0:00

I'm

0:01

Ira Glass. It used

0:03

to be if something was big news, it got

0:05

turned into a song.

0:23

This one's about a famous kidnapping that happened in 1912, the

0:26

kidnapping of Bobby Dunbar, a four-year-old

0:29

boy. For two years, the details

0:31

of his disappearance and the search for him and

0:33

how he was found and the trial of his kidnapper

0:35

was all front-page news, reported breathlessly

0:38

all across the country. But some

0:40

of the biggest mysteries of the case were never solved,

0:43

until, long after nearly everybody

0:45

involved was dead, almost a century after

0:47

it happened. The mysteries finally got

0:49

solved when one of Bobby Dunbar's descendants

0:52

started poking around the old stories, looking

0:54

for answers she wasn't really expecting to find. Today

0:57

we devote our entire show to the legend

0:59

of Bobby Dunbar and what his granddaughter

1:01

discovered, the messy, real

1:04

story of what actually happened, which,

1:06

as you'll hear, turns out to be a lot more interesting

1:08

than the legend. Today's show is

1:10

a rerun, by the way. Tal McThenia

1:13

is our reporter. Everybody

1:15

in the family knew it, the legend of Bobby

1:18

Dunbar, the lost boy who was found.

1:20

Well, the legend was that back in the early 1900s,

1:23

my grandfather became missing. My

1:26

grandfather had gone on a camping trip

1:28

with his parents. It

1:30

was on a lake. Swayze

1:33

Lake, it's actually

1:36

a swamp in Louisiana, and

1:39

he disappeared. Bobby

1:42

was just four years old at the time, and Swayze

1:44

Lake was teeming with alligators surrounded by

1:46

dark, thick woods. There was a massive

1:49

search that started in the swamp and spread

1:51

across the country, but nothing for eight

1:53

months, until… They found

1:55

him in Mississippi.

2:00

in the hands

2:01

of Mr. Walters. A

2:04

peddler in Columbia,

2:07

Mississippi. They brought him

2:09

home, rode in on a fire

2:11

truck. There was a tremendous

2:14

parade with a fire truck.

2:17

And the whole town came out, and there was a band,

2:20

and everybody celebrated,

2:22

and he was found.

2:26

But Bobby Dunbar wasn't out of danger yet. Someone

2:30

else tried to claim him, another mother. She'd

2:33

lost her child, too, and said that the

2:35

boy they found in Mississippi was hers. There

2:37

was a big trial that proved her wrong, and

2:40

Bobby stayed with his parents, Percy and Leslie

2:42

Dunbar, in Opelousas, where

2:44

he lived for the rest of his life.

2:53

It was just a story,

2:55

a tale you would tell, you know, your

2:57

grandchildren. Which she would know,

3:00

she was one of them. Margaret Dunbar

3:02

cut right, out of everyone in the family, was

3:04

the most captivated by the legend of her grandfather's

3:07

kidnapping.

3:08

As a girl, she would beg her grandmother to tell the story

3:10

over and over.

3:12

When she had children of her own, Margaret told

3:14

them the legend, too. Then

3:17

in 1999, her younger brother Robbie died in a plane

3:19

crash.

3:20

A month later, she was sitting in the den with her

3:22

father, and he gave her a scrapbook

3:25

that had been her great grandmother's, overstuffed

3:27

with photographs and letters and newspaper clippings

3:29

from the early 1900s, all

3:31

about her grandfather's kidnapping.

3:34

It was about 400 articles, not

3:36

in chronological order.

3:39

Dad said this would

3:41

be a great project for you, Margaret. He

3:44

had no idea what

3:48

would come of that.

3:59

Without realizing it, Bobbitt set his daughter

4:02

on a path that would nearly tear their family apart.

4:05

But in the beginning, all Margaret knew was

4:07

that the scrapbook felt like the things she'd been waiting for.

4:10

In 1999, her kids were growing up

4:13

and in the house less and less. Her

4:15

husband Wayne was working in a different state and

4:17

only home on weekends. And

4:19

Margaret was in mourning for her brother. She

4:22

had long, empty days and the scrapbook could

4:24

fill them.

4:25

But the more she dug in, the more she began

4:27

to realize. This was not the breezy

4:29

adventure tale she'd grown up imagining. Even

4:32

the simplest moments in the story,

4:34

like when her great-grandparents are finally united

4:36

with their son after an eight-month-long national

4:39

search. Reporters from several papers

4:41

were following the couple, Leslie and Percy Dunbar,

4:43

on the train to Mississippi.

4:46

Throngs of people were surrounding the house where the

4:48

boy was being kept.

4:50

Leslie and Percy went inside,

4:52

but reports diverge on what happened next.

4:54

This article says that the mother faints.

4:57

The headline reads, Mother Faints, Sight of

4:59

Kidnapped Child.

5:01

When the mother reached the house where the boy was

5:03

being kept, he was asleep. Mrs.

5:06

Dunbar made a careful examination of

5:08

the lad without awakening him and

5:11

was standing over the bed a few hours

5:13

later when the child opened his eyes.

5:16

The boy recognized his mother instantly.

5:20

Mother he cried as he reached up and

5:22

stretched out his arms to her. The

5:24

mother convulsively embraced the boy, then

5:27

fainted.

5:29

In the second article, the headline

5:32

was Mrs. Dunbar Not Positive Lad as

5:34

Her Missing Boy.

5:37

When they reached the home, the child was asleep

5:39

at the time. When awakened, it began

5:41

to cry. Mrs. Dunbar

5:44

looked in the dim light of a smoky

5:46

oil lamp and then fell back with a

5:48

gasp. I do not know.

5:51

I am not quite sure, faltered Mrs.

5:53

Dunbar.

5:54

In fact, Percy and Leslie both told the papers

5:57

that the boy didn't look like their son. His

5:59

eyes were too small. But then the next

6:01

day, they came back, unless he gave the

6:03

boy a bath and identified the moles

6:05

and scars on his skin, and declared

6:07

he was hers. And according

6:10

to some newspapers, Bobby didn't recognize

6:12

his father or mother either, or his brother

6:14

Alonzo. One paper

6:16

said, quote, Bobby at first meeting

6:19

turns upon Alonzo with a scowl of anger. There

6:21

appeared no recognition of his little brother. And

6:24

then another paper said, quote, the

6:27

instant they met, Robert said, there's

6:29

my bubba Alonzo.

6:30

And reached over and kissed him. It was

6:32

a frequent occurrence in the newspapers

6:35

to contradict one another. It's

6:38

very difficult

6:40

to know for certain what really happened.

6:49

So to sort out what happened, to try to get to

6:51

the truth of the story, Margaret went on an

6:53

obsessive quest to small town libraries

6:56

and archives and courthouses all over the south.

