louisiana, one Walters supporter wrote, you have promised to give W.C. Walters a fair trial. The man is now on trial in a hostile community without money and without friends. While it is late, it is not too late

to render the justice promised for this man, whether he be guilty or innocent." So they're just saying he deserves a fair trial, whether he's guilty or innocent. For his part, William Walter's remained very hopeful that the jury was gonna see the truth. He couldn't rely on many of his witnesses to travel to Opelousas to testify on his behalf, but his lawyers had found several of the town's quote-unquote prominent citizens

who were willing to testify that the boy in question was not Bobby Dunbar. Oh, man. Among those who did travel to Louisiana for the trial were W.H. Murray, a mail carrier from Barnesville, North Carolina, who testified that the boy found with Walters was Bruce Anderson. Likewise, E.M. Stevens, who was a merchant from Barnesville, also testified and told the jury he was confident the boy was Bruce Anderson. Oh, wow. Both proved strong witnesses for the defense, but in their cross-examination,

the prosecution treated both men as hostile. And according to one reporter, quote, succeeded in rattling Murray to some extent, basically undermining his credibility. Which is shitty because you're essentially just like prodding your witness. Yeah, it's like just let the facts come out, man. Right. Let the facts fall where they may and figure it out that way. On April 22nd, Julia Anderson, who had been ill for most of the trial, testified from a cot set up in the lobby of the Lacombe Hotel near the courthouse. She gave a thorough history of her difficult life and again said how her child had come

to be in the company of William Walters. She also continued to insist that the boy was her son, Bruce Anderson. And she said, if that ain't my child, he's never been born on this earth. Despite the intense scrutiny and negative press Julia had received in the years leading up to the trial, even the very obviously biased press couldn't ignore the fact that unlike the prosecution's flimsy case, Julia's story seemed to support everything Walters had said since his arrest. It is. They were telling this. It is.

We're saying it did and it does. It is. Honestly, it is. They both, they're the same story. Just with like little minor things that like, I think they both are going to squabble over. It's always like, what do they say? Like yours, mine and the truth. Exactly.

One reporter wrote in the Times Picayune, the strong point of the defense is that every bit of its testimony grooves perfectly. You love saying Picayune, don't you? I love saying Picayune. It's a certain twinkle in your eye. Yeah, the Times Picayune. I love it. You've said it a couple of times and every time it's like the way you say it and the

little twinkle in your eye. It makes me so happy. I had to ask. I love it. I got to say it a lot in the Axeman of New Orleans and it just stuck. It felt right. Time to pick a yoon. It is fun. But the trial came to an end after two weeks and on April 25th, the jury retired for deliberation.

That must've been tough. Yeah. So through this whole trial, the jury had heard from a lot of witnesses who supported Walter's claims and offered details that offered more than a little reasonable doubt as to his guilt. And by extension, they had to think about the identity of the boy who had been found in his company. They had made it reasonably sound to think that this might not be Bobby Dunbar. Yep. Regardless of that strong support, that was very clear.

On April 27th, the jury found William Walters guilty without capital punishment. Damn, I wasn't expecting that. He was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping. Wow. Now his lawyers quickly filed an appeal, arguing among other things that the statute under which he'd been convicted, which is Louisiana Act number 271, was unconstitutional, and that the prosecution had far exceeded the limitations of the right to cross-examine defense witnesses. The Louisiana Supreme Court agreed and ordered that the verdict and sentence

against Walters be set aside and that he be released from prison and, quote, discharged from further prosecution under that statute. So following this decision, the prosecution had the opportunity to try Walters again under an amended statute, but they said it would be too expensive to do a second trial and it would be a poor use of resources. So they dropped the charges and William Walters was free to go. That's suspicious. That should tell you a little bit. That's weird. That should tell you a little bit. That's giving like Wes Benfitz three that they were like, yeah, we'll release three, you know, quote unquote child killers. Yeah, like that's totally fine. Yeah, why not? No. We'll just,

we'll say on paper that you did it, pick it out of here. It's like, yeah, okay. Oh yeah, totally. That makes sense. That poor man, all he went through. And then there's like, yeah, yeah, get out of here. Now, and who knows, that's the thing too. It's like, what was up with William Walters? Why did he have this child? Is Julia telling the truth that like she never told him he could have this child? Did he kidnap this child? Who is this child? Like, what is going on? Where am I? That's the thing, like, I don't know what the real story is. Because he's saying, not I didn't kidnap this child, she said I could have this child. Yeah. But why though? One. And then two. For why though? For why though? And then, but Julia's like, no, I didn't tell him he could have my child,

and I don't want him to have my child. So that gives me pause. I mean, yeah. And then the Dunbars are like, this is Bobby Dunbar. And we're like, what? Oh, but this is a, this is a wreck. Now with the trial having come to the, to an end and Walter is freed by technicality, one question still remained. Who is this child? What happened to Bruce Anderson now? Oh yeah. Cause now, okay, sure. This is Bobby Dunbar. Where the fuck is Bruce Anderson? What happened? Yeah. Like the press and the Dunbars maintain that the boy discovered with Walters was Bobby Dunbar. I don't think so. So the majority, they were just kind of like, okay, but Julia lost a child, everybody. Like,

are we really just forgetting that? Like, she, where's her child? Where's Bruce? Unfortunately, the fate of anybody would really be kind of left up in the air for decades after this. It just ended that way where the Dunbars were like, this is Bobby. And then they were like,

