# The Creepiest Cases of People Disappearing | Part 36

An episode of [Scary Interesting Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1705969819), 2 Sep 2026, 24 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74796776/the_creepiest_cases_of_people_disappearing_part_36.mp3

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## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hello everyone and welcome back to Scary Interesting and to
[0:03] Speaker 1: another couple of extremely strange disappearances, or at least sort of.
[0:07] Speaker 1: In these cases, it was actually people's reappearance that was strange.
[0:11] Speaker 1: In the first case, the person returned with a story
[0:13] Speaker 1: about their life that seemed almost impossible. If what they
[0:17] Speaker 1: said was true, it would make for one of the
[0:18] Speaker 1: strangest origin stories you could possibly imagine, and the rest
[0:21] Speaker 1: of their life would prove to be just as bizarre.
[0:24] Speaker 1: In the second case, the person's supposed discovery should have
[0:27] Speaker 1: led to an incredibly happy reunion full of relief and celebration,
[0:31] Speaker 1: but that is not at all what happened. Instead, it
[0:34] Speaker 1: became the exact opposite and ultimately something incredibly disturbing. You'll
[0:38] Speaker 1: see what I mean, and as always, viewer discretion is
[0:41] Speaker 1: strongly advised. On May 26th, 1828, a teenage boy appeared
[0:56] Speaker 1: in the streets of Nuremberg in what would one day
[0:58] Speaker 1: become Germany, seemingly from nowhere. He was alone and had
[1:01] Speaker 1: no clear explanation for who he was, where he had
[1:03] Speaker 1: come from, or why he had arrived in the city
[1:05] Speaker 1: that day. The boy looked to be about 16 years old,
[1:08] Speaker 1: but he didn't behave like those his age. He seemed
[1:10] Speaker 1: confused and overwhelmed, and when people tried to speak with him,
[1:13] Speaker 1: they found he could barely answer. He could repeat a
[1:16] Speaker 1: few phrases, but normal conversation was almost impossible. He couldn't
[1:19] Speaker 1: explain himself, and he wasn't able to tell a clear story.
[1:22] Speaker 1: The first person to take him seriously was a shoemaker
[1:25] Speaker 1: who brought the boy to the home of the captain
[1:26] Speaker 1: of Nuremberg's cavalry regiment. The reason for this was that
[1:29] Speaker 1: the boy was carrying a letter addressed to the captain,
[1:32] Speaker 1: and that letter claimed to explain at least part of
[1:34] Speaker 1: the mystery. According to its anonymous writer, the boy had
[1:37] Speaker 1: been placed in their care as an infant on October 7th, 1812.
[1:41] Speaker 1: For years, they raised the child and taught him life
[1:43] Speaker 1: skills like reading and writing, but the letter said the
[1:45] Speaker 1: boy had never been allowed to set foot outside the house. Then,
[1:49] Speaker 1: rather ominously, before closing the letter, the writer said the
[1:51] Speaker 1: captain had two choices. He could either take care of
[1:54] Speaker 1: the boy himself or he could hang him. Curiously, the
[1:57] Speaker 1: boy also had a second letter with him. This one
[2:00] Speaker 1: was supposedly written by his mother to the person who
[2:02] Speaker 1: raised him. It said that the boy's name was Casper
[2:05] Speaker 1: and that he'd been born on April 30th, 1812. His father,
[2:08] Speaker 1: the letter claimed, had been a cavalryman in the 6th Regiment,
[2:11] Speaker 1: the very same the captain commanded. The second letter provided
[2:15] Speaker 1: at least a little background on the boy, but neither
[2:17] Speaker 1: of them really saw much of anything When Casper arrived
[2:20] Speaker 1: at the house as well, he couldn't really clear up
[2:21] Speaker 1: the confusion either. He just kept repeating that he wanted
[2:23] Speaker 1: to be a cavalryman like his father, and when he
[2:25] Speaker 1: wasn't saying that, he continually and randomly called out the
[2:28] Speaker 1: word horse over and over again. Beyond that, there was
[2:32] Speaker 1: very little anyone could get from him. When questions were
[2:34] Speaker 1: posed to him, Casper either became agitated or answered that
[2:37] Speaker 1: he didn't know. So with the little the captain could do,
[2:40] Speaker 1: he brought the boy to the police station, where officials
[2:42] Speaker 1: examined him more closely. While there, the boy wrote his
[2:45] Speaker 1: full name as Casper Hauser, but his behavior only deepened
[2:48] Speaker 1: the mystery. His speech seemed badly limited and his answers
[2:51] Speaker 1: were often useless, but he also wasn't completely ignorant. In
[2:55] Speaker 1: addition to being able to print his own name, he
[2:56] Speaker 1: demonstrated some knowledge about money and he was able to
[2:59] Speaker 1: recite a few prayers. Still, he struck investigators as anything
[3:02] Speaker 1: but a normal teenager, and it was clear that his
[3:05] Speaker 1: mental development was well behind that of other 16-year-olds. He
[3:09] Speaker 1: acted like a much younger child and even walked like one,
[3:11] Speaker 1: as if he was just learning how to put one
[3:13] Speaker 1: foot in front of the other. Rather than continue to
[3:16] Speaker 1: get to the bottom of who Casper really was and
[3:18] Speaker 1: where he had come from, though, they simply decided that
[3:20] Speaker 1: he was a vagrant and placed him in the prison
[3:22] Speaker 1: inside Nurmurn Castle, where he remained for the next two months.