6:59

For her birthday, her husband gave her a card for the

7:01

Library of Congress, and she spent weeks

7:03

in the reading rooms there. And

7:05

as she dug into the historical record, certain

7:07

figures from the family legends started to seem like

7:09

real people for the first time. Take

7:12

the mother who came forward and claimed that Bobby

7:14

Dunbar was actually her child. Margaret

7:16

had never given her much thought. She'd just been

7:18

the woman trying to steal her grandfather.

7:21

But in the newspapers, this woman has a name,

7:23

Julia Anderson. She's a single

7:26

mom working in North Carolina as

7:28

a fieldhand and a caretaker for the parents

7:30

of William C. Walters, the kidnapper.

7:33

Walters claimed that Julia gave him the boy willingly,

7:36

that his name wasn't Bobby Dunbar, but Bruce

7:38

Anderson. And that they'd been traveling together

7:40

for over a year. When Julia

7:42

first shows up in the papers, she confirms his

7:45

story, although she can test some of his details.

7:48

The first article that even brought her into

7:50

light in a way, there was

7:52

an affidavit printed. William

7:56

C. Walters left Barnesville, North Carolina

7:58

with my son, Charles Bruce. Bruce in February

8:01

of 1912, saying that he

8:03

only wanted to take the child with him for a few

8:05

days on a visit to the home of

8:07

his sister. I have not seen

8:09

the child from that day to this. I

8:12

did not give him the child. I merely

8:14

consented for him to take my son for

8:16

a few days. Walters

8:19

had been at the home of his father, Mr. J.P.

8:21

Walters, near Barnesville, since November 1911,

8:24

and while he was there he and

8:27

the child were together a great deal and

8:30

seemed very fond of each other. The

8:32

boy would go anywhere with Walters. I

8:35

would know my son if I were to see him,

8:37

and I am sure he would know me. I

8:40

have no picture of the child but have a lock

8:42

of his hair.

8:44

What was your reaction to that? Her

8:48

statement struck me as a very truthful

8:50

statement. This woman

8:52

was telling truth.

8:54

She did have a son.

8:56

And my heart

8:59

hurts for Julia at this point,

9:03

believing that this boy is her

9:06

son. You know, it's

9:08

really awkward because Lessie and Julia

9:10

are in the same position. They're

9:13

both missing children.

9:16

From May of 1913 on, Julia was

9:19

all over

9:22

the headlines.

9:24

A

9:28

New Orleans paper paid for her trip to Opelusis

9:31

to see if she really could identify the boy as hers.

9:34

The story, as was played out on the front pages,

9:37

was this. Julia arrived, weary

9:39

from an overnight train ride, and was taken

9:42

into an Opelusis home. Five

9:44

boys around Bruce's age, including the

9:46

child the Dunbarts had claimed as Bobby, were

9:48

brought in at different times, and Julia

9:51

had to choose. When

9:53

Bobby came in, he was in tears, and

9:55

so was Julia. He showed no signs

9:57

of recognition, even when she offered him

9:59

an orange.

10:01

But Julia asked the lawyers in the room if

10:03

this was the child who was recovered. They

10:06

refused to answer. Finally,

10:09

she said she just didn't know and the test

10:11

was declared a failure. Julia

10:13

begged for a second chance

10:15

and the next day she was allowed to see the boy again

10:17

and undress him. This time

10:20

she felt more certain that it was her son. But

10:23

her failure the night before was already national

10:25

news.

10:26

Julia had no lawyer and no money and

10:28

very few allies in Appaloosus. So

10:31

she left town and began the long trip back

10:33

to North Carolina. And

10:35

from that point on, the boy was

10:37

Bobby Dunbar.

10:46

The

10:46

more Margaret learned about Julia Anderson's life,

10:48

the more tragic the story seemed. Julia

10:51

had three children by two different men, neither

10:54

her husband. And she'd lost all

10:56

her children in just a single year.

10:58

A daughter she gave up for adoption, a

11:00

baby whose sudden death she was wrongfully blamed

11:02

for, and now Bruce. But

11:05

the newspapers weren't very sympathetic. They

11:07

implied she was a prostitute, called

11:09

her illiterate and naive. Take

11:12

this article in the New Orleans item titled,

11:14

Julia Has Forgotten.

11:16

Julia has forgotten by

11:19

Jerome G. Beatty. Her

11:23

long journey had been in vain. She

11:25

had not seen her son since February of 1912 and

11:28

she had forgotten him. Animals

11:30

don't forget, but this big course

11:33

country woman several times a mother

11:35

she forgot. She cared

11:37

little for her young. Children

11:39

were only regrettable incidents in her life.

11:43

I see I hate this article.

11:46

She hopes her son isn't dead, just

11:48

as she hopes that the cotton crop will be good

11:50

this year. Of true

11:52

mother love, she has none. See,

11:56

how judgmental. Then

11:58

one day, Margaret found a Julia Anderson. Anderson

12:00

listed on an online genealogy site

12:02

with this biographical note. Quote,

12:05

Julia had a son from her first marriage

12:08

named Bruce,

12:09

who was kidnapped from North Carolina when

12:11

he was six years old and taken to Louisiana.

12:14

She tried to get him back, but the people that

12:17

kidnapped him won him in court and

12:19

changed his name to Bobby Dunbar.

12:21

Well, that

12:24

was not what my grandmother told me. That

12:27

was not right. It

12:29

was like an upside down world opened up to

12:32

Margaret with a family who believed exactly

12:34

the opposite of what her family believed. And

12:37

in 2000, Margaret did what nobody else

12:39

in her family, to her knowledge, had ever done before.

12:43

She went to meet and visit with the descendants

12:45

of Julia Anderson, her two living

12:47

children, Hollis Rawls and Jewel Tarver,

12:49

and Jewel's daughter, Linda.

12:51

My name is Linda Tarver, and I'm the daughter

12:54

of Jewel Rawls Tarver, who is

12:56

the daughter of Julia Anderson. And Julia

12:58

Anderson wanted to be my grandmother.

13:01

All of us cousins grew up, we

13:04

knew that we had an uncle that

13:06

had been taken by the Dunbar

13:09

family in Hopaloosus, Louisiana.

13:12

We always said kidnap, we

13:14

said they kidnapped him.

13:22

From

13:22

the Andersons, Margaret learned what happened

13:25

to Julia after the controversy over Bobby Dunbar.

13:28

Julia moved to Poplarville, Mississippi, 200 miles

13:31

east of Abaloosus, got married and had

13:33

seven children. Jewel and Hollis

13:35

are the youngest, now in their 80s.

13:38

Talking to Jewel and Hollis and Linda, a very

13:40

different picture of Julia emerges than the

13:42

one in the newspapers of a barely literate

13:44

woman of loose morals.

13:46

Here's Linda. Grandmother loved

13:48

to read, and she used to read

13:51

Zane Gray books. And

13:54

then she would sit them around at night and she would

13:56

tell them the stories that she had read that day.

