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FBI reopens 1959 case of missing
4-year-old
Baldwin County cold case
remembered
Family searches 50 years for
lost boy
Lesson from NY: Long-lost
children
rarely turn up
Old Cold Case Heats Up50 Year Old Cold Case Heats Up
WKRG-TV - Mobile,AL,USA
By Pat Peterson Reporter The details surrounding the disappearance of
four-year old Daniel Barter
This
is the most recent news article
by Ryan Dezember of the Mobile Press Register. This is the
second article by Ryan about Danny. Great job Ryan!
Police
rekindle interest
in cold case
Investigators hope to jog memories of Danny Barter's 1959 disappearance
along Perdido Bay Wednesday, July 16, 2008By RYAN DEZEMBER Staff
Reporter
ROBERTSDALE — With the 50th anniversary of 4-year-old Danny
Barter's disappearance approaching, investigators are renewing their
interest in one of Baldwin County's most vexing cold cases.
On Tuesday, two of Barter's sisters traveled from Texas to
Robertsdale,where Baldwin County Sheriff Huey "Hoss" Mack Jr. and one
of his top detectives told them and members of the local Rotary Club
that local and federal investigators are putting the case back on the
front burner.
The Sheriff's Office is also pushing to bring national media attention
to the unsolved disappearance in hopes of generating leads in the
clueless case of a toddler who vanished from the shores of Perdido Bay
in 1959.
"As we approach the 50th anniversary, it is still likely that Danie
lBarter is alive somewhere in the United States not knowing he is
Daniel Barter," Mack told the Robertsdale Rotary Club over lunch at
Mama Lou's Restaurant. "This is a great mystery in Baldwin County."
Mack and Capt. Steve Arthur said that one difficulty in working the
case is that there have never been credible leads in the case.
"There's no evidence that links this to anything because there is no
evidence," Arthur said.
About a decade ago, Mack, who was the Sheriff's Office lead
detective,said he was asked by then-Sheriff James B. "Jimmy" Johnson to
pull the case file on Danny Barter. When he went looking, he found
there was none.
Nowadays, a missing child case would generate a file that would
overwhelm a kitchen table, Mack said.
In 1959, however, case files in rural Baldwin County were stored in the
heads of detectives, or perhaps on a scrap of paper in a lawman's
pocket. As such, the sheriff said, records of Barter's disappearance
and the subsequent investigation exist solely in dusty newspaper
clippings and the memories of family members, like sisters Wanda
McNelly and Theresa White.
The story that those clippings tell starts 49 years ago on a Wednesday
morning at a campsite on the eastern banks of Perdido Bay.
Page 2 of 2
The Barter family — parents Maxine and Paul, four of their
six children, an uncle and a cousin — was on vacation,camping
on a Lillian-area lot where they planned to one day build a home. At
about 9:45 a.m., they noticed Danny was gone. There was no trace of
him, not the gray boxer shorts he was wearing, not the Nehi soda bottle
he was drinking from, not the footprints his bare feet would have left
on the beach had he wandered into the bay.
By afternoon, some 150 people were searching on foot, by boat and from
the air. There were Baldwin County sheriff's deputies, Foley
firefighters, volunteers and enlisted men from Pensacola Naval Air
Station.
The following day, there were about 500 searchers. The bottom of the
bay was dragged; sinkholes and thickets were scoured. On the third
day,bloodhounds were brought to the scene. They repeatedly tracked the
boy's scent to the same spot on a nearby road.
By the weekend, the search grew more grim: Dynamite was tossed into the
bay in hopes of jarring a body loose. Alligators were hunted down and
gutted, their insides examined for traces of the child.
Danny Barter was terrified of water, and so for years many in law
enforcement — ruling out an accidental
drowning—supposed he was stealthily snatched by an alligator.
There were some who thought that he may have been abducted, but aside
from the parents recollection of a peeping Tom in their Mobile
neighborhood and a suspicious man at a Lillian grocery store, there was
nothing to convince investigators that Barter was kidnapped, Mack said.
Today, though, abduction is the prevailing theory, giving Barter's
family and investigators hope that the boy who disappeared nearly a
half-century ago might turn up somewhere as a grown man with a lot to
learn about himself.