[3:25] Speaker 1: During those early weeks, Casper became an object of intense
[3:28] Speaker 1: public curiosity. He came off to many as a boy
[3:31] Speaker 1: who had been denied an ordinary childhood and was instead
[3:33] Speaker 1: dropped into the world at the age of 16. Soon enough, though,
[3:36] Speaker 1: Casper would learn enough language to tell his own story,
[3:39] Speaker 1: and the mystery surrounding him would become even darker. When
[3:42] Speaker 1: that time came, Casper told authorities that he'd spent his
[3:45] Speaker 1: life to that point shut away in a small, dark space,
[3:47] Speaker 1: separated from the world so completely that he had no
[3:50] Speaker 1: real understanding of it. He described a cell where he
[3:53] Speaker 1: slept on straw, and each day followed the same bleak
[3:55] Speaker 1: pattern of waking up to bread and a glass of
[3:57] Speaker 1: water sitting next to him. That was it. He had
[4:00] Speaker 1: nothing to keep him entertained or engaged, and said he
[4:03] Speaker 1: never even saw the person who was keeping him alive.
[4:05] Speaker 1: He said there were times when the water left for
[4:07] Speaker 1: him tasted a bit bitter, and on those occasions he
[4:09] Speaker 1: would fall asleep into a deeper sleep than usual. Whenever
[4:12] Speaker 1: he awoke, he would find that the things around him
[4:14] Speaker 1: had been changed, his straw was replaced, or his hair
[4:16] Speaker 1: and nails had been trimmed. As you might imagine, this
[4:20] Speaker 1: story was shocking to everyone who heard it, and if
[4:22] Speaker 1: it was true, then it meant that Casper had been
[4:24] Speaker 1: forced to endure a type of cruelty that was difficult
[4:26] Speaker 1: to understand. It was like his entire life had been
[4:28] Speaker 1: stripped down to a bed of straw and some water
[4:30] Speaker 1: and bread. As troubling as his tale was, however, there
[4:34] Speaker 1: was plenty of doubt around its accuracy, and people began
[4:36] Speaker 1: watching him for signs that his account was even true.
[4:39] Speaker 1: In those early months, almost everything he did seemed to
[4:41] Speaker 1: become evidence that pointed to one side or another. He
[4:44] Speaker 1: was said to be fascinated by candlelight, confused by mirrors,
[4:47] Speaker 1: disturbed by bright light, and overwhelmed by things most people
[4:49] Speaker 1: stopped noticing in childhood. He refused rich, nutritious foods and
[4:53] Speaker 1: seemed most comfortable with the plain bread and water he
[4:55] Speaker 1: claimed to have lived on for years. To many observers,
[4:58] Speaker 1: these details seemed to confirm Casper's story, yet there were
[5:00] Speaker 1: other moments that contradicted that conclusion. While in prisons, Casper
[5:04] Speaker 1: received many visitors and became a bit of a local attraction.
[5:07] Speaker 1: For a boy who claimed to have spent his whole
[5:08] Speaker 1: life to that point in isolation, you'd assume attention would
[5:11] Speaker 1: have been terrifying to him. Some of those observers also
[5:14] Speaker 1: didn't describe Casper as a half-starved prisoner who had barely
[5:17] Speaker 1: seen the light of day. They said he appeared to
[5:19] Speaker 1: be in decent health and he could even walk well,
[5:20] Speaker 1: which was in direct contrast to earlier descriptions of him. Eventually,
[5:24] Speaker 1: authorities decided he shouldn't remain in the tower. If he
[5:27] Speaker 1: really was a damaged youth, then prison was no place
[5:29] Speaker 1: for him. He was then moved into the home of
[5:31] Speaker 1: a man named George Friedrich Daumer, a schoolmaster who became
[5:34] Speaker 1: one of the most important figures in Casper's life. Under
[5:37] Speaker 1: George's care, Casper began to learn and develop a larger vocabulary.
[5:41] Speaker 1: He absorbed lessons about the world, and it seemed like
[5:43] Speaker 1: he was finally getting the nurturing he had been missing
[5:45] Speaker 1: throughout his upbringing. For a while, life with George seemed
[5:48] Speaker 1: to move in a more hopeful direction, but things took
[5:50] Speaker 1: a strange turn in the fall of 1829. On October 17th,
[5:55] Speaker 1: Casper was found bleeding inside the house. He had a
[5:58] Speaker 1: wound on his forehead, and when asked about what happened,
[6:00] Speaker 1: he claimed that he had been attacked by a hooded man.