13:59

But then when she became a Christian,

14:02

she decided reading Zangre was the wrong

14:04

thing to do. So they never got any more Zangre

14:07

stories, but they had to listen to the Bible

14:09

then.

14:10

We went to church. I'm

14:13

telling you. And you behaved to

14:15

the church. This is Julian Hollis,

14:18

Julia's children.

14:19

And we'd walk through

14:21

these woods, cross

14:24

an old hickory log

14:27

across the creek, and

14:29

go to church. And

14:31

it'd be dinner time before we'd leave,

14:34

and we'd starve to death before we got home.

14:37

Hollis and Jewel revere their mother. Julia

14:40

didn't just go to church, they say. She founded

14:42

the church.

14:43

She was a nurse and a midwife for the entire community.

14:46

During

14:46

the Depression, she sewed all her children's

14:49

clothes out of fertilizer bags, and they were

14:51

always well fed. There

14:53

was only one thing missing. She

14:55

always talked about Bruce, but

14:58

she called him Bobby. She

15:00

was always looking for him. She

15:04

never forgot it. Never, ever

15:06

forgot the boy. She'd

15:08

always, once in a while, bring it up, and

15:12

what the boy looked like. And

15:16

she'd take a while to

15:18

tell it, you know, about he did so and

15:20

so, and this, that, and the other, you know, and if

15:22

it had been possible for

15:25

her to have got the child

15:28

legally back or anything, she

15:31

would have done it, if possible.

15:33

She would have. She loved

15:35

the child. She loved Bruce.

15:38

She sure did. So,

15:51

growing up, you knew that

15:54

Bruce was out there. We

15:57

knew. We knew we had a brother.

16:00

We knew we had a problem. We knew we had a problem. We

16:02

knew that. We kept thinking, well,

16:04

one day we'll get to go to this town

16:08

and we'll find him. But

16:11

we never did go. Even

16:13

though Opelousas is just 200 miles from Poplarville,

16:17

they didn't have a lot of money back then, and

16:19

that kind of travel was expensive.

16:21

They told me that when Julia went back up to North

16:23

Carolina for her mother's funeral, they

16:25

had to sell the family mule to pay for the trip.

16:28

But it wasn't just the cost, Hollis says. So,

16:31

I reckon you'd be afraid if

16:34

you want to know the real word. I

16:36

knew according to

16:39

the signs and things that

16:41

they had in Opelousas that

16:43

the Dunbar were well off people. Dunbar's

16:47

everywhere. Everywhere you looked, there was a Dunbar

16:50

sign on the building or something of that. And

16:53

people that had those signs up, I always

16:55

thought that you

16:57

didn't mess with them. And we

16:59

figured if they took Mama's

17:02

son, what

17:04

kind of people were they to begin

17:06

with? And if

17:09

people can do that through

17:12

the laws and get

17:14

away with it, who

17:17

are we to try to do

17:20

or interfere with something like that?

17:23

For all the new things Margaret learned about Julia Anderson's

17:26

family, one of the most surprising revelations

17:28

Jule and Hollis offered was about Margaret's

17:30

grandfather.

17:31

As much as the Andersons wondered about Bobby,

17:34

it seemed he'd been wondering about them as well. Hollis

17:38

remembers a day in 1944, maybe, when

17:40

he was in his late 20s. He was

17:42

working at an ice plant in Poplarville, and

17:44

a man he'd never seen before came in and

17:47

started making small talk. Finally,

17:49

he introduced himself. He was Bobby

17:51

Dunbar from Opelousas, Louisiana.

17:54

Hollis was startled, but before he could

17:57

process it, a customer came in and Hollis

17:59

had to rush off to work. When

18:01

he came back, Bobby was still there, more

18:03

small talk, and now a lot of looking each other over.

18:07

But Hollis' work got in the way again, and

18:09

eventually Bobby left. But 30 minutes

18:12

after he left, it

18:15

dawned on me what I had done.

18:19

It was a man that I'd been looking for

18:21

for almost 20-something years

18:23

anyhow. The

18:27

mother had been telling me about, here he is,

18:30

looking me straight in the eye, and I

18:32

didn't do nothing about trying

18:34

to find out more about the situation. But

18:37

it didn't. I just didn't.

18:40

And I regret that.

18:50

Hollis' sister, Jewel, had a similar story. She

18:53

was working at a service station that she and her husband

18:55

ran at a crossroads outside Poplarville.

18:58

A man came in and talked to her for maybe an hour, she

19:00

says, to sat and drank coffee, looking

19:03

only at her and asking all kinds of questions.

19:06

But he didn't identify himself.

19:08

After he left then and I got

19:10

to thinking about it, I

19:12

said, that is who

19:15

I believe he was.

19:17

Bobby. When

19:20

Margaret heard this story during her first visit with Hollis

19:22

and Jewel back in 2000, she had her

19:25

doubts.

19:26

But later Margaret was visiting with her uncle and aunt,

19:28

her father's siblings.

19:30

And while they were in the car, Margaret was telling

19:32

them about her research and the mysterious encounters

19:34

that Hollis and Jewel remembered.

19:36

In the rearview mirror, she saw her uncle and

19:39

aunt exchange a charged look.

19:41

Then they told her this story.

19:43

Here's Margaret's uncle Gerald, Bobby Dunbar's

19:45

youngest son.

19:46

It would have been 1963,

19:48

so it would have been 13 years old. We

19:53

were coming back from a trip, my brother's

19:55

wedding in Ohio, in Cincinnati. And

19:59

on the way back, we went

20:01

through Mississippi. And

20:07

I remember my dad saying,

20:09

pointing, he says,

20:12

those were the people that

20:14

they came to pick me up from. And

20:18

he asked, he said, should I stop? And

20:23

my mother sort of responded, if

20:26

you think you should. And

20:29

so they did. We stopped. Then

20:32

he went in to the store. And

20:37

so we stayed there for maybe 30 minutes

20:39

or so. And

20:42

he came back and

20:44

we left. Margaret,

20:48

the granddaughter of

20:51

Bobby Dunbar,

20:53

and Linda, the granddaughter of Julia Anderson,

20:58

interpreted this eerie coincidence differently.

21:01

They'd been discussing Margaret's research on

21:02

the phone and online since they first met. On

21:06

the one hand, they

21:07

were ideal research partners, since

21:09

they both were singularly fascinated with the story.

21:12

But on the other hand, it was

21:14

an uneasy alliance. Here's Linda.

