# The boy recovered in 1913 was the missing Bobby Dunbar, and the mystery of the Louisiana child was solved

**No verdict.** One part of this case is settled and one part is not, and they must be kept apart. In August 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar vanished during a family fishing trip at Swayze Lake in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. Eight months later a boy found in Mississippi was identified by the Dunbars as their son and raised as Bobby. In 2004, DNA testing established that the recovered boy was not biologically a Dunbar, which means the 1913 identification was mistaken and the child was almost certainly Bruce Anderson, the son of Julia Anderson of North Carolina. That much is substantiated. The claim we rate is narrower: what actually became of the original Bobby Dunbar, who disappeared in 1912. On that question the record supports no confident answer. This file names no culprit and accuses no one; the men and women at the center of it are long dead, and their descendants are not on trial.

Category: Unsolved Crimes & Disappearances · Era: 1910s · First circulated: Doubt was raised at the time: Julia Anderson insisted from 1913 that the recovered boy was her son, Bruce, not Bobby Dunbar. The modern reopening came in 1999, when a Dunbar granddaughter, Margaret Dunbar Cutright, began investigating, and reached a documented resolution with DNA testing in 2004. · Believed by: Historians, the journalists Tal McThenia and Margaret Dunbar Cutright who wrote the definitive account, listeners of the 2008 This American Life documentary, and the descendants of both the Dunbar and Anderson families, who now broadly accept the DNA finding
URL: https://theconspiratory.com/theory/bobby-dunbar

## Summary
On 23 August 1912, Percy and Lessie Dunbar took their two young sons on a camping and fishing trip to Swayze Lake, near Opelousas in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. Their four-year-old, Bobby, wandered from the camp and disappeared. A search dragged the lake, considered drowning and an alligator, then a kidnapping, and a large reward was posted. Eight months later, in April 1913, authorities in Mississippi found a boy traveling with an itinerant handyman named William Cantwell Walters. The Dunbars identified the child as Bobby by physical marks and took him home after a contentious trial, while a North Carolina woman, Julia Anderson, insisted the boy was her own son, Bruce. The courts sided with the Dunbars, and the boy was raised as Bobby Dunbar. He lived a full life and died in 1966. In 2004, DNA testing showed conclusively that he was not a biological Dunbar, confirming Julia Anderson's account and meaning the real Bobby had never been found. This file keeps two things apart: a mistaken identification, now settled by DNA; and the claim it rates, the unknown fate of the original child.

## The claim
That the boy recovered in Mississippi in April 1913 was the same Bobby Dunbar who had vanished in Louisiana eight months earlier, and that his identification and return therefore solved the disappearance. In the broader sense rated here, the open question is what genuinely happened to the original Bobby Dunbar after he disappeared at Swayze Lake in 1912.

## Origin and timeline
- 1912-08-23: Percy and Lessie Dunbar take their sons on a fishing and camping trip to Swayze Lake in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. Four-year-old Bobby wanders from the camp and disappears.
- 1912-08: A search party drags the lake and considers drowning, and even an alligator, as explanations. When no body is recovered and the boy's hat is reportedly found some distance from the water, suspicion turns toward abduction.
- 1912: With the body never found, Percy Dunbar and Opelousas officials conclude Bobby was kidnapped. A substantial reward is posted, and the search draws national newspaper attention across 1912 and 1913.
- 1913-04: Authorities in Mississippi locate a boy of similar age traveling with William Cantwell Walters, an itinerant handyman. Walters says the child is Bruce Anderson, entrusted to him by the boy's mother, Julia Anderson of North Carolina.
- 1913-04: The Dunbars travel to identify the boy. After initial uncertainty, they conclude from physical marks, including a foot scar and moles, that he is Bobby, and they take him home to Opelousas.
- 1913: Julia Anderson arrives in Louisiana and insists the boy is her son, Bruce, whom she had allowed Walters to take on what was meant to be a short trip. The courts side with the Dunbars, and the boy remains with them.
- 1914: Walters stands trial for kidnapping, is convicted, and is sentenced to life in prison. He maintains his innocence throughout.
- 1916: After Walters has served roughly two years, the Louisiana Supreme Court overturns his conviction and grants a new trial. Citing the cost of the first, prosecutors decline to retry him, and he is released.
- 1999: Margaret Dunbar Cutright, a granddaughter of the boy raised as Bobby, begins researching the family history and uncovers records that unsettle the long-accepted identification.
- 2004: Prompted in part by a journalist's inquiry, the family agrees to DNA testing. Comparison across the Dunbar line shows the man raised as Bobby was not a biological Dunbar, indicating he was Julia Anderson's son, Bruce, and that the real Bobby was never found.

