A Case for Solomon : Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping That Haunted a Nation read online FB2
9781439158593 English 1439158592 "A Case for Solomon" tells the spellbinding story of one of the most celebrated kidnapping cases in American history, and a haunting family mystery that took almost a century to solve., A CASE FOR SOLOMON: BOBBY DUNBAR AND THE KIDNAPPING THAT HAUNTED A NATION chronicles one of the most celebrated-and most misunderstood-kidnapping cases in American history. In 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar, the son of an upper-middle-class Louisiana family, went missing in the swamps. After an eight-month search that electrified the country and destroyed Bobby's parents, the boy was found, filthy and hardly recognizable, in the pinewoods of southern Mississippi. A wandering piano tuner who had been shuttling the child throughout the region by wagon for months was arrested and charged with kidnapping-a crime that was punishable by death at the time. But when a destitute single mother came forward from North Carolina to claim the boy as her son, not Bobby Dunbar, the case became a high-pitched battle over custody-and identity-that divided the South. Amid an ever-thickening tangle of suspicion and doubt, two mothers and a father struggled to assert their rightful parenthood over the child, both to the public and to themselves. For two years, lawyers dissected and newspapers sensationalized every aspect of the story. Psychiatrists, physicians, criminologists, and private detectives debated the piano tuner's guilt and the boy's identity. And all the while the boy himself remained peculiarly guarded on the question of who he was. It took nearly a century, a curiosity that had been passed down through generations, and the science of DNA to discover the truth. A Case for Solomon is a gripping historical mystery, distilled from a trove of personal and archival research. The story of Bobby Dunbar, fought over by competing New Orleans tabloids, the courts, and the citizenry of two states, offers a case study in yellow journalism, emergent forensic science, and criminal justice in the turn-of-the-century American South. It is a drama of raw poverty and power and an exposé of how that era defined and defended motherhood, childhood, and community. First told in a stunning episode of National Public Radio's This American Life, A Case for Solomon chronicles the epic struggle to determine one child's identity, along the way probing unsettling questions about the formation of memory, family, and self., A Case for Solomon chronicles one of the most celebrated-and misunderstood-kidnapping cases in American history. In 1912, 4 year-old Bobby Dunbar, the son of an upper middle-class Louisiana family, went missing in the swamps; 8 months later, he was found in the company of a wandering piano-tuner, William Walters who was arrested and tried for kidnapping. But when a destitute single mother came forward to claim the boy as her son, not Bobby Dunbar, the case exploded. For two years, courts probed and newspapers sensationalized every aspect of the story. But it took nearly a full century for the real identity of the child to be known. In 2000, his granddaughter Margaret Dunbar Cutright, co-author of this book, dug into that legend, and the more she researched, the more she doubted. After years of debate, Margaret's father and a Dunbar cousin conducted a DNA test, against the will of the rest of the family. The results, along with all of Margaret's research, bore her doubts out: the boy was not Bobby Dunbar, but rather Bruce Anderson., The real story of a boy who grew up pretending to be a missing boy called Bobby Dunbar, told by his granddaughter, from THIS AMERICAN LIFE. .
9781439158593 English 1439158592 "A Case for Solomon" tells the spellbinding story of one of the most celebrated kidnapping cases in American history, and a haunting family mystery that took almost a century to solve., A CASE FOR SOLOMON: BOBBY DUNBAR AND THE KIDNAPPING THAT HAUNTED A NATION chronicles one of the most celebrated-and most misunderstood-kidnapping cases in American history. In 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar, the son of an upper-middle-class Louisiana family, went missing in the swamps. After an eight-month search that electrified the country and destroyed Bobby's parents, the boy was found, filthy and hardly recognizable, in the pinewoods of southern Mississippi. A wandering piano tuner who had been shuttling the child throughout the region by wagon for months was arrested and charged with kidnapping-a crime that was punishable by death at the time. But when a destitute single mother came forward from North Carolina to claim the boy as her son, not Bobby Dunbar, the case became a high-pitched battle over custody-and identity-that divided the South. Amid an ever-thickening tangle of suspicion and doubt, two mothers and a father struggled to assert their rightful parenthood over the child, both to the public and to themselves. For two years, lawyers dissected and newspapers sensationalized every aspect of the story. Psychiatrists, physicians, criminologists, and private detectives debated the piano tuner's guilt and the boy's identity. And all the while the boy himself remained peculiarly guarded on the question of who he was. It took nearly a century, a curiosity that had been passed down through generations, and the science of DNA to discover the truth. A Case for Solomon is a gripping historical mystery, distilled from a trove of personal and archival research. The story of Bobby Dunbar, fought over by competing New Orleans tabloids, the courts, and the citizenry of two states, offers a case study in yellow journalism, emergent forensic science, and criminal justice in the turn-of-the-century American South. It is a drama of raw poverty and power and an exposé of how that era defined and defended motherhood, childhood, and community. First told in a stunning episode of National Public Radio's This American Life, A Case for Solomon chronicles the epic struggle to determine one child's identity, along the way probing unsettling questions about the formation of memory, family, and self., A Case for Solomon chronicles one of the most celebrated-and misunderstood-kidnapping cases in American history. In 1912, 4 year-old Bobby Dunbar, the son of an upper middle-class Louisiana family, went missing in the swamps; 8 months later, he was found in the company of a wandering piano-tuner, William Walters who was arrested and tried for kidnapping. But when a destitute single mother came forward to claim the boy as her son, not Bobby Dunbar, the case exploded. For two years, courts probed and newspapers sensationalized every aspect of the story. But it took nearly a full century for the real identity of the child to be known. In 2000, his granddaughter Margaret Dunbar Cutright, co-author of this book, dug into that legend, and the more she researched, the more she doubted. After years of debate, Margaret's father and a Dunbar cousin conducted a DNA test, against the will of the rest of the family. The results, along with all of Margaret's research, bore her doubts out: the boy was not Bobby Dunbar, but rather Bruce Anderson., The real story of a boy who grew up pretending to be a missing boy called Bobby Dunbar, told by his granddaughter, from THIS AMERICAN LIFE. .