21:16

Margaret was totally

21:18

convinced that it was Bobby Dunbar all along. I

21:22

was totally convinced that it was Bruce Anderson

21:25

all along. We understood

21:27

that we were both coming from different

21:29

angles. Again, Margaret. But

21:32

what was there to do but butt heads, you know,

21:35

and yet we tried to do it very civilly for

21:37

months. Good

21:40

morning to everyone, and we're certainly

21:42

glad to have all of you with us. Agreeing

21:45

to disagree gets old fast. The

21:48

differences between Margaret and Linda came

21:50

to a head in Columbia, Mississippi when

21:53

Margaret was invited to share her research at the

21:55

Historical Society in town. The

21:57

sound you're hearing is from a video of the event. In

22:00

the front of the room were Julia Anderson's children,

22:02

Hollis and Jewel. Several

22:05

times during her presentation, Margaret used

22:07

phrases like this.

22:08

The illegitimate child of a domestic,

22:11

Julia Anderson. The illegitimate

22:14

child of a domestic, Julia Anderson.

22:17

Jewel and Hollis bristled.

22:19

That was their mom she was talking about.

22:21

Margaret went on to describe Julia like a character

22:24

in a story, working in the fields

22:26

with coarse hands and bare dirty feet,

22:28

and she made it clear that she didn't really believe the

22:30

Anderson family's version of what happened, that

22:32

Bobby was Bruce,

22:34

but her own families, that Bobby was Bobby,

22:37

son of her great-grandparents, Percy and Leslie

22:39

Dunbar.

22:40

When Jewel and Hollis got home and told Linda

22:42

what happened, she got mad.

22:44

I truly don't believe that when she spoke

22:47

and the way she spoke, I don't believe

22:49

that she meant to

22:51

say it to be as derogatory

22:53

as we took it either, if you want to know the truth. She

22:56

had spoken the truth of Julia Anderson,

22:59

had children out of wedlock,

23:03

so she was a

23:05

loose woman. Which,

23:09

if you have to accept that, you have to accept

23:11

it, but I wanted her

23:13

to see it from my point of view.

23:16

You know, I felt like she

23:19

looked at it from her point of view long enough. It

23:22

was my turn, and

23:25

I don't remember if it was a

23:27

written letter or email, but I told

23:29

her, the very woman

23:31

that you maligned at that meeting today

23:34

could very well turn out to be your great-grandmother.

23:39

She said to me, again, Margaret,

23:41

you need to look a lot more closely.

23:45

You keep wanting to know all about Julia. You

23:47

need to look more into Leslie and Percy

23:50

and judge their characters. And

23:54

that did

23:56

not make me happy. It sort of

23:58

angered me. to have

24:00

her say that, but in retrospect,

24:04

she was absolutely right. I

24:06

did need to put down

24:09

what I believed and

24:11

be able to look at

24:12

it with fresh eyes. Coming

24:22

up, what Margaret discovers, plus

24:25

the kidnapper speaks. That's

24:27

in a minute from Chicago Public Radio. When

24:30

our program continues.

24:33

I'm Elena Bergeron. I'm John Branch. We

24:35

write for the New York Times. When I look at a basketball

24:37

sneaker, I think about my reporting on stick

24:40

slip. It's a science behind why sneakers

24:42

squeak. I came to understand that we hear this

24:44

type of sound all around us.

24:46

When I look at a basketball sneaker, I

24:48

think about its impact on culture. I wrote about

24:50

Melody Asani and how her work designing

24:52

sneakers for the biggest male athletes can

24:55

open doors for other women designers.

24:56

The New York Times. Explore

24:59

how we bring more of life to life. At nytimes.com

25:02

slash life.

25:04

This is American Life, America Glass. Our

25:07

story unraveling the century old mystery

25:09

of what happened to Bobby Dunbar continues.

25:12

Again, here's Tal MacThenia.

25:15

By 2003, Margaret had been researching

25:17

for four years. She'd taken all

25:19

the articles from the scrapbook and all the articles

25:21

from all the libraries and typed them,

25:24

over 1200 total.

25:26

Margaret had maps and photo albums and

25:28

tape recordings and books on her shelf

25:30

like Social History of the American

25:32

Alligator.

25:34

That year, she started looking for descendants

25:36

of William Walters, the wandering handyman,

25:39

the man who'd kidnapped her grandfather. In 1914,

25:43

Walters was convicted of kidnapping Bobby

25:46

Dunbar. His lawyers appealed

25:48

and the state supreme court ordered a retrial. But

25:51

incredibly, because the first trial cost

25:53

the town so much money, prosecutors decided

25:56

to drop the case instead. Walters

25:58

was released.

25:59

In 2003, Margaret

26:02

opened up something called the Walters Family Genealogy

26:04

Book.

26:06

She poured over the names in the book and

26:08

started making phone calls.

26:10

I'm Gene Cooper and I'm the great niece of

26:12

William Cantwell Walters. We always called

26:14

him Uncle Cant. I never knew he had William Cantwell

26:17

until all this came up. He

26:19

was always Uncle Cant.

26:21

We met with Gene and her sister Barbara in Savannah,

26:23

Georgia. Just like Hollis and Jewel

26:25

and Margaret,

26:26

they'd grown up hearing the Bobby Dunbar story too.

26:29

Their version was a little racier. Well

26:31

the story we heard was that this Miss

26:34

Julia Anderson was a fine

26:36

young lady. But you know,

26:39

mostly

26:41

fine young ladies get entrapped. And

26:44

I tell you what, there's many a handsome young sweet-talking

26:48

man come around and entrap them. So

26:51

that's what happened to Miss Julia as the story

26:54

went.

26:54

Now I know it was rumored that

26:57

Uncle Cant was the father and

26:59

one of his brothers was the father. Could have

27:01

been Uncle Bun. He was a rounder. He

27:03

was a real rounder. But

27:06

they all night it. They said it was another

27:08

feller.

27:09

Gene and Barbara grew up on a farm in Georgia

27:12

with their ailing grandfather, Rad, William Walters'

27:14

brother. After getting released from

27:16

jail, William Walters had gone back to his life

27:18

as a tinker, a traveling handyman,

27:21

tuning pianos in people's parlors and

27:23

fixing organs in country churches.

27:26

And at least once or twice a year, his

27:28

travels would bring him around to his brother's house for a

27:30

visit. To see an Uncle Cant come with his

27:32

wagon a-trinkling and a-bouncing,

27:34

the pots and pans of bouncing against

27:37

each other. You couldn't help but know it was Uncle Cant.

27:39

But Grandpa would lighten up. Oh,

27:42

he would just brighten up. There's

27:44

Cant. There's Cant. You know, let's put some more wood on

27:46

the fire. Go see what's in the kitchen. Let's

27:48

see some supper. It always come about dark.

27:51

Every time I remember him coming, it was about dark,

27:53

wasn't it, Bobby?

27:55

Yeah. Right. And it didn't matter if we'd

27:57

already had supper in the fire going out in the stove.

28:00

had to light up the fire and cook Uncle Cant and fix

28:02

Uncle Cant from some supper so he could

28:04

sit with the grandpa till midnight. But

28:06

each and every time he'd come, and he would come

28:08

several times a year and stay a month at the time,

28:11

and

28:11

three, two to four weeks, they

28:14

sat and talked over the case of the

28:17

kidnapping and how

28:19

innocent he was. It

28:21

was like it had just happened.

