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See website for details. A Hey Vermont.

1:02

Shayna. And Turks from the

1:04

research team and I will be

1:06

at the Wallflower Collective in Burlington.

1:09

On. February eight from seven

1:11

to nine pm. Stop.

1:13

I say hello, have a drink,

1:16

and let's chat all things Israel,

1:18

keys and and safe spaces. This

1:29

is a studio book and

1:31

production. Do.

1:39

Barter disappeared from Perdido Bay,

1:42

Alabama on either June seventeenth

1:44

or eighteenth of Nineteen Fifty

1:47

Nine. He. Was

1:49

just four and a half years old. Stood.

1:51

Three feet tall, And. Weighed approximately

1:53

fifty pounds, he was caucasian and

1:56

described as a cute little boy

1:58

with wavy dark brown. hair, dimples,

2:01

and big smiling brown eyes. He

2:04

went by the nickname Danny. Danny

2:07

was last seen wearing only a pair of

2:10

gray boxer shorts. He has scars on his

2:12

fingers from a time when he accidentally stuck

2:14

them into a fan as a baby, and

2:17

a scar on his tongue from a time when he

2:19

fell and bit through it. Danny

2:23

was the third youngest of Maxine and

2:25

Paul Bartir's seven children. Paul

2:28

was an Army veteran who made

2:30

a modest living working as a

2:32

stockroom manager for Morrison's cafeteria in

2:34

Mobile, Alabama, where the family lived.

2:38

Danny was described as a happy child

2:40

and his mother referred to him as

2:42

a mommy-daddy baby who never strayed far

2:44

from his parents. On

2:48

June 16, 1959,

2:50

Paul and Maxine set out in their station

2:53

wagon on a camping trip to Perdido Bay,

2:55

with four of their children, including Danny,

2:58

and a younger cousin who also joined.

3:02

Perdido Bay is about an hour from

3:04

Mobile where the Bartirs lived. Upon

3:07

arrival, the Bartir set up camp on

3:09

a property owned by Paul's brother Jim,

3:11

and according to the Bartir's oldest child,

3:13

Wanda, it was a camping trip

3:15

but they actually went there to help clear the land

3:18

for a beach house. It

3:20

was a little way back from the beach and there was

3:22

quite a bit of sand. The water

3:24

there was shallow, and you could

3:26

walk a long way out into the bay before it got

3:28

past your knees. There

3:32

are conflicting reports regarding which day Danny

3:34

disappeared, the 17th or the 18th. Regardless,

3:39

we know that Paul and his brother Jim slept

3:41

in a tent while Maxine and the kids slept

3:43

in the station wagon. The

3:47

morning of the disappearance, either Paul

3:49

or Maxine, report stiffer, took

3:52

Danny and one of the other children to

3:54

a store in the nearby town of Lillian

3:56

for breakfast, snacks, and soft drinks. The

3:59

Trip was without a doubt. Incidents and when they

4:01

returned, Paul played with the kids while

4:03

Maxine prepared breakfast for the family. Danny

4:06

opened a knee high brand soft drinks

4:09

and was seen walking around with the

4:11

bottle. He

4:13

was excited to go fishing and his mother

4:15

remembers him standing next to her as she

4:17

worked on untangling their fishing lines. Maxine

4:21

said that at some point between nine thirty

4:23

am and ten Am, she looked up and

4:25

realized that Danny was no longer within her

4:28

field of vision. The family search the perimeter

4:30

of the prefer to eat but with no

4:32

look. There was no

4:34

sign of Danny anywhere, nor his gray

4:36

boxer shorts or the soda bottle he

4:39

had been drinking. And

4:42

as far as the borders could tell, there

4:44

were no footprints in the sand leading towards

4:46

the bay. Danny.

4:49

Going into the water by himself was

4:51

an unlikely scenario. Because

4:53

he was said to have been terribly afraid of

4:56

the water. Family

4:59

soon became desperate and ran to a

5:01

nearby house to call for help. The.

5:04

Resulting search efforts were enormous.

5:07

Law enforcement volunteers, hunters diverse and

5:09

sailors from the Naval Air Station

5:11

Pensacola and other stations along the

5:14

Gulf Coast flooded the five square

5:16

mile property and Perdido beta help

5:18

look for Danny. A

5:21

veterinarian from Gadsden, Alabama, about a

5:23

five hour drive, was rushed to

5:25

the seen by Alabama State troopers

5:28

with his trio of prize winning

5:30

bloodhounds. The. Veterinarian told the press.

5:33

These. Bloodhounds can pick up percent even in

5:35

the water up to two weeks old. And.

