America’s Oldest Kidnapping Mystery . In 1912, the quiet town of Opelousas, Louisiana, was shaken by a parent’s worst nightmare: the disappearance of four-year-old Bobby Dunbar during a family fishing trip. What followed would become one of the most perplexing child abduction cases in American history—a case built on heartbreak, controversy, and, ultimately, mistaken identity.
Eight months after Bobby vanished, authorities claimed to have found him in Mississippi in the custody of a man named William Walters. The boy was living with another family and known as Bruce Anderson, the son of a woman named Julia Anderson. Julia insisted the child was hers and had been left temporarily in Walters’ care. But the Dunbars were equally certain—this was their missing son.
The case spiraled into a bitter custody battle that captured national headlines. Julia Anderson, a poor single mother, lacked the legal and financial means to fight effectively. Despite her protests and emotional testimony, the court awarded custody of the boy to the Dunbars. He was raised as Bobby Dunbar, and the case was considered closed—at least for the next 90 years.
Fast forward to 2004, when one of Bobby Dunbar’s descendants agreed to take a DNA test to explore the family’s genealogy. The results were stunning: the man believed to be Bobby Dunbar was not genetically related to the Dunbar family at all. After nearly a century, it was confirmed that the boy taken from Julia Anderson was, in fact, her son, Bruce Anderson—not Bobby.
The real fate of the actual Bobby Dunbar remains unknown to this day.
The story of Bobby Dunbar is more than a historical curiosity—it’s a sobering reminder of how justice, memory, and identity can be shaped by circumstance and power. Thanks to modern DNA technology, the truth finally surfaced, but not without revealing a deep injustice that echoed through generations.America’s Oldest Kidnapping Mystery