[6:03] Speaker 1: He said the encounter happened while he was sitting in
[6:04] Speaker 1: the outhouse and claimed that the attacker told him that
[6:06] Speaker 1: he had to die before leaving Nuremberg. He even said
[6:10] Speaker 1: that he recognized the voice as belonging to the same
[6:12] Speaker 1: person who brought him to Nuremberg in the first place
[6:14] Speaker 1: a year prior. But who was that person, and why
[6:16] Speaker 1: would they want Caspar dead? These questions led the public
[6:20] Speaker 1: to speculate, and before long, in the gossip of the time,
[6:22] Speaker 1: he was rumored to be royalty. According to the rumor,
[6:26] Speaker 1: Caspar was really the long-lost son of Grand Duke Karl
[6:28] Speaker 1: and Grand Duchess Stephanie, one of Napoleon Bonaparte's adopted daughters.
[6:33] Speaker 1: As the story goes, Stephanie had given birth to a
[6:35] Speaker 1: son in 1812, but the child died as an infant.
[6:38] Speaker 1: Some people believed that the baby hadn't really died and
[6:41] Speaker 1: that another infant had been substituted in his place, while
[6:43] Speaker 1: the true prince, thought now to be Casper, was taken
[6:46] Speaker 1: away and hidden. The villain in this version of the
[6:49] Speaker 1: story was Countess Louise Carolina von Hochberg. The theory claimed
[6:53] Speaker 1: that she had a motive to remove Stephanie's male heir
[6:55] Speaker 1: because her own descendants stood to benefit if the direct
[6:58] Speaker 1: line to the throne failed. And in fact, after Stephanie
[7:01] Speaker 1: and Carl didn't have a surviving male heir, one of
[7:03] Speaker 1: Louise's sons eventually rose to the Grand Ducal throne. It
[7:06] Speaker 1: was a scandalous story and one that people were eager
[7:08] Speaker 1: to believe, but there was just one problem. There was
[7:10] Speaker 1: no evidence at all that Casper was the missing prince
[7:13] Speaker 1: of Baden. This, however, didn't stop anyone from spreading the rumor,
[7:16] Speaker 1: and if anything, it helped the story grow. The gaps
[7:19] Speaker 1: of missing evidence became part of the appeal, and every
[7:21] Speaker 1: unanswered question could be turned into a clue. Caspar himself
[7:24] Speaker 1: became more valuable because of it, and he was no
[7:26] Speaker 1: longer just a subject of pity or curiosity, he was
[7:29] Speaker 1: now a possible living, breathing political secret. This is when
[7:33] Speaker 1: Philip Henry Stanhope, the fourth Earl of Stanhope, took an
[7:35] Speaker 1: interest in Caspar. By late 1831, he gained custody of
[7:39] Speaker 1: the boy. This initially seemed like a great turn in
[7:42] Speaker 1: Caspar's fortunes. Philip spent considerable money trying to investigate where
[7:45] Speaker 1: Caspar had come from. He also made Caspar a promise
[7:48] Speaker 1: that he would become deeply important to him, and that eventually,
[7:50] Speaker 1: Philip would take him to live in England. By then
[7:53] Speaker 1: as well, Casper's life in Germany had become complicated. He
[7:56] Speaker 1: was famous, but not secure. He had supporters, but he
[7:59] Speaker 1: also had skeptics. He'd been studied, doubted, moved from household
[8:02] Speaker 1: to household, and watched by people who increasingly disagreed over
[8:05] Speaker 1: whether he was a victim or a fraud. The idea
[8:08] Speaker 1: of England offered him an escape and a future he
[8:10] Speaker 1: wouldn't have had in Nuremberg. Before that could happen though,
[8:13] Speaker 1: Philip was hoping to find a breakthrough in the mystery,
[8:15] Speaker 1: and his first line of investigation would lead him to Hungary.
[8:19] Speaker 1: Kaspar had claimed at different times to remember Hungarian words,
[8:22] Speaker 1: and he once suggested that a Hungarian countess might be
[8:24] Speaker 1: his mother. So hoping that familiar places might awaken some
[8:27] Speaker 1: real memories for him, Philip took Kaspar there twice, but
[8:30] Speaker 1: the trips failed. Kaspar didn't recognize the buildings, the places
[8:33] Speaker 1: he was shown, and nothing came together the way Philip
[8:35] Speaker 1: had expected. This caused Philip to begin to doubt him.