5:37

The only places they have trailed the child

5:40

is where he was known to be preserved

5:42

as a disappearance. There

5:45

are many different theories on what happened to

5:47

Danny. Somebody. Could have drowned

5:49

in the bay. despite his known fear of water

5:51

and the lack of footprints leading out to the

5:53

bay. it was

5:55

also unlikely that danny would have wandered too

5:57

far from the camp site as he was

6:00

barefoot and shirtless in an area

6:02

surrounded by thick, prickly coastal undergrowth.

6:07

Others believe that Danny had possibly been

6:09

snatched by an alligator and

6:11

brought to some underwater den, but

6:13

this theory is unlikely for a few reasons.

6:17

The first of which is that alligators

6:19

typically aren't aggressive towards humans. It's

6:22

not to say that alligator attacks don't

6:24

happen, but they're quite rare. Most

6:28

alligator attacks occur in water and

6:30

are non-fatal, and

6:32

most of the time when a human is attacked and

6:34

killed by an alligator, the remains

6:36

are found mostly intact. While

6:39

there are instances of alligators eating humans,

6:42

it is not a common occurrence. Alligator

6:46

attacks typically happen close to the shore, and

6:49

alligators don't normally travel far from the

6:51

water in instances where humans have been

6:53

attacked. Knowing that it's

6:56

unlikely that Danny went near or into

6:58

the water on his own, an alligator

7:00

attack seems unlikely. Notably,

7:04

the bloodhounds failed to find Danny's scent near

7:06

the water, minimizing the likelihood that Danny was

7:09

a victim of an alligator attack. Had

7:12

this been the case, the dogs would

7:14

have likely led searchers to the scene of the

7:16

attack. Unfortunately,

7:18

to be certain that

7:20

an alligator was not the culprit in Danny's

7:22

disappearance, several alligators in the

7:25

area were shot and then gutted in

7:27

order to look for evidence of human

7:29

remains, and no

7:31

such evidence was ever found. Searchers

7:37

also tossed dynamite into the deep waters

7:39

hoping to jar loose a trapped body.

7:44

Death by snakebite was another theory that

7:46

was floated, but with no body it

7:48

seemed unlikely. The

7:51

most viable theory was that Danny was

7:53

kidnapped. It's what the

7:56

majority of law enforcement landed on, And

7:58

also what? Danny's mother Maxine. Eventually came

8:00

to believe. She. Told the

8:02

press a definitely believe now that someone

8:05

picked him up and carried him away.

8:08

I. Hope now that someone did take Danny.

8:10

Because. I know if anyone wanted him bad enough

8:12

to kidnap him, they would take good care of

8:14

them. Maxine.

8:18

Believes that her son walked toward the road

8:20

and was snatched up quickly by as abductor.

8:24

Stars. A motive behind the crime.

8:26

Maxine said. I could understand why

8:28

someone would take him because he such a pretty

8:30

child. He's such a pretty

8:32

and sweet child. I

8:35

know it wasn't for ransom because we have

8:37

no money saved. According

8:41

to Danny sister Wanda mother tried to

8:43

tell them the whole time that she

8:45

was afraid he had been kidnapped. The

8:47

nobody would listen to or you could

8:49

see the bridge going into Florida from

8:52

the site. Someone. Could

8:54

have grab Danny, gotten on us ninety

8:56

eight and been long gone and a

8:59

couple of hours. But

9:03

there was more to Maxine

9:05

series and just she recalled

9:08

some suspicious incidents prior to

9:10

Danny's disappearance. That

9:12

suddenly seemed far more sinister.

9:14

And hindsight, True.

9:18

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a month before Danny disappeared, Maxine

11:26

noticed a strange man in a parked car

11:28

on the street in front of their home.

11:32

When she approached the car, the

11:34

man quickly covered his face with a newspaper

11:37

and then drove away. Not

11:41

long after that incident, the neighbor spotted

11:43

a peeping tom looking into

11:45

a window of the barter's home. Specifically,

11:50

the man was peering into the boy's

11:52

bedroom where Danny slept with his

11:54

brothers in bunk beds. The

11:56

intruder was gone before police arrived. were

12:00

footprints found in the soil below the

12:02

bedroom window. It's

12:05

been said that plaster casts of the footprints

12:07

were made, but it's not known

12:09

what's happened to them over the years. The

12:14

next incident was either the day Danny

12:16

disappeared or the day before, depending

12:18

on what article you read. Either

12:20

Maxine or Paul had taken Danny and his

12:23

brother to the store in Lillian for refreshments.

