What Happened to Bobby Dunbar?

On August 23, 1912, the Dunbar family went with their three boys to fish on Swayze Lake in Tennessee. When the parents, Lassie and Percy called to the children to come from the lake to have lunch, two of the boys came running immediately, but the youngest, 4-year-old Bobby was not with them. Initially, they were not worried. The assumed he was enjoying his time at the lake, so they called louder for him. No response, so the Dunbars contacted the authorities, and a search was initiated. The only evidence that the police could find that Bobby had been there were some small footprints leading away from the lake itself.

A $6,000 reward was offered ($160,000 in today’s money) and that got a lot of people interested in the search. The lake was dragged, alligators were caught and gutted to see if the child’s remains were inside, and even some threw dynamite in the lake, hoping the body, if it was there, would be shaken loose. The William Burns Detective agency became involved along with several psychics, but nothing.

Eight long months went by. The case was in the news in the few weeks after the child went missing, but like all cases like this, once the trail goes cold, the press is no longer interested. Just when it seemed the Dunbars would have to accept the fact that Bobby had probably wandered into the lake and was never coming home, a bombshell. In Mississippi, a child was found who resembled Bobby Dunbar. He was with a man named William Cantwell Walters, who claimed the boy was his nephew, the illegitimate son of his brother and a woman by the name of Julia Anderson. The boy’s name was Charles Bruce Anderson.  He said that she had left him with Walters, expecting it would be a few days, but the child was there for 13 months. When Julia was found, she agreed that the boy was her biological son. She did not agree, though, that it was the son of Walters brother. She claimed the father was a traveling salesman, a one-night stand who gave her $5 before he disappeared from her life.

Both Mrs. Dunbar and Julia Anderson went to Mississippi to bring her son home. The child was sleeping when Mrs. Dunbar arrived, and she was heard saying “I don’t know. I’m not sure.” He then woke up, looked around at the Dunbars and screamed. The child did not initially respond when called “Bobby,” and he didn’t seem to recognize Mrs. Dunbar, but she insisted he was her son.  The rest of the Dunbars agreed. They seemed to want to ignore that Bobby had a scar on his foot, and this child did not. That night, while giving “Bobby” a bath, Mrs. Dunbar exclaimed that the moles on the child matched the ones her son had.

Since King Solomon was not available, they had to rely on a judge to decide who this little boy would go home with. And, he decided that the child was Bobby Dunbar and not the son of Julia Anderson. This decision probably had a lot to do with the fact that Julia Anderson had three children out of wedlock, had left her son with Walters, not for 2 days but 13 months.

When “Bobby” came home, his hometown of Opelousas declared it a holiday and there were parties and parades.

Walter is eventually tried and convicted of kidnapping but after only two years in jail, his new attorneys appealed his conviction and it was overturned on a technicality. Fifteen years later he died of blood poisoning.

Julia went on to marry and have 8 children.

The boy was raised as Bobby Dunbar. Some say that Bobby knew he wasn’t Bobby and would visit the Andersons when he grew up. But he also told the media that he recalled the kidnapping by Walters.

In 2004, one of Bobby Dunbar’s granddaughters, Margaret Dunbar Cutright, got curious and had a DNA test done with a cousin of Bobby’s and her grandfather. The two men were NOT related. Eventually, it was determined that he was related to the Andersons.

I guess Julia was right; the boy was her son, and she had her son stolen from her, probably because Mrs. Dunbar presented a much better image of a mother than Julia did.

So…what happened to the real Bobby Dunbar? Did his parents do something to him, and then told the authorities he was missing? Did someone kidnap him from the lake that day, just not Walters? Or did this little unsupervised boy slip into the lake and drowned. Perhaps he did, and his wealthy parents found a way to raise him from the dead with the help of another neglectful mother and a little boy who wasn’t their own but was a good enough replacement?

References

Barclay, S. (2012, March 17). Bobby Dunbar. Retrieved from Historic Mysteries: www.historicmysteries.com/bobby-dunbar/

Bovsun, M. (2019, February 1). Bobby Dunbar's disappearance caused a mystery wasn't solved for 92 years. Retrieved from Daily News: www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-news-bobby-dunbar-mystery-20190203-story.html