## The evidence, claim by claim
- Claim: The Dunbars positively identified the recovered boy as Bobby by scars, moles, and other physical marks.
  Evidence: Identification by grieving parents eight months after a disappearance is among the least reliable forms of evidence, prone to hope and suggestion, and accounts describe the Dunbars themselves hesitating at first. The 2004 DNA testing settled the point that the marks could not: the boy they raised carried no Dunbar bloodline, so whatever the family saw in 1913, the identification was mistaken.
- Claim: A jury convicted William Cantwell Walters of kidnapping Bobby Dunbar, so guilt was established in court.
  Evidence: The 1914 conviction was overturned by the Louisiana Supreme Court, and the state chose not to retry Walters, so no final judgment of guilt ever stood. The verdict also rested on the premise that the recovered boy was Bobby, and the 2004 DNA result removed that premise. A conviction built on a mistaken identification cannot establish the crime it charged.
- Claim: Julia Anderson was an outsider whose claim to the boy was reasonably discounted at the time.
  Evidence: Anderson consistently maintained that the child was her son, Bruce, whom she had permitted Walters to take, and she traveled to Louisiana to say so under oath. Her account was disbelieved in 1913, but the DNA finding in 2004 aligned with it. The record now reads as a claim that was dismissed and later vindicated, not a claim that was disproven.
- Claim: The boy lived out a long life as Bobby Dunbar, which shows the matter was settled.
  Evidence: That the boy was raised, loved, and lived as Bobby says nothing about his origins. Testing of the next generation established no biological link to the Dunbars. A life lived under a name is not proof of the name; it is exactly what a mistaken but sincere identification produces.
- Claim: The real Bobby Dunbar drowned in Swayze Lake in 1912, which explains the disappearance.
  Evidence: Drowning is a leading possibility, and it is why the lake was dragged, but no body was ever recovered despite the search, and the reported discovery of the boy's hat away from the water kept an abduction theory alive. Drowning remains plausible and unproven, one of several fates none of which the record can confirm.

## Why people believe it
- Grief and hope are powerful editors of perception. Parents who had lost a child for eight months, in a case the whole country was following, had every reason to see their son in a boy of the right age, and sincere belief is not the same as accurate identification.
- A nation had invested in the search. Newspapers had turned the missing boy into a shared story, and a recovery gave that story the ending audiences wanted, which made the happy resolution easy to accept and hard to question.
- The physical marks felt like proof. A foot scar and moles offered the family concrete details to point to, and in 1913 there was no test that could check them, so tangible-seeming signs carried more weight than they could actually bear.
- The institutions of the day validated it. A court awarded the boy to the Dunbars, a jury convicted the man who had him, and the press reported the reunion as fact, so the identification arrived wrapped in official confirmation.
- The boy himself grew up believing he was Bobby. Raised from early childhood as a Dunbar, he had no competing memory to offer, and his own life became part of the evidence that the case was closed.

## Open questions
- What actually became of the original Bobby Dunbar after he wandered from the camp in 1912? The record supports several possibilities, drowning, an animal, or abduction, and confirms none of them.
- If Bobby drowned at Swayze Lake, why was no body ever recovered despite the dragging of the lake, and what should be made of the hat reportedly found away from the water?
- The 2004 DNA result establishes who the recovered boy was not, and points strongly to Bruce Anderson, but the fate of the child who disappeared remains beyond the reach of the surviving evidence.

## Sources
- Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar, Wikipedia (2024): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Bobby_Dunbar
- The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar (Episode 352), This American Life (2008): https://www.thisamericanlife.org/352/the-ghost-of-bobby-dunbar
- The Strange Case of Bobby Dunbar, Country Roads Magazine (2012): https://countryroadsmagazine.com/art-and-culture/history/the-strange-case-of-bobby-dunbar/
- DNA clears up 1914 case, The Washington Times (2004): https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/may/5/20040505-111755-3134r/
- A Case for Solomon: Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping That Haunted a Nation, Simon & Schuster (2012): https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Case-for-Solomon/Tal-McThenia/9781439158609
- A Case for Solomon: Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping That Haunted a Nation, Publishers Weekly (2012): https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781439158593
- Tal McThenia & Margaret Dunbar Cutright: A Case For Solomon, WAMU / The Diane Rehm Show (2012): https://wamu.org/story/12/08/14/tal-mcthenia-margaret-dunbar-cutright-case-solomon-bobby-dunbar-and-kidnapping-haun/
- Bobby Dunbar's Disappearance And The Mystery Behind It, All That's Interesting (2021): https://allthatsinteresting.com/bobby-dunbar

Rated by The Conspiratory, a neutral, sourced encyclopedia of conspiracy theories. Full page: https://theconspiratory.com/theory/bobby-dunbar