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DNA Clears 1914 Kidnapping Conviction


DC09

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RALEIGH, N.C. - In 1914, William Cantwell Walters was convicted of kidnapping a 4-year-old boy. Nine decades later, science has cleared his name.

A DNA test indicates that the child police found with Walters years ago was not the missing boy, Bobby Dunbar. More than likely, he was the illegitimate son of Walters' brother and a servant living with Walters' parents.

Dunbar disappeared Aug. 23, 1912, during a fishing trip on Swayze Lake near Opelousas. After a massive eight-month search, Walters, an itinerant handyman, was arrested in Mississippi while traveling in a tented wagon with a boy who fit Bobby's description.

Walters maintained that the servant, Julia Anderson, gave him the boy as a traveling companion. The woman was brought to Mississippi and identified him as Charlie Bruce Anderson, but a court-appointed arbiter ruled that he was the Dunbars' missing son.

Walters was convicted of kidnapping in a sensational trial, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. He was never retried, and the boy grew up as Bobby Dunbar.

Four and a half years ago, Dunbar's granddaughter started to research the case and began to have doubts as she dug through old newspaper clippings and court transcripts.

Her father, over the objections of his siblings, agreed to give a DNA sample earlier this year. It was compared to a sample given by a son of Bobby Dunbar's brother, Alonzo.

The samples did not match.

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