[8:38] Speaker 1: After the failed attempts to clarify Kaspar's origin, Philip moved
[8:41] Speaker 1: him to Ansbach and placed him with a schoolmaster named
[8:44] Speaker 1: Johann George Meyer. It was a quieter setting, away from
[8:48] Speaker 1: all the attention Casper had received in Nuremberg, but it
[8:50] Speaker 1: wasn't the grand future that he'd been promised. Worse than that,
[8:53] Speaker 1: it was a complete change in the world he had
[8:54] Speaker 1: known with George and Philip. Johan was extremely strict and
[8:58] Speaker 1: not especially sympathetic to Casper's excuses. By this point, each
[9:02] Speaker 1: of his caregivers had learned that he was a habitual liar,
[9:04] Speaker 1: and Johan treated him like a difficult young man who
[9:06] Speaker 1: needed discipline. By late 1832, Casper had been given work
[9:11] Speaker 1: as a copyist in a law office. It was respectable employment,
[9:14] Speaker 1: but again, it wasn't the life he wanted. Even after
[9:16] Speaker 1: essentially being given away, Casper clung to the hope that
[9:19] Speaker 1: Philip would someday return and take him to England, and
[9:21] Speaker 1: the longer this went without happening, the more tensions started rising.
[9:25] Speaker 1: On December 9th, this sparked a serious argument between Casper
[9:28] Speaker 1: and Johan. Then just five days later, Casper burst through
[9:31] Speaker 1: the door at Johan's house with a deep wound in
[9:33] Speaker 1: his chest. He claimed that he had been lured to
[9:36] Speaker 1: the court garden by a stranger who promised him information
[9:38] Speaker 1: about his identity. According to Casper, the stranger went to
[9:41] Speaker 1: hand him a small purse, but as Casper reached for it,
[9:43] Speaker 1: the man stabbed him in the chest and disappeared. Casper
[9:47] Speaker 1: managed to make his way back to the garden bleeding
[9:49] Speaker 1: and badly hurt, but even then, his attention seemed fixated
[9:52] Speaker 1: on the purse. He wanted authorities to find it and
[9:55] Speaker 1: indicated that it was very important that they did. Police
[9:57] Speaker 1: searched the court garden and came across a small violet-colored purse,
[10:00] Speaker 1: and inside they found a note written in pencil. All
[10:03] Speaker 1: of this seemed to support Casper's story, but as investigators
[10:05] Speaker 1: looked more closely, the note contained spelling and grammatical mistakes
[10:08] Speaker 1: that were typical of Casper's writing, and the paper had
[10:11] Speaker 1: also been folded into a triangular shape which was a
[10:14] Speaker 1: habit that was associated with him. The prevailing belief soon
[10:17] Speaker 1: became that he wounded himself to provide public interest in
[10:19] Speaker 1: his story, which he believed would pressure Philip into finally
[10:22] Speaker 1: taking him to England. If that was indeed the case,
[10:25] Speaker 1: the plan went terribly wrong. Casper's condition worsened over the
[10:28] Speaker 1: next three days, and on December 17th, 1833, he died
[10:31] Speaker 1: of his wound. After Casper died, the mystery around him
[10:35] Speaker 1: did anything but fade. As years have turned into centuries,
[10:38] Speaker 1: the origin story that Casper tried to sell everyone has
[10:40] Speaker 1: been doubted more and more. In closely examining the two
[10:43] Speaker 1: letters that he was in possession of when he was discovered,
[10:45] Speaker 1: experts believe that they were both written by the same person.
[10:48] Speaker 1: Some have even speculated that the person who wrote them
[10:50] Speaker 1: was none other than Casper himself. The letter found in
[10:53] Speaker 1: the purse just before Casper died was also a close match. Now,
[10:57] Speaker 1: if Casper had staged everything that was documented about his life,
[11:00] Speaker 1: it makes him a fraud, but that doesn't completely solve
[11:02] Speaker 1: the mystery either. If he invented the story of growing
[11:05] Speaker 1: up in a dungeon cell, then who was he really?
[11:07] Speaker 1: And where did he come from? How did he arrive
[11:09] Speaker 1: in Nuremberg with such limited speech and the walk of
[11:11] Speaker 1: a toddler? And what was his life like before he
[11:13] Speaker 1: suddenly appeared? Whatever the truth is, he seems to have
[11:16] Speaker 1: died with Casper. Casper is buried in Ansbach, the city
[11:18] Speaker 1: where he died, and his body lies under a tombstone
[11:21] Speaker 1: that calls him the riddle of his time. On a
[11:27] Speaker 1: dusty road near Columbia, Mississippi, during the spring of 1913,
[11:31] Speaker 1: William Cantwell Waters was minding his own business as he
[11:34] Speaker 1: traveled toward his next destination. William made his living by
[11:38] Speaker 1: traveling from town to town to perform odd jobs, namely
[11:40] Speaker 1: the tuning and upkeep of pianos and organs. Traveling with
[11:44] Speaker 1: him was a young boy, and while this wouldn't have
[11:45] Speaker 1: been particularly suspicious at any other time and any other place,
[11:49] Speaker 1: the presence of the child was exactly why police ended
[11:51] Speaker 1: up stopping William for a chat. About eight months earlier,
[11:54] Speaker 1: a four-year-old boy had gone missing during a family fishing
[11:57] Speaker 1: trip near Opelousa, Louisiana. The boy with William was about
[12:00] Speaker 1: the right age, and his appearance was close enough that
[12:02] Speaker 1: local officials arrested him under suspicion of kidnappings. There was
[12:06] Speaker 1: just one big problem, though. William insisted that the boy
[12:09] Speaker 1: who was traveling with him was not the same boy
[12:10] Speaker 1: that authorities had been looking for. You might expect that
[12:13] Speaker 1: this would cause further investigation, but police were quick to
[12:16] Speaker 1: contact the missing boy's family and arrange a reunion for
[12:18] Speaker 1: them in Mississippi before William had even been heard. This
[12:21] Speaker 1: would prove to be a mistake that marked the beginning
[12:23] Speaker 1: of a mystery that would last for more than 90 years.