I don't know what happened to Bruce. What about Julia? So following the trial, Julia Anderson decided to relocate to Polarville, Mississippi. And she spent time there. She had spent time there before the trial and she found a lot of supporters there.

Oh good. There were a lot of people who had her back among those residents. That's good, she needed that. Years later, she married James Rawls. I could not figure out if there was a connection between the lawyer, Rawls. Oh yeah. And the couple had connection between the lawyer. Oh yeah.

And the couple had seven children. Oh hell yeah. Julia never got over the loss of her son, Bruce, and talked about him often until her death in 1940 at the age of 55. She was young. I mean, she had a lot of trauma in her life. Yeah. And well, this is where it would have ended.

Like this is where I would have been the end. Like, wow, what a story, what a tale, that's crazy. But in 1999, Margaret Dunbar Cartwright, one of Bobby's granddaughters, Bobby Dunbar's granddaughters, received a large scrapbook that had hundreds of articles about the case. And so she started digging into the family history.

Margaret knew the story. She had had years of hearing it told by her parents and grandparents. She knew the story well, or she thought she did. But she said when she started digging deeper into the case, it became clear to her that the version of the story she'd heard her whole life might not have been as accurate as she'd been led to believe. So Margaret said of Julia, so Julia Anderson, this woman was telling truth. She did have a son. And my heart hurts for Julia at this point, believing that this boy is her son. You know, it's really awkward because Lessie and Julia are in the same position. They're both missing children, which is like, this is his granddaughter. Like for her to come out and be like, yeah, like, we should have a space in our heart here for this woman as well. Margaret's research

eventually led her to Mississippi, where she sat down with Julius two remaining children, Hollis and Jewel. This was in 2000. It turned out that Julius' family had also heard about the case their whole lives, but a very different version of events. Jules' daughter, Linda, told Margaret, we knew that we had an uncle that had been taken by the Dunbar family in Opelousas, Louisiana. We always said kidnapped. We said they kidnapped him. Oh, shit.

Now, from Jule and Hollis, Margaret learned a lot about Julia, and it painted a very different picture from the woman she was known really, she had only known from like legend and like really bad disparaging newspaper articles. Julia, according to her children and grandchildren, was a wonderful mother and an incredibly resilient woman who attended church every Sunday and contributed to her community whenever she could. It was clear to her children that no matter how strong she appeared to be to everyone around her, which she appeared to be very strong, Julia lived her entire life with a piece missing.

Yeah, of course she did. And they said, Jewel said she always talked about Bruce, but she called him Bobby. She was always looking for him. Oh, wow. Now everyone in the Rawls family knew about Bruce and the Dunbars and they knew they lived only about 200 miles from one another. Which is not very far at all. But they also knew the Dunbars were a prominent, somewhat wealthy family with good social status. They didn't want to cause any trouble. So Bruce would always just be a memory to them. At least until Margaret Dunbar Cartwright began

conducting her research. Margaret Cartwright spent more than four years working on her genealogical project, sometimes working at basically full time on it. And she came away with a very intimate history, not only of her own family, but of the Rawls and Walters families as well. She went hard. Yeah. The research gave her a brand new perspective on the old family legend about her grandfather's disappearance and reappearance until one day it dawned on her that the story her family had been telling her for decades could very likely be a lie. So Margaret summarized her findings

and brought the findings to the rest of the Dunbar family, her family, and suggested that they have a DNA test done to put an end to this controversy once and for all. And to her surprise, several members of the family said no. Oh, girl. Despite their objections, Margaret arranged with her cousin Alonzo Dunbar's son, so Bobby Dunbar's brother Alonzo, his son. Yep.

They arranged together to have a comparative DNA test done out of, you know, to see if there was genealogical DNA. If it came up that there was genealogical DNA, then we got Bobby. Okay. Because we're testing his brother. So we're seeing that. Now, out of respect for the rest of the family,

they agreed that they would only open, they were not gonna open the results of this until everyone in the family was comfortable doing so. So they were gonna receive these, they were gonna do it, but receive the results and then wait it out until everyone felt like they wanted to know. And then they would do it together. Okay.

