Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar

Robert Clarence "Bobby" Dunbar was the first son born to Lessie and Percy Dunbar of Opelousas, Louisiana. He was born on May 23, 1908. In August 1912, the Dunbars took a fishing trip to nearby Swayze Lake in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. On August 23, while on that trip, Bobby disappeared. A $1,000 reward was then announced for his return. After an eight-month search and the reward being raised to $6,000, authorities located William Cantwell Walters, who worked as an itinerant handyman, specializing in the tuning and repairing of pianos and organs. Walters had been traveling through Mississippi with a boy who appeared to match the description of Bobby Dunbar. Walters claimed that the boy was actually Charles Bruce Anderson, generally referred to as Bruce, the son of a woman who worked for his family. He said that the boy's mother was named Julia Anderson, and that she had willingly granted him custody. Anderson would later confirm this. Nonetheless, Walters was arrested and authorities sent for the Dunbars to come to Mississippi and attempt to identify the boy. Newspaper accounts differ with regard to the initial reaction between the boy and Lessie Dunbar. Walters was convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to life in prison. The boy remained in the custody of the Dunbar family and lived out the remainder of his life as Bobby Dunbar. Walters served two years in prison before his conviction was overturned on appeal; the state decided not to re-try him, and he was released. ==After the trial==

After the trial, the people of Poplarville welcomed Anderson and she began a new life there, eventually marrying and having seven children. In 2008, one of Anderson's sons, Hollis, recounted the story for This American Life that in 1944 Bobby Dunbar/Bruce Anderson visited him at his place of business, where they talked. Hollis' sister Jules has recounted a similar experience where a man, who she believes to have been Dunbar/Anderson, came to the service station where she worked and talked to her for an extended period. The Dunbar family also has a similar story, as told by Bobby Dunbar's son Gerald. The family was returning home from a trip in 1963 and passed through Poplarville when Dunbar said, "Those are the people they came to pick me up from." After Walters had served two years of his prison term for kidnapping, his attorney was successful in appealing the conviction and it was overturned by the Louisiana Supreme Court. Walters was then granted the right to a new trial. Citing the excessive costs of the first trial, prosecutors in Opelousas declined to try him again and instead released him. After his release from custody, Walters resumed an itinerant lifestyle. Walters died on April 7, 1945, and was buried in Pueblo, Colorado, beside his wife. Bobby Dunbar died on March 8, 1966, and was buried in Bellevue Memorial Park in Opelousas, Louisiana. His widow died in 1994 and was interred next to her husband. ==Later investigation==

In 1999, 33 years after the returned Bobby Dunbar's death, one of his granddaughters, Margaret Dunbar Cutright, began her own investigation of the events. She pored through newspaper accounts, interviewed the children of Julia Anderson and examined the notes and evidence presented by Walters' defense attorney for his kidnapping trial and appeal. In 2004, after an Associated Press reporter approached the family about the story, Bobby Dunbar Jr. consented to undergoing DNA tests. The results showed that Dunbar Jr. was not related by blood to his supposed cousin, the son of Alonzo Dunbar. In March 2008, Public Radio International's This American Life featured The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar, a radio documentary about the investigation of the case by Margaret Dunbar Cutright. ==See also==