[12:26] Speaker 1: Everything that led up to this point began the previous
[12:28] Speaker 1: year on August 23rd, 1912, at Swayze Lake, which is
[12:31] Speaker 1: a swampy fishing area near Opelousa, Percy and Lessie Dunbar
[12:36] Speaker 1: had gone there with their two sons, four-wheeled Bobby and
[12:38] Speaker 1: his younger brother Alonzo. Not much is known about what
[12:42] Speaker 1: exactly happened next, but at some point during the family's stay,
[12:44] Speaker 1: Bobby wandered away from his family unnoticed and vanished. Some
[12:49] Speaker 1: accounts place Bobby's disappearance around the family's return to their
[12:51] Speaker 1: cabin for lunch that day, while others claim that he
[12:54] Speaker 1: walked away from the family's tent during the night. Whatever
[12:56] Speaker 1: the case though, by the time his absence was noticed,
[12:59] Speaker 1: Bobby was nowhere in sight and a search for him
[13:00] Speaker 1: began immediately. As word of his disappearance spread, family members
[13:04] Speaker 1: were joined by local residents and law enforcement as they
[13:07] Speaker 1: spread through the woods and marshes around the lake, calling
[13:09] Speaker 1: Bobby's name and looking for any trace of where he
[13:11] Speaker 1: had gone. At some point during the search, someone stumbled
[13:14] Speaker 1: upon a line of bare footprints leading toward a railroad
[13:17] Speaker 1: bridge that crossed the swamp. The implication of this was
[13:20] Speaker 1: that Bobby might have climbed the bridge, fallen into the water,
[13:23] Speaker 1: and drowned. After finding the footprints, the search rapidly became
[13:27] Speaker 1: more desperate. Men began dragging the lake and using dynamite
[13:30] Speaker 1: in hopes that an explosion might force a submerged body
[13:32] Speaker 1: to the surface. Alligators, of which there were many in
[13:35] Speaker 1: Swayze Lake, were even caught, killed and cut open to
[13:38] Speaker 1: determine whether one of them had eaten the boy. The
[13:41] Speaker 1: surrounding woods, camps and waterways were examined repeatedly, but no
[13:44] Speaker 1: remains were found. As the search continued to expand, a
[13:47] Speaker 1: hat that Bobby had been wearing when he disappeared was
[13:49] Speaker 1: found far away from the lakeside. Its location immediately complicated
[13:53] Speaker 1: the theory that the boy had drowned. Since the hat
[13:56] Speaker 1: had been found along a path leading away from the water,
[13:58] Speaker 1: it was possible that Bobby had wandered farther than the
[14:00] Speaker 1: searchers initially believed. This also introduced the possibility that someone
[14:03] Speaker 1: might have carried Bobby away. Percy, in particular, increasingly came
[14:07] Speaker 1: to believe that his son had been taken, and a
[14:08] Speaker 1: substantial reward was soon offered for any information. His description
[14:12] Speaker 1: circulated well beyond Louisiana, and newspapers across the country began
[14:15] Speaker 1: following the case. As the months passed, however, no credible
[14:18] Speaker 1: tips came in until word arrived in Louisiana about the
[14:21] Speaker 1: man arrested while traveling with a boy in Mississippi. From
[14:25] Speaker 1: the moment William was stopped by the police and questioned
[14:27] Speaker 1: about the boy he was with, he denied the accusations
[14:29] Speaker 1: that he had kidnapped Bobby. He told investigators repeatedly that
[14:32] Speaker 1: the child's name was Charles Anderson, who went by his
[14:34] Speaker 1: middle name, Bruce. The boy, William said, was the son
[14:37] Speaker 1: of a woman he knew back in North Carolina named
[14:39] Speaker 1: Julia Anderson, and she had let Bruce travel with William.
[14:42] Speaker 1: This connection between William and Julia began in November of 1911,
[14:46] Speaker 1: when William began living near his father's home in Barnesville,
[14:48] Speaker 1: North Carolina. Julia was a neighbor of his, and during
[14:51] Speaker 1: this time, William and Bruce had formed an unlikely yet
[14:53] Speaker 1: close relationship. Bruce began to follow William around wherever he
[14:57] Speaker 1: went in the area, and by all accounts, the two
[14:58] Speaker 1: became nearly inseparable. William told authorities that in February of 1912,
[15:03] Speaker 1: he was hitting the road again as a traveling handyman,
[15:06] Speaker 1: and Julia decided to let Bruce tag along, which is
[15:08] Speaker 1: how the boy fell under his care. When police spoke
[15:10] Speaker 1: with Julia to check on this story, she confirmed what
[15:13] Speaker 1: William was telling them, but there was just one slight discrepancy.
