MoNo Encore: The Mysterious Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar w/ Tal McThenia

MoNo Encore: The Mysterious Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar w/ Tal McThenia

From Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast by Blue Ewe Media

July 10, 2026 · 1h 34m

About this episode

The episode discusses the mysterious disappearance of Bobby Dunbar and the subsequent custody battle over his identity.

(Orig pub date: 3/28/23) In 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar went missing in the Louisiana swamps. After an eight-month search that electrified the country and destroyed Bobby’s parents, the boy was found, filthy and hardly recogniz­able. A wandering piano tuner was arrested and charged with kidnapping— a crime then punishable by death. But when a destitute single mother came forward from North Carolina to claim the boy as her son, not the lost Bobby Dunbar, the case became a high-pitched battle over custody—and identity—that divided the South. My guest, Tal McThenia, first introduced listeners of NPR's This American Life to this case in 2008. A few years later he co-wrote, along with Margaret Dunbar Cutright (the granddaughter of Bobby Dunbar) the definitive book about this historical whodunnit, called "A Case for Solomon: Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping That Haunted a Nation".   The author's website:  https://www.talmcthenia.com/ Listen to This American Life's "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar" here:  https://www.thisamericanlife.org/352/transcript The author's Audubon article…

People in this episode

Guest: Tal McThenia

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: NPR, This American Life, Audubon

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