Unfortunately, They never reached that point. A few weeks later, it was already done for them. So Margaret said, I called to check with the laboratory and the laboratory assistant ended up blurting to me the results over the phone. Girl. The DNA did not match.

So that was not Bobby Dunbar. That was not Bobby Dunbar. That was Bruce Anderson. What the fuck? Likely Bruce Anderson. That's the story that, you know, we don't have the DNA, but. Holy shit. Yeah. I didn't remember the ending of this. She said the lab technician had no idea the impact of what she was saying to me. It was a shock to me. Not really the conclusion, but to hear it. So she knew she was like, I have a feeling this is not Bobby. But to hear it confirmed. Wow. And several members of the family were furious that Margaret had defied their wishes, but she felt she had a duty to inform everyone. Yeah. Well, and she didn't necessarily defy their

wishes. No, she wanted to know. She had every right to know. So fate has a funny way of working things out. Yeah, because the DNA results weren't just confirmation of their grandfather's identity, right? Because now they're like, Oh, my God, I'm pretty sure that that's Bruce Anderson, right? Which would also mean like, we're now related to Julia Anderson and her family. Oh, my God. Yeah, you're like, that's a whole different. Those are like your cousins. Those are now like your kin essential. Like, you know, like that's.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Holy shit. Oh my God. And it's like thinking of Bobby Dunbar, like this kid who went through all this, like quote unquote, Bobby Dunbar, going through all these examinations, going through the back and forth, all that shit, seeing his mother, not knowing if it's her. Potentially living with the Dun nun by potentially being kidnapped, not having any idea what he went through with Walters. And then to think of him, what really shocked

me was to think of him as an adult who got married and had kids and grandkids and they must have hurt. Imagine hearing this story. And you'd be like, grandpa, what? And also like he must have known somewhere in his head. You wonder if somewhere he was or wasn't. He knew. It's like, he had to have somewhere, whether subconsciously or consciously, the body knows. But wow, you just feel for them, because it's like, wow, this is just so deeply traumatizing. But so this wasn't just, you know, confirming their grandfather's identity. They were also, you know, vindicating Julia Anderson and William Walters, both were called liars and accused of much worse for saying this is Bruce Anderson and not Bobby Dunbar.

They were both dead by this point. And to think of like Julia seeing her child and not being able to have him. And then thinking of the Dunbars because I, like Lessie and Percy, just wanting this to be their child that they were missing. It's like, oh my God. There's no win. And when you look up pictures, you can see why there was doubt. I'm not saying why in a family it would be confusing, but I'm saying from an outside perspective, I can see the resemblance. And Hollis Rawls, Julia Anderson's child, said, we have no hard feelings against nobody of what

has happened. Because back in those days, I'm sure they thought they were doing the right thing. And if I had been back in those days, I might've felt the same way in a way about things like that. Oh wow, they do look a lot alike. Yeah, but if Bobby Dunbar was really Bruce Anderson, then what happened to Bobby Dunbar? Yeah, we go all the way back to the beginning. Yep, and Margaret speculated,

I think he fell off the Swayze Lake bridge and was eaten by an alligator and died. That's the most likely scenario. And honestly, the truth is, we will probably not ever know one for it. I never like to say that, but we might never know. I mean, how would we? What happened to Bobby Dunbar on August 23rd, 1912. That is a haunting tale. The end of that story shook me to my fucking core. And also just I'm looking at the two of them side by side and knowing that one of these boys

like lived his whole life thinking he was someone else. Yep. And the other was possibly eaten by alligators. Yes. And they're just like- That just had to chill down my fucking spine. They're adorable little boys. Oh my God, they're such little swooshes. Both of them are just such little cuties. They are. Oh God. And just the thing that Julia died not ever having that piece of her put back together. Yeah. Like not hearing like this is, you were right. Yeah.

I mean, you hope wherever, wherever she's hanging out that she got to see it. Wow. What a tale. Or maybe whatever you believe in, maybe they're reunited somewhere. Yeah, maybe. I love that. I don't know. I like that.

Yeah. In another life. In another life, in another timeline, in another realm. So that's what I believe. I feel like there's so many other lives. Yeah, there's another realm going on. I don't know what it's all about, but I'm sure it's there somewhere. I hope I don't have IBS in that realm. Well, I hope so too.

I'm just saying. I'm just putting out my wishes now. Just letting you know what I hope is going down in the other realm. What do you hope? I hope I don't have migraines in the other realm. There you go. I'd really love to get rid of those. We'd like to get rid of our ailments in the other realm. That'd be pretty sick. All right. Yeah. Wow. That's a wild tale. A thinker. It's an oldie, but it's a wild one.

It is. I love an oldie. Yeah. All right. Well, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird as any of this. And not so weird that you don't practice some self-love and point out the good things that happen to you this week, man We're so cool help podcast

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