A Case for Solomon: Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping That Haunted a Nation

The spellbinding story of one of the most celebrated kidnapping cases in American history—the kidnapping of Bobby Dunbar—and a haunting family mystery that took almost a century to solve.

THE MOST NOTORIOUS KIDNAPPING CASE IN AMERICAN HISTORY

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. A gripping historical mystery, A Case for Solomon chronicles the epic century-long effort to unravel the startling truth.