28:30

During one visit,

28:31

Gene and Barbara's grandfather asked William

28:33

Walters what he was doing traveling around the country

28:35

with somebody else's boy in the first place. Walters

28:39

explained that Julia was in dire straits

28:41

and she couldn't take care of Bruce, and he was

28:43

planning on bringing the boy back once she got on her

28:45

feet.

28:46

And also, there was the business element. Uncle

28:49

Cant told grandpa

28:51

that with that little boy with him, people

28:53

were not nicer when he stopped to spend the night,

28:56

because he would stop along the road at farmhouses

28:59

and around in his travels

29:02

and ask for a night's lodging and

29:04

hay for the horses. And then

29:06

he would do things for them, between the

29:08

pianos, organs, or whatever. And

29:11

he said, with that little boy, the mothers just couldn't

29:13

wait to get their hands on the little boy and feed

29:15

him and cuddle him and bathe him.

29:18

In fact, a woman told me one time

29:20

she had a neighbor. If I'm

29:23

getting off the beaten path, it'll kind of explain

29:25

it. That was ugly as homemade sin.

29:28

And she was all the time wanting to take her little grandchild

29:31

with her everywhere, shopping into the grocery

29:33

store and walking. And I said, well,

29:35

why does she want to carry him along with her all the time?

29:37

She says, well, she is so ugly,

29:41

it makes her look better to have a little child along

29:43

with her. So, that

29:48

could have been a cuckat

29:49

having that little child, especially

29:52

the ladies in the house were a lot nicer.

30:06

This is the defense file. These

30:09

are photocopies. Margaret

30:11

had also tracked down the granddaughter of William

30:13

Walter's lawyer, who had saved in a closet

30:16

the complete defense file from the kidnapping case.

30:19

When Margaret heard that, she dropped everything,

30:21

bought a portable scanner, and showed up at the woman's

30:23

doorstep.

30:25

She spent a week scanning the entire thing, and

30:27

then four months back at home typing and deciphering

30:29

it.

30:31

The defense file was a gold mine.

30:33

It had correspondence from the governors of Mississippi

30:35

and Louisiana,

30:36

handwritten letters from Julia Anderson,

30:39

and dozens of sworn affidavits from

30:41

Mississippi residents,

30:42

saying that the child was Bruce Anderson, and

30:45

that they'd seen him in the area with Walters months

30:47

before Bobby Dunbar went missing.

30:50

And then there was this letter,

30:52

written by William Walters himself,

30:54

just days after he was arrested and thrown in

30:56

jail,

30:57

addressed directly to Percy Dunbar,

30:59

who had just taken the boy home with him.

31:01

I see that you got Bruce, but

31:04

you have heaped up trouble for yourselves. I

31:06

had no chance to prove up, but I know

31:09

by now you have decided you are wrong.

31:11

It is very likely I will lose my life on account

31:14

of that. And if I do, the

31:16

great God will hold you accountable.

31:19

That boy's mother is Julia Anderson.

31:21

You ask him and he will tell you. I

31:24

did not teach him to beg or bum, but

31:26

inasmuch as you have him,

31:28

take good care of him. So

31:30

you have a lost Robert and me a lost

31:32

Bruce. May God bless

31:35

my darling boy. Write me

31:37

if I don't get lynched. I

31:39

think you will be sad a long time,

31:42

but hope not too bad.

31:51

The defense file was 400 pages

31:54

of evidence that directly challenged Margaret's

31:56

family legend. And pretty soon,

31:58

Margaret reached a breaking point. Toward

32:01

the very end of me typing

32:03

the defense file which was not in chronological

32:05

order, I came across

32:08

a letter that

32:09

totally,

32:12

it was my epiphany. It was a letter

32:14

written by a Christian woman. I don't even

32:16

know her name. She just signed it a Christian

32:19

woman and it was written to the attorneys

32:21

of William Walters and it says,

32:25

Kindly pardon me, I am ill in bed,

32:27

but this matter has just worried me. Dear

32:30

sir, in view of human justice

32:33

to Julia Anderson and mothers,

32:35

I am prompted to write to you.

32:37

I sincerely believe the Dunbar's

32:40

have Bruce Anderson and not their boy.

32:43

If this is their child, why are they afraid

32:46

for anyone to see or interview him

32:48

privately?

32:49

I would see nothing to fear and this seems strange.

32:53

The Dunbar's claim that... The letter goes

32:55

on for six pages laying out a point

32:57

by point common sense argument that the Dunbar's

32:59

have the wrong child.

33:01

Why haven't pictures of Bobby and Bruce been printed

33:03

side by side so the world could see whether

33:06

they look alike or not? Why is Julia

33:08

judged more harshly for wavering than Lessie

33:10

when neither of them recognize the child at first? Which

33:14

gets a Christian woman to her biggest point,

33:16

a look back at that fateful night in Mississippi

33:19

when the Dunbar's first saw the boy and

33:21

didn't recognize him until Lessie

33:23

gave him a bath and saw his moles and

33:25

scars.

33:26

If this had been their own

33:28

child and he had been gone eight months,

33:30

do you think his features would be so changed

33:33

that they would not know him only by moles

33:36

and scars? This

33:38

is a farce. If

33:40

the Dunbar's do not know their child who

33:43

has only been gone eight months by his features,

33:46

why they don't know him at all.

33:53

dawned

34:00

on me. Oh

34:02

my God. She's

34:04

right. This

34:07

is what a farce. What a farce this

34:10

is. The

34:20

idea for a DNA test had been floating around

34:22

for years, but Margaret hadn't wanted

34:24

to do it unless all her uncles and aunts, Bobby

34:26

Dunbar's children, agreed to it. And

34:29

then, four years into her research, a

34:31

reporter from the Associated Press, Alan

34:33

Breed, got wind of the story. Margaret

34:36

remembers being in the room when Alan asked her father

34:38

if he would consent to a DNA test.

34:40

She was startled at his answer. Yes,

34:42

he said, he wanted to do it now. He'd

34:44

waited long enough.

34:47

Margaret's father, Bob Dunbar Jr., was

34:49

Bobby Dunbar's oldest son.

34:51

He'd heard the legend, of course, but he'd never

34:53

heard it from his father.

34:55

It was not something that we discussed

34:57

at home. It was just the

35:01

stuff was in the attic, newspaper

35:04

articles, some pictures. It

35:06

was stuff that my mother gathered. And

35:08

at

35:09

home, we never discussed

35:11

it. But Bob had been watching

35:13

Margaret's research with interest. Remember,

35:16

he'd given her the scrapbook that got this whole thing started.

35:19

Bob had just spent weeks in the hospital with

35:21

congestive heart failure and explained

35:23

his decision this way in a letter to his family.