12:26

The boys stayed in the car while their parents

12:28

purchased the food. A car

12:30

driven by an unknown man pulled up

12:32

beside the barter's station wagon and stopped

12:34

briefly. According to witnesses, the

12:37

driver seemed to be staring intently into

12:39

the car, at the boys, before

12:42

driving off. It's

12:44

unclear if this was the same trip to the

12:46

store in Lillian we mentioned earlier. The

12:51

final incident occurred when a truck, driven

12:53

by a man with a woman in

12:55

the front passenger seat, drove past the

12:57

barter campsite later that same morning. And

13:00

this was considered to be off, since

13:02

that road wasn't frequently traveled by the

13:05

public. Was

13:08

someone stalking the barters? Did

13:12

this person follow them on their vacation in

13:14

order to kidnap Danny? Certainly

13:17

seems possible, and

13:20

far more plausible than any of the other

13:22

theories that had been bandied about. On

13:28

June 25th, about a week after Danny

13:30

went missing, a report

13:32

in the Pensacola News Journal detailed

13:35

a Lillian resident's account of witnessing

13:37

a car pullover on a main

13:39

road. A back door opened

13:41

and a little boy emerged from the car, which

13:44

then promptly drove away. The

13:46

little boy was said to be about Danny's age.

13:50

The witness saw the little boy running after the

13:52

car as it drove off. It's

13:55

not known what became of this possible sighting, or

13:57

if it was ever determined to be Danny's age.

14:00

or related to the case. When

14:06

it comes to Israel Keys, we obviously

14:08

don't need to worry about his involvement

14:10

in the case, as

14:12

Keys was not yet born in 1959. As for why

14:18

Danny's disappearance was on his computer, we

14:21

do know that Keys traveled to Mobile,

14:23

Alabama at least once, and

14:27

that his rental cars plates were run in

14:29

January of 2008 there. We're

14:32

actively trying to determine why and where exactly

14:34

his car was parked when the plates were

14:36

run. It seems

14:40

possible that Keys was searching for

14:43

a possible unknown victim from the

14:45

Mobile area when he came

14:47

across Danny's case. In

14:53

2009, New Life was briefly

14:55

breathed into Danny's disappearance when

14:58

his case was reopened by the FBI. A

15:01

lead was sparked when someone was sitting in a

15:03

public area talking about what

15:05

happened, said a spokesperson for

15:07

the FBI. It's

15:10

unclear whether that means they were simply

15:12

talking about Danny's disappearance or

15:15

details surrounding it, and

15:17

unfortunately it doesn't seem as

15:19

though that lead led to further information on

15:21

the case. Since

15:26

1959, there's been no

15:28

new evidence of what happened to Danny Barter

15:30

that day or what became of him. His

15:34

father Paul died of a heart attack just a few

15:36

years later in 1965. Maxine lived until 1995. Danny's surviving

15:39

siblings have not forgotten

15:45

him and still hope to find answers.

15:48

His sister Teresa says, whatever

15:50

the deal is we just want to

15:52

know. He's a missing piece of us.

15:54

Our parents are both gone now and

15:56

we can go visit their graves. We

15:59

know where they are. and what happened to them. But

16:02

we don't know for sure what happened to Danny. We

16:04

can't go and put flowers on his grave. We

16:08

believe in our hearts that he is still alive, but

16:10

even if he isn't, whatever happened, we

16:13

would like to know so that we can

16:15

at least put him to rest in our hearts and minds.

17:16

This episode was written and researched

17:18

by Shana Walensky and produced, edited,

17:21

and hosted by me, Josh Hallmark.

17:24

Those included The Charlie

17:26

Project, cnn.com, onecolony.com,

17:28

Internet Center for Wildlife Damage

17:31

Management, and A to Z

17:33

Animals. This episode was

17:35

made possible by the following Patreon

17:38

producers. Adrienne Aiello, Amelia Hancock, Amy

17:40

Basel, Annette L., Benjamin Chappafong, Casey

17:42

Jensen Richardson, Dana Keith, Drew Vipond,

17:45

Halle Reed, Jessica Alejozik, Jillian Natale,

17:47

John O'Leary, Kendall C., Kimberly K.,

17:49

Lauren F., Lindsay Curtis, Lindley Tuskoff,

17:52

Manolis Bulikos, Nicole and Dennis Henry,

17:54

Sarah King, SC, Shelly Brewer, Tuesday

17:56

Woodworth, Zach Ignatowitz-Warren, Ashley Harris, Beth

17:59

McNally, and John Comrie, Jordan

18:01

Taylor, Carly McNutt, Lana, Sarah

18:03

C., Shawna Hardin, Vicki Russell,

18:05

and Lydia Fiedler. Thank you

18:07

to True Crime Bullshit's newest

18:09

Patreon supporters. Nolz, Cricket Key,

18:12

Sammy M., Ziggy Sawdust, My

18:14

T., Megan Morgan, Dr. Jill

18:16

Cooper, Todd H., C. Overson,

18:18

Dylan B., and Marilyn T.

18:20

To support the investigation, go

18:22

to patreon.com/StudioBothAnd. This

18:25

episode included music by Kai

18:27

Engel, Chad Crouch, Eleven Tales,

18:30

Ben Jameson, Nathan Jones, with

18:32

featured music by the Lord. I'm

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not a person, I'm a person. I'm

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