[15:16] Speaker 1: According to her understanding, William was only taking Bruce for
[15:19] Speaker 1: one or two days on a visit to William's sister's house,
[15:21] Speaker 1: but more than a year after they departed, William still
[15:23] Speaker 1: hadn't returned with the child. As strange as that was,
[15:26] Speaker 1: and despite Julia backing up the vast majority of what
[15:28] Speaker 1: William told police, including that the boy with him was
[15:31] Speaker 1: her son, investigators became even more convinced that William had
[15:33] Speaker 1: kidnapped Bobby. And these already cloudy waters would only get
[15:37] Speaker 1: muddied further when Percy and Lessie arrived in Mississippi. Expecting
[15:41] Speaker 1: a joyful reunion to take place between relieved parents and
[15:44] Speaker 1: a missing child, reporters traveled with the Dunbars and curious
[15:47] Speaker 1: onlookers gathered outside the house where the boy was being kept.
[15:50] Speaker 1: After months of national attention, everyone seemed ready for the
[15:53] Speaker 1: mystery to end happily, but that's not quite what happened.
[15:56] Speaker 1: Newspapers at the time published distinctly different versions of the meeting.
[16:00] Speaker 1: In the most dramatic account, the boy was sleeping and
[16:02] Speaker 1: was woken by Lessie, who collapsed from the emotion of
[16:04] Speaker 1: the moment after the boy called her his mother. Many
[16:07] Speaker 1: other reports, though, describe a colder scene that played out,
[16:10] Speaker 1: with the child waking up in tears, showing no obvious
[16:12] Speaker 1: sign that he knew Lessie, and Lessie even admitting that
[16:15] Speaker 1: she couldn't be certain that the boy was Bobby. And
[16:17] Speaker 1: the way things went from there, the latter telling of
[16:20] Speaker 1: the supposed reunion seems much more likely. After seeing the boy,
[16:24] Speaker 1: Percy and Lessie both admitted that they noticed differences in
[16:26] Speaker 1: his appearance as compared to the son they lost eight
[16:28] Speaker 1: months earlier. They said the boy's eyes seemed smaller than
[16:31] Speaker 1: they remembered, which was an important detail because Bobby had
[16:34] Speaker 1: been known for his large, round, blue eyes. The child
[16:37] Speaker 1: also refused to answer to Bobby's name, and when Lessie
[16:39] Speaker 1: tried to hold him, he resisted her. When Bobby's younger brother, Alonzo,
[16:42] Speaker 1: was brought into the room, the boy looked at him
[16:44] Speaker 1: without the slightest indication that he knew him. All in all,
[16:47] Speaker 1: this wasn't the unmistakable moment of recognition the public was expecting.
[16:51] Speaker 1: but police were willing to give Bobby's parents another opportunity
[16:53] Speaker 1: to see the boy under different circumstances. The next day,
[16:57] Speaker 1: Lessie was allowed to be in the room alone with
[16:59] Speaker 1: the child to examine him more closely. She removed his
[17:01] Speaker 1: clothing and bathed the boy, searching his body for familiar marks.
[17:06] Speaker 1: Bobby had a distinct scar on his left foot from
[17:08] Speaker 1: when he was burned as a baby, and when Lessie
[17:10] Speaker 1: checked the boy's foot, she apparently spotted a similar imperfection.
[17:14] Speaker 1: She also located a mole on the child's neck where
[17:16] Speaker 1: Bobby was known to have a similar mark. This was
[17:19] Speaker 1: enough to convince her that the boy was indeed her
[17:21] Speaker 1: son and authorities were quick to accept this identification. So,
[17:25] Speaker 1: to many, the mystery of what happened to Bobby was over.
[17:27] Speaker 1: A judge placed the boy into the custody of the
[17:29] Speaker 1: Dunbars and they soon returned to Louisiana with him. When
[17:32] Speaker 1: their train arrived in La Palooza, the family was greeted
[17:35] Speaker 1: with cheers and a public celebration that included the boy
[17:37] Speaker 1: being paraded through the streets on a fire truck. At
[17:40] Speaker 1: the same time though, not everyone was so convinced. Some
[17:43] Speaker 1: local residents wondered why a mother needed to study scars
[17:46] Speaker 1: and moles to identify a son who had been missing
[17:48] Speaker 1: for less than a year, and especially considering the newspaper
[17:51] Speaker 1: accounts that the boy didn't recognize members of his supposed family.
[17:55] Speaker 1: In North Carolina, meanwhile, Julia wasn't willing to sit idly
[17:58] Speaker 1: by and accept that her son had been handed over
[18:00] Speaker 1: to another family either. In May of 1913, a New
[18:03] Speaker 1: Orleans newspaper paid for Julia to travel to Opelousa to
[18:07] Speaker 1: see the boy for herself. She arrived expecting to recognize
[18:10] Speaker 1: her son and for him to recognize her, but authorities
[18:12] Speaker 1: had something else in mind. Instead of simply bringing Julia
[18:15] Speaker 1: to the boy in question, five boys of roughly the
[18:17] Speaker 1: same age were brought before her one at a time,
[18:20] Speaker 1: and she wasn't told which one had been found with William.