35:27

Daddy did not have the science of DNA to confirm

35:29

the decision of the court and his youth.

35:32

I feel it is my responsibility to achieve that

35:35

before I go. The

35:35

easiest

35:37

way to do the test would be to compare the DNA

35:40

of two different lines of Dunbar's.

35:42

Someone from Bobby's line, since his identity

35:44

was in doubt,

35:45

and someone from his brother Alonzo's line,

35:48

since there was no question he was a Dunbar.

35:51

Bob and Margaret spoke with Alonzo's son David, and

35:54

he agreed to do the test.

35:56

The plan was to keep the results sealed until

35:58

all Bob's siblings agreed to open the test. them a

36:01

month passed. I called to check

36:03

with the laboratory and the

36:06

laboratory assistant ended

36:09

up blurting to me the results

36:11

over the phone. The DNA

36:14

did not match. You

36:16

know, as far as she was concerned it was a paternity

36:18

test. You know, she

36:21

had no idea that

36:23

the impact of what she was saying to me.

36:26

It was a shock

36:29

to me. Not really the the

36:31

conclusion but to hear it. Margaret

36:34

got off the phone and drove 10 hours that day to

36:36

tell her father in person. He was still in the

36:39

hospital. It took my breath away. You

36:41

know, I was I just didn't

36:44

I hadn't considered that. My

36:46

thought was to prove that daddy

36:49

was Bobby Dunbar. So

36:54

it took me

36:57

well I had a lot of time. I

36:59

was in the hospital a while and

37:03

I just pondered it. You

37:05

know, and all

37:07

right if if if

37:09

my past is wrong, Bobby

37:12

Dunbar, all the legends,

37:14

all the stories and

37:18

then all of a sudden you find out well that's

37:21

not

37:23

who your blood says you are.

37:26

Where does that leave me? You know,

37:29

where is this if if

37:32

my grandpa isn't my grandpa, who

37:38

am I? Bob's

37:48

siblings had no idea he'd taken the test and

37:50

then an AP reporter was preparing to write an article

37:53

for the National Wire. Bob

37:55

had to tell them and when he did they

37:57

were all stunned and really mad.

38:00

Mad at Bob,

38:01

but especially Mad at Margaret,

38:03

who they blamed for orchestrating the whole thing and

38:05

making it national news.

38:07

Margaret's younger brother, Swin, explained what it was

38:09

like.

38:10

She was really going up against the

38:12

entire family, including

38:14

myself. In fact, I'm

38:17

not sure of any family member that was for her,

38:20

except for her and possibly my dad.

38:24

In retrospect, she was doing

38:27

what she felt was right, but it

38:29

felt like she was alienating everybody else doing

38:31

so.

38:34

The other thing about all that is some

38:37

of us in the family,

38:39

and probably even me at one

38:42

time, probably felt like she was being a little bit selfish. Why

38:48

do this? Why do you need to do this?

38:51

Somebody in the family wants to know.

39:01

After the story ran in 2004, a

39:03

thick silence descended between Margaret and her relatives,

39:06

and that schism has persisted to this day. When

39:09

she told them I'd called her about doing this radio story,

39:11

the relatives were furious. They

39:13

told Margaret that yet again she'd proven that she

39:16

couldn't be trusted. They said she was

39:18

disrespecting their heritage and destroying

39:20

family relationships.

39:22

They told her that they were Dunbars, and

39:24

that's all they wanted to be.

39:32

But the other two families involved took it a little better.

39:36

For Jeanine Barber Cooper, the great nieces of

39:38

William Walters, it meant their ancestor wasn't

39:40

a kidnapper,

39:41

which was nice to hear. You don't like to

39:43

think of your people being guilty of something like

39:45

that, and we didn't have a whole lot. I

39:48

don't think we had many people did with it, was

39:50

falsely accused. The

39:53

ones that were accused were usually guilty

39:56

and proven so.

39:59

it was literally the answer to

40:02

a lifetime of prayers. Margaret's

40:04

father, Bob, and his wife, Amilda, went down

40:06

to Mississippi to deliver the news in person to

40:09

Linda, Jewel, and Hollis. We didn't know what

40:11

was up.

40:12

They said, be there. They wouldn't tell

40:14

us. They wouldn't tell us what, till

40:17

we got to the meeting. And

40:20

he told us that the DNA

40:22

had been run, that

40:25

he was not a Dunbar,

40:27

you know. And that's where

40:29

the eyes, you know, we all

40:32

just, I got up from

40:34

where we were sitting on the couch. And

40:37

I went around, I think, I hugged his neck.

40:40

Just knowing that, man,

40:45

we're family. We're just family.

40:48

When

40:51

Bobby Jr. and Miss Amilda came,

40:58

and they

41:00

told us about the DNA

41:02

testing, that's

41:04

the day Bobby came home. And

41:08

he came in the form of his son. And

41:13

we're proud for Julia. The

41:15

one thing she wanted most in her life was

41:18

her child back. And she

41:20

got him. I

41:29

told him that day, I said, now we're

41:31

not expecting nothing from

41:34

them, but friendship.

41:36

That's all that

41:38

we ever wanted. We have

41:41

no hard feelings against

41:44

nobody, of

41:46

what has happened. Because

41:48

back in those days, I

41:51

am sure they thought they were doing the right

41:53

thing. And if

41:57

I'd have been back those days, I might've felt,

42:00

the same way in a way about some things like

42:02

that. I don't know, but

42:04

now we're just happy about

42:06

the situation,

42:08

but not happy they're unhappy, if

42:10

you know what I'm talking about. We're

42:12

just happy because we

42:15

know the truth now. Let's

42:20

see, we're coming up, we're

42:22

getting closer to where my grandmother lived, my

42:24

grandfather. Oh

42:28

my gosh, it was this house. What's

42:30

up in here? Margaret's taking me on a

42:32

driving tour of Apollousis.

42:34

She grew up spending summer vacations here at

42:36

her grandmother's with her whole family.

42:38

It's a mix of personal history and history

42:41

she's read about in her research.

42:43

We go by the public pool where she used to spend afternoons

42:45

swimming and hanging out,

42:47

and also the old jail site where

42:49

William Walters played a homemade harp to the

42:51

crowds outside his cell window. I didn't want

42:53

to turn left. We drive into a subdivision that

42:56

her great uncle Alonzo developed, sprawling

42:58

ranches, big lawns, strange

43:00

street names.

43:01

Yeah, and he named some of these streets.

43:03

Like this one was named after himself,

43:06

and he named one called

43:08

Anna Lee after his wife, and

43:13

there's one called Dunbar Street, which

43:15

here we are at Dunbar Street. There

43:18

are still Dunbars and Apollousis, relatives

43:20

that Margaret knows and loves, but she doesn't

43:22

feel comfortable bringing me in for a visit.

43:25

We're tiptoeing around.