As such, the Sheriff's Office has started asking around for those who
recall the disappearance, looking for new clues to surface. The FBI has
become involved, helping local detectives conduct out-of-state
interviews, Arthur said. And Mack said there has been a drive to get
nationally televised crime shows to take an interest in the case.
Even the use of a medium has been contemplated, Arthur said, though
costs have so far prevented a psychic from being hired.
On Tuesday, Arthur, Mack and Barter's sisters urged their audience to
take the story to friends and neighbors, to make the case the talk of
the town in hopes of turning up forgotten details.
"Time is of the essence; we're not getting any younger," Mack said. "In
cases like this it's often the things you don't think are important
that turn out to be important."
http://www.al.com/news/press-register/inde...ll=3&thispage=1
One of the
most recent news article about Danny published on June
11,2008. This article was well written by Tommy
Campbell,Publisher of the Choctaw
Sun Advocate located in Butler,
AL.Danny's mother was from Toxey, AL which is located in Choctaw
county,AL.
Thanks
Tommy!
http://choctawsun.com/web/
By Tommy Campbell
Sun-Advocate
Publisher
LILLIAN,Ala.—
On a hot, muggy south Alabama summer day in June,1959,Paul and Maxine
Barter, four of their six children and two other family members set out
from their homes in Mobile on what they thought would be a fun-filled
camping trip to nearby Perdido Bay.
Before
that ill-fated trip was over, the disappearance without a trace of
their4-1/2 year-old son, Danny, would spark a massive air, land and
sea search the likes of which the Gulf Coast had never seen.
Upwards
of 2,000volunteers, including more than 300 sailors and Marines from
nearby military bases, law enforcement officials from Alabama and
Florida and others using boats, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters,
jeeps,
horses and champion bloodhounds combed a five-square mile area in a
search that lasted for more than a week before it was finally and
reluctantly called off.
The
disappearance made headlines in newspapers across the country, and even
attracted the attention of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who sent a
personal letter to the family expressing his sadness over the
disappearance and assuring them that the matter was being given
consideration by the agency.
In
spite of the Herculean effort, not one shred of evidence was found to
substantiate any of the theories surrounding Danny’s
disappearance, which even today, remains shrouded in mystery.
In
the 49 years that have passed since the cute little boy with the wavy
dark brown hair, dimples, and big, smiling brown eyes disappeared, no
remains were ever found, nor have any live sightings been reported.
What
happened?
Did
he wander away from the campsite and drown in the waters of the Gulf of
Mexico,or fall victim to one of the large alligators or poisonous
snakes
that were known to inhabit the wooded, brushy, beach front lot?
Or,
as his family believes, based on a number of bizarre and still
unexplained incidents involving a peeping tom, and mysterious vehicles
parked near the family’s home in Mobile and at a store near
the campsite an the mmorning he disappeared, was he kidnapped by
someone
who had been stalking the family; someone who may have known of plans
for the camping trip, or followed them and laid in wait for a chance to
grab the child at the site in eastern Baldwin County?
No
one knows for sure.
But
in spite of nearly five decades of silence, of waiting, hoping, and
praying with none information, his siblings and a
“cold case”volunteer who lives in Salem, Ala.,
remain optimistic that Danny– who would celebrate his 54th
birthday on Dec.12th of this year — could still be alive, or
at the very least, if he is deceased, that someone, somewhere has the
answers that could give surviving family members closure and peace of
mind.
“We
are basically everyday people who do detective work on cold cases to
try and help law enforcement solve them,” said Lynn Reuss,
a volunteer with an organization called Porchlight for the Missing
and Unidentified, who first brought the incident to
the Sun-Advocate’s attention. “I took an interest
in Danny’s case because I am from Alabama and I just have a
soft spot for children. He was a very cute little boy. I am hoping that
by sharing this information with the home county
of Danny’smother, it will generate some new information to
help me with my research.”
It
was a letter from Reuss published in the Sun-Advocate earlier this year
that generated enough response to cause state and federal investigators
to take a fresh look into the disappearance.
A
spokesman forte Mobile District Office of