[18:23] Speaker 1: When the disputed child entered the room, he was crying,
[18:25] Speaker 1: which caused Julia to become emotional as well, but the
[18:27] Speaker 1: boy also gave no obvious sign that he knew her.
[18:30] Speaker 1: She offered him an orange, hoping to draw a response,
[18:32] Speaker 1: but he still didn't react in a way that would
[18:34] Speaker 1: indicate a mother-son relationship. In fact, after seeing all five boys,
[18:39] Speaker 1: Julia was unable to make a confident identification. and that
[18:42] Speaker 1: moment damaged her claim almost beyond repair. Newspapers the next
[18:46] Speaker 1: day reported that the supposed mother of Bruce had failed
[18:48] Speaker 1: to recognize her own son, but Julia begged police for
[18:51] Speaker 1: another opportunity, which they reluctantly granted. This time, only the
[18:54] Speaker 1: boy found traveling with William was brought to her, and
[18:56] Speaker 1: like Lessie, Julia was allowed to examine the child more closely.
[19:00] Speaker 1: After finding physical marks on him that she remembered, she
[19:02] Speaker 1: said that she was certain the boy was Bruce and
[19:04] Speaker 1: not Bobby. By then, however, the court of public opinion
[19:07] Speaker 1: had already made up its mind. The comparison of this
[19:10] Speaker 1: with Leslie's identification of the boy was difficult to ignore.
[19:13] Speaker 1: Leslie had also hesitated and she too had become certain
[19:16] Speaker 1: of the boy's identity only after studying scars and moles.
[19:19] Speaker 1: Her initial uncertainty was treated by police as the understandable
[19:22] Speaker 1: reaction of a grieving mother overwhelmed by the return of
[19:24] Speaker 1: her child. Julia's failure, however, was presented as evidence that
[19:28] Speaker 1: she was lying, with some newspapers alleging that she lacked
[19:31] Speaker 1: the instincts and affection expected of a mother. and the
[19:34] Speaker 1: apparent reason for the difference in media treatment between Lessie
[19:36] Speaker 1: and Julia came down to what was known of their
[19:38] Speaker 1: personal lives. The Dunbars were well-respected and financially secure. Julia,
[19:43] Speaker 1: by contrast, came from an impoverished background, and that was
[19:46] Speaker 1: enough for reporters to sow doubt and discredit her at
[19:48] Speaker 1: every turn. Newspapers emphasized that she was poor and had
[19:51] Speaker 1: children outside of marriage. She was described in articles as
[19:54] Speaker 1: ignorant and morally unfit, with one paper going so far
[19:57] Speaker 1: as to label her a prostitute, which was a claim
[19:59] Speaker 1: that was made without a single piece of evidence. None
[20:02] Speaker 1: of these accusations established who the child really was, but
[20:05] Speaker 1: they greatly influenced the public perception of Julia, and unfortunately,
[20:08] Speaker 1: this became overwhelming. So without the boy that she was
[20:11] Speaker 1: sure was her son, Julia left Louisiana and returned to
[20:14] Speaker 1: North Carolina, while the child remained in the Dunbar home.
[20:17] Speaker 1: This outcome also came with another set of consequences. William
[20:20] Speaker 1: would now be tried for kidnapping Bobby. During the 1914
[20:24] Speaker 1: court proceedings, Julia returned to Louisiana to testify on his behalf,
[20:28] Speaker 1: telling the court that the boy belonged to her and
[20:30] Speaker 1: that William had not taken Bobby from Swayze Lake. Of
[20:33] Speaker 1: particular importance was the testimony of a group of Mississippi residents.
[20:37] Speaker 1: According to them, William and Bruce had spent a considerable
[20:39] Speaker 1: portion of their time traveling together in one area of
[20:41] Speaker 1: the state, and the locals got to know them well.
[20:44] Speaker 1: Each of them brought to the stand testified that they
[20:46] Speaker 1: had known William and the boy he was with earlier
[20:48] Speaker 1: in the summer of 1912, and that the child's name
[20:50] Speaker 1: was Bruce. If that same boy had been traveling with
[20:53] Speaker 1: William before the Dunbar family went on their fishing trip
[20:55] Speaker 1: in August of that year, then he couldn't have been Bobby.
[20:59] Speaker 1: It was some of the best and most convincing evidence,
[21:01] Speaker 1: but it was apparently not enough to sway the juries.
[21:03] Speaker 1: William was then convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to life
[21:06] Speaker 1: in prison. This verdict effectively confirmed the version of the
[21:09] Speaker 1: story Opelousa had already embraced, which was that the child
[21:12] Speaker 1: was Bobby, William had abducted him, and that the Dunbars
[21:15] Speaker 1: had recovered their son. But this wasn't the end of it.