43:27

Margaret's cigarette breaks are happening more and more

43:29

frequently. The contrast between

43:31

the tension in Apollousis and the welcome

43:34

she'd received two days ago from the Andersons

43:36

in Poplarville is hard to miss.

43:38

Julia Anderson's children have

43:42

done nothing but welcome

43:45

and embrace me into their lives,

43:48

and they think that I'm brave and

43:50

smart,

43:53

and William Walters' family

43:56

thinks that I'm

43:57

a whiz. Ha ha ha. I

44:01

think for my family, when

44:04

I started this project, I thought that

44:06

this would sort of keep us

44:09

bonded and it didn't,

44:13

it divided. So

44:16

in a way I feel like failure. There

44:20

are people upset by it and

44:24

there are some people who still don't accept that

44:27

the truth, it's

44:32

like they don't believe me. They

44:36

don't believe me. The

44:41

disappearance of Bobby Dunbar blew apart the

44:43

lives of three different families. But

44:46

the people you'd think would be hurt the worst by it actually

44:48

come out the best.

44:50

Like Julia Anderson.

44:52

Before Bobby's disappearance, she was a fieldhand

44:55

in North Carolina on her own, not

44:57

making enough money to feed her own child.

44:59

The people she worked for mistreated her.

45:01

The man she married shot her in the foot the night

45:04

after her wedding.

45:05

But William Walters kidnapping trial got

45:07

her out of there to a better place.

45:10

Poplarville, Mississippi.

45:12

Back in 1912 and 1913, William

45:15

Walters and Julia's son, Bruce, had been well-known

45:17

fixtures in the Poplarville area.

45:19

He and Bruce stayed in people's homes for weeks

45:21

at a time while he tuned pianos and repaired

45:23

the church organ. And when William

45:25

Walters went to trial, these very people,

45:28

at least 20 of them, came forward to testify

45:30

to his innocence.

45:32

And that's where they met Julia, the mother of

45:34

the child they'd known and cared for, who

45:36

was also there to testify for Walters.

45:38

After the trial, Julia had

45:40

no money and no place to go.

45:43

The people from Mississippi took her in.

45:45

It was almost like she was adopted. Just

45:48

like Bruce was taken in to be Bobby. And

45:51

both of them were given a new life.

45:55

I mean, they,

45:56

everything that bad could be

45:58

said about somebody was said. about Julia.

46:01

At this trial, you know, everything that could

46:03

be said was said. But these people

46:06

saw something in her,

46:08

or they wouldn't have taken her in her home.

46:11

And their home, yeah, the people here in B

46:30

She lost everything.

46:32

She lost, she had a baby that died

46:34

just before she came down here, you

46:37

know, and now she's lost Bruce.

46:40

What did she have to live for? Why

46:44

didn't she, you know, suicide was

46:46

not of an unheard of, you

46:48

know. I'm sure they didn't promise

46:50

her, they just said come home

46:53

with us, you know, come home

46:55

with us till you get on your feet, come home with us till

46:57

you can get up and do for yourself.

47:01

So I can't regret it. I

47:03

cannot regret for one minute that she

47:06

came down here. I'm sad that that

47:08

she did not have that child, and

47:12

I don't believe that she would ever made

47:16

given

47:16

the opportunity of saying, okay, we'll

47:18

give you a new life if you'll give us this child. She

47:21

would have never given that child up. I

47:23

don't believe that. But

47:27

if you hate that

47:29

it happened, then

47:32

you hate that you are. If

47:35

that makes any sense. And I

47:37

don't hate that I am.

47:39

I rejoice in that I am. I rejoice in the family

47:41

that we've got, and I feel like grandmother

47:44

felt the same way. As

47:47

for the consequences for Bobby,

47:49

even Julia Anderson's children, Hollis and Jewel,

47:52

figure he was probably better off with the Dunbars.

47:54

I don't want to put him down or my

47:56

mother down either, you know what I mean. She

47:59

did the best. she could with what probably she

48:01

had to do with. But

48:04

here's some people that got

48:06

off the wagon to get

48:08

in a car.

48:11

Um,

48:22

enclosed are the divorce papers. I promised

48:24

you I know that these are official copies

48:26

because the notary seals are raised.

48:29

The divorce papers of Percy and Lissy Dunbar

48:31

are brief,

48:32

but even the bare facts are enough to imagine what

48:34

life in the Dunbar family was like for Bobby after

48:36

the trial.

48:37

Lissy and Percy separated

48:39

in 1920, meaning, five

48:42

years after the court affirmed that Bobby was hers,

48:44

Lissy left him,

48:46

her husband, and her other son Alonzo

48:48

behind and moved to New Orleans.

48:50

Bobby was 12 and Alonzo was 10.

48:53

Also in 1920,

48:55

Percy beat and stabbed a man while on

48:57

a trip to Florida on the eighth anniversary

49:00

of the day of Bobby's disappearance.

49:02

His court record for this assault is included

49:04

in the divorce papers.

49:07

Lissy makes accusations of repeated and ongoing

49:09

infidelity,

49:10

but Percy denies the charges. Elsewhere,

49:13

there is another court record that corroborates

49:15

Lissy's claim.

49:17

It's an arrest record for Percy on

49:19

charges of adultery and cohabitation.

49:22

But perhaps the most compelling detail is a handwritten

49:24

note that accompanies the packet.

49:27

It's from Lissy herself to Elizabeth, her

49:29

granddaughter who took care of her in her old age. This

49:32

says, for Elizabeth Dunbar to read

49:35

after my death, so

49:38

she may know why I stayed in my

49:41

shell of grief. She

49:44

stayed in her shell of grief? I

49:49

think she had to have, on

49:52

some level, known. And

49:58

maybe she didn't. I don't know. I think maybe

50:00

she was in a denial her

50:02

entire life. From everything

50:05

I've heard, she

50:07

truly believed that this was her son, Bobby.

50:13

But I can't help but wonder that

50:15

maybe underneath, where

50:20

you go and can't talk

50:23

about, she

50:26

must have known

50:30

that this was not her

50:32

son that she birthed.

50:42

And this is probably at the heart of the Dunbar family's

50:44

unhappiness with this story, what

50:47

it suggests about their ancestors and

50:49

their ancestors' motives and characters.

50:51

It's likely to me that Percy

50:53

must have known, somewhere

50:56

inside of him, that this

50:59

little boy he took from Mississippi was

51:01

not his son.

51:05

And I don't say that lightly. It

51:08

took me a long time to come to that conclusion.

51:13

After reading all of the

51:15

articles and the court records, these

51:20

divorce papers, I realized that

51:25

if he was capable of doing these

51:27

things, if Percy was capable, if

51:30

he could stab a man, if

51:33

he could be

51:36

with another woman while he was married,

51:41

he lies in these papers. Could

51:46

he lie about

51:49

this child? Did he lie about

51:52

this child? He

51:54

had a motive to save his wife's

51:56

sanity. Could

51:59

he do that? I think

52:01

he could. I think he did.

