Bobby Dunbar - After The Trial

After The Trial

After the trial, the people of Poplarville welcomed Anderson into their fold and she began a new life there, eventually marrying and having seven children. According to her descendants, she became a devout Christian, helped found a church and served as nurse and midwife to the small community. Although her children indicated that her life was a happy one after settling in Poplarville, they said that she nonetheless spoke often of her lost son, Bruce, and that their family always regarded him as having been kidnapped by the Dunbars.

In 2008 one of Anderson's sons, Hollis, recounted a story for This American Life that in 1944 Bobby Dunbar/Bruce Anderson visited him at his place of business where they talked. Hollis's sister Jules recounts a similar experience where a man, who she believes was Dunbar, came to the service station where she worked and talked to her for an extended period. The Dunbar family also has a similar story, recounted by Bobby Dunbar's son Gerald. The family was returning home from a trip and passed through Poplarville when Bobby Dunbar said "Those are the people they came to pick me up from." The family then stopped for a short while as Dunbar visited with the Andersons.

After Walters had served two years of his prison term for kidnapping, his attorney was successful in appealing the conviction and Walters was granted the right to a new trial. Citing the excessive costs of the first trial, prosecutors in Opelousas declined to try him again and instead released him. After his release from custody, Walters continued to move around often; sources indicate he died sometime in the 1930s but the exact date and place of death is unknown. The grandchildren of Walters's brother reported that during their childhood, he typically visited their grandfather a few times per year and that when he did, they often spoke of the kidnapping charge, with Walters always maintaining his innocence.

The boy raised as Bobby Dunbar married, had four children of his own, and died in 1966.