[21:18] Speaker 1: William's attorney then appealed his conviction to the Louisiana Supreme Court,
[21:22] Speaker 1: which overturned the verdict and granted him a new trial.
[21:24] Speaker 1: Faced with the decision, state prosecutors chose not to pursue
[21:27] Speaker 1: the case since the first trial had been so expensive.
[21:30] Speaker 1: so with that, William was released from prison after serving
[21:32] Speaker 1: just two years. Legally, the kidnapping conviction was wiped from
[21:36] Speaker 1: his record, but publicly, the damage caused by years of
[21:39] Speaker 1: bad press remained. He returned to his life on the
[21:41] Speaker 1: road and continued to maintain his innocence, yet for decades,
[21:44] Speaker 1: he was still remembered as the man who had stolen Bobby.
[21:47] Speaker 1: William passed away in April of 1945 at the age
[21:49] Speaker 1: of 83, knowing the boy he had been arrested with
[21:52] Speaker 1: was Bruce. The child that was taken from William, meanwhile,
[21:55] Speaker 1: grew up under the name of Bobby Dunbar. He married,
[21:58] Speaker 1: raised four children, and built a relatively simple life as
[22:01] Speaker 1: the owner of a gas station, but questions about his
[22:03] Speaker 1: identity never disappeared completely. In 1954, one of his sons
[22:07] Speaker 1: asked whether he was certain he was really Bobby. It
[22:09] Speaker 1: was a chance to set the record straight, at least
[22:11] Speaker 1: with his closest loved ones, but he instead replied in
[22:14] Speaker 1: a vague way. He said he knew who he was
[22:16] Speaker 1: and who his son was and that nothing else mattered.
[22:19] Speaker 1: It was a less than satisfying answer that was anything
[22:21] Speaker 1: but a clear denial, but his son accepted it and
[22:24] Speaker 1: never brought it up again. The man who became known
[22:26] Speaker 1: as Bobby died in 1966, having never spoken publicly about
[22:29] Speaker 1: what happened to him when he was four years old
[22:31] Speaker 1: and the tumultuous few years that followed. This is how
[22:34] Speaker 1: things remained for more than three decades until his granddaughter,
[22:37] Speaker 1: Margaret Dunbar Cutright, began looking into the old case. She
[22:41] Speaker 1: had grown up with the Dunbar family's version of events,
[22:43] Speaker 1: but as she examined newspaper reports, court records, and other
[22:46] Speaker 1: family accounts, she began to doubt the official story. She
[22:49] Speaker 1: eventually started working with Linda Tarver, one of Julia's descendants
[22:52] Speaker 1: who was also interested in reviving the case. To lay
[22:56] Speaker 1: the matter for rest once and for all, a son
[22:57] Speaker 1: of the man raised as Bobby provided a DNA sample,
[23:00] Speaker 1: which was then compared with DNA from the son of Alonzo,
[23:02] Speaker 1: Bobby's younger brother. If the recovered child had truly been Bobby,
[23:06] Speaker 1: the two men should have shared the genetic relationship expected
[23:08] Speaker 1: between first cousins. The test, however, showed they didn't. In fact,
[23:12] Speaker 1: they weren't related at all. So beyond a shadow of
[23:15] Speaker 1: a doubt, the result proved that the child of Percy
[23:18] Speaker 1: and Lessie brought home was not biologically related to the
[23:20] Speaker 1: Dunbar family. It didn't definitively prove that the boy was Bruce,
[23:24] Speaker 1: but nearly every piece of circumstantial evidence pointed in that direction.
[23:28] Speaker 1: The DNA result did, however, vindicate William, since it meant
[23:30] Speaker 1: that he could not have kidnapped the real Bobby Dunbar.
[23:33] Speaker 1: After almost a century, the celebrated recovery story had finally
[23:36] Speaker 1: been exposed as a tragic mistake. As important as that
[23:40] Speaker 1: discovery was, it still failed to answer one of the
[23:42] Speaker 1: most pressing questions of all, what really happened to Bobby?
[23:45] Speaker 1: One explanation remained the one searchers had considered in 1912.
[23:49] Speaker 1: Swayze Lake is known to have a large population of
[23:50] Speaker 1: predatory animals, namely alligators, so Margaret's leading theory is that
[23:54] Speaker 1: a gator may have consumed Bobby. Reporters who have researched
[23:57] Speaker 1: the case believe that another possibility is that Bruce became
[23:59] Speaker 1: a convenient cover of Percy and Lessie after having caused
[24:02] Speaker 1: Bobby's disappearance in one way or another. It's also still
[24:05] Speaker 1: theorized that Bobby was in fact kidnapped by some assailants
[24:07] Speaker 1: whose identity was never discovered. Unfortunately, there isn't enough evidence
[24:11] Speaker 1: to support any of these theories, and the ultimate fate
[24:13] Speaker 1: of the real Bobby Dunbar remains unknown to this day.

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