Trama

4-year old Bobby Dunbar goes missing at a swampy Louisiana lake in 1912. After a search the family decides he's been kidnapped. A small boy traveling with his uncle in Mississippi is reported. 90 years later DNA proves the boy is not Bobby

On August 23, 1912, young Robert (Bobby) Clarence Dunbar vanished on a family outing at their fishing camp at Lake Swayze, about 15 miles from their home in Opelousas, Louisiana. After an extensive search which went on for weeks, and because there was no trace of the four-year-old found, he was determined to have been kidnapped. Flyers were produced and a $6,000 reward was offered and sent out all over the south. Meanwhile, in nearby Pearl River county Mississippi, an organ repairman, William Cantwell Walters, was repairing organs, clocks, and other household items in and around Poplarville, Mississippi. He had his four-year-old nephew with him in an effort to teach the boy how to read and write, and to help mold his brother's illegitimate son into a Christian man. The boy's mother had given Cantwell permission to take Charlie Bruce Anderson with him to enable her to look for work and get on her feet financially. Eight months passed without good leads for the Dunbar family. When Cantwell and Bruce began working in the Columbia, Mississippi area, a women's club in the nearby Hub community noticed Cantwell and his young charge. The women determined that this must be the kidnapped child and got in touch with the Dunbar family. Clarence Percy Dunbar, the missing boy's father dispatched his brother to Columbia to interview the boy. His report was that this was not Bobby. The ladies of Hub were insistent (largely due to the huge reward worth about $200,000 in today's money) that this was the missing child and contacted the Dunbars again. Percy and his grieving wife, Lessie took the train to Columbia, Mississippi to see the child for themselves. When they first saw the child, Lessie was adamant that this was not her missing son, but Percy was insistent and when they viewed Bruce the second time, She relented to Percy's pressure and decided this was her missing Bobby. By this time the boy's uncle had been arrested and was being held in the Marion County Jail. He employed defense attorneys, Hollis Rawls and Tom Dale who immediately went to work reaching out to witness who had seen Walters and Bruce at the same time young Bobby went missing in Opelousas, Louisiana. Before the attorneys could get a stay to keep Bruce on hand until the witnesses could come to Columbia to give their depositions, Percy insisted that they take young Bruce with them that night to head back to Opelousas. Walters was accused of kidnapping an a long ordeal to get him released to Louisiana for trial with the Governors of both states getting involved. The extradition was finally given and Walters went to trial in a heavily polarized town that already had tried the organ repairman in the court of public opinion. The court rubber stamped the conviction and Walters was sent to New Orleans because Rawls and Dale, Walters' attorneys, had gotten the trial declared a mistrial. This is the complete story of the amazing events that gripped the entire nation. This documentary is largely based on the book, Mizpah: The Bobby Dunbar Legend, written by Allison Rawls Bullock, the granddaughter of Hollis Rawls of the trial's defense team, Rawls and Dale. Bullock discovered the evidence files while cleaning out her deceased grandfather's office a number of years ago.