52:10

It's hard to look square in the face of this. And

52:13

doing so has put Margaret and her father Bob

52:15

at odds with the rest of their family. But

52:18

Bob says only by looking at it squarely can

52:20

you see the redemption in their family story. When

52:23

Bobby Dunbar was 18, he fell in love

52:25

with a girl from a nearby town. It

52:28

took him nine years to get her to marry him, but

52:30

once she did, they raised four children, who

52:32

all remember a very happy upbringing, full of love.

52:36

And Bobby Dunbar gave rise to this family despite

52:39

all that he'd been through. Whisk

52:41

away from his mother at three, living in a

52:43

wagon with an old man, huddling by

52:45

fires in the woods at night, a two-year-long

52:48

gauntlet of undressing and parading and sobbing

52:50

and staring. And when that

52:52

was all over, his new family fractured and fell apart.

52:55

And once again, he was abandoned. To

52:58

come out of that, to create a family after

53:01

that, to Bob

53:02

is a story of triumph.

53:04

I feel like my daddy could

53:06

have had all the excuses in the world to be a drunk

53:09

and a

53:11

child abuser or anything,

53:13

a rascal. He had a terrible,

53:16

traumatic young life. But

53:19

he chose my mother, and he chose

53:22

to be a family man, and that was his world,

53:24

that was his life.

53:26

And I truly

53:29

believe that those experiences,

53:33

for him and for a mother who

53:36

lost her father before she even knew him,

53:40

were forces that

53:45

gravitated them towards one another. And

53:48

towards a common feeling that they

53:50

would be family. I

53:56

realize that I grew up in a charmed

53:59

family. environment. Everybody

54:02

can't say that

54:03

and Daddy couldn't say

54:05

that but he

54:08

made that environment for us. At

54:21

Swayze Lake there are now houses where fishing shacks

54:23

used to be. Margaret

54:26

standing on the concrete bridge that replaced the railroad

54:28

trestle looking out on the embankment

54:31

where they found a four-year-old footprints in 1912. After

54:35

considering what Bobby Dunbar's disappearance did

54:37

to everyone and three families for a hundred years,

54:40

there's only one person who's not accounted for. If

54:44

Bobby was really bruised, what happened

54:46

to Bobby?

54:47

I think he fell off this bridge

54:49

and was eaten by an alligator

54:53

and died. That's

54:55

the most likely scenario.

54:59

When you think about who the

55:02

boy that died here, does

55:06

that feel like your grandfather? It's

55:11

like my grandfather

55:13

became two

55:16

people. He

55:18

was really Bruce Anderson that's who he was born

55:20

that's where his blood came from. But

55:24

he lived Bobby

55:27

Dunbar's life. In 1932

55:32

when Bobby Dunbar was 24 he was asked to

55:35

look back on his kidnapping.

55:37

The Lindbergh baby had been stolen and

55:39

some reporters came around for a word with

55:42

a famous kidnapped child of yesteryear.

55:45

A lot of people still believe I was eaten by an alligator,

55:48

Bobby said in the interview,

55:49

I can assure you I was not.

55:52

He went on to recount a memory of being with

55:54

William Walters on the wagon on the road

55:56

before the arrest

55:57

before he was recovered by the Dunbar's.

56:00

In the memory, there was another boy with him,

56:03

who fell off the wagon and died, and

56:05

was buried. There

56:07

was a theory put forth by the prosecution

56:09

at the trial that William Walters might have

56:11

been traveling with two boys, Bobby Dunbar

56:13

and Bruce Anderson.

56:15

This would explain why two boys had been lost, but

56:18

only one was found.

56:19

It would answer the question, what happened

56:21

to Bruce?

56:23

Nineteen years

56:25

later, in 1932, Bobby had taken that theory and

56:27

made it into a memory, a memory which might

56:30

have served another purpose altogether. If

56:32

Bobby Dunbar is to fully become Bobby Dunbar,

56:35

then Bruce Anderson needs to be dead. Maybe

56:38

it was by settling on this memory, the

56:40

other boy on the wagon, that

56:42

he created the legend he needed to begin

56:45

his new life. His own legend

56:47

of Bobby Dunbar.

56:49

How mcthenium.

56:54

He wrote a book with Margaret

56:56

about all this. A Case for Solomon, Bobby

56:58

Dunbar and the Kidnapping that Haunted a Nation. In

57:01

the year since we first broadcast this story back in 2008, Joe Tarver

57:04

and Hollis Rawls have

57:06

both died, as well as Bobby's oldest son,

57:08

Bob Dunbar Jr., his wife, Amilda,

57:11

and William Walters' great nieces,

57:13

Gene and Barbara.

57:21

Robert Bergman is produced today by Alex Bloomberg. Our senior

57:24

producer for this episode was Julie Snyder. Our technical

57:26

director is Matt Tierney, production up on today's

57:28

rerun from Ella Mustafa in Stone Nelson.

57:31

Special thanks today to Alan G. Breed, Francis and O.

57:33

Briggs, Wayne Cutwright, Anneli Dunbar, David

57:35

Dunbar, Emmilda Dunbar, Chef Joe Dorio,

57:37

Ellen Luciano, Estelle Perrault, Martha Quill,

57:39

and Ronnie Rawls. Also, the Poplar'sville

57:42

Public Library, Betty Redden, Margie Standard, Michael

57:44

Walters, Tammy Westmoreland, Gerald Westmoreland,

57:46

Frankie Bertrand, and Marian Little of the Appaloosa

57:48

St. Landry Chamber of Commerce. Also,

57:51

please visit us at

57:51

www.theamericanlife.org. We

57:53

can stream our archive of over 750 episodes

57:56

for absolutely free. Also, if you're looking

57:58

for something to listen to, we have a list of favorite. shows,

58:00

there's videos, again thisamericanlife.org.

58:04

This American Life is distributed by PRX,

58:07

the public radio exchange. Thanks

58:09

as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia,

58:12

who says we young people have it so easy. He remembers

58:14

what it was like back in the day to come

58:17

to the radio station every morning when he was a little

58:19

boy.

58:19

Through these woods, cross

58:23

an old hickory lull

58:25

across the creek.

58:27

I'm out of glass, back next week with

58:29

more stories of this American life.

59:04

Next week

59:06

on the podcast of This American Life, when

59:09

Sarah and her friends crash a party in a college, hundreds

59:12

of miles from where they live, ten years after

59:14

they graduated, something very strange

59:16

happens. Sarah was meeting this

59:18

college senior for the first time. And

59:20

he pulls out his laptop and

59:23

he opens it up and he like points this

59:26

file that has my name on it.

59:27

Yes, a file with her name.

59:30

What's in it? Next week on the podcast,

59:32

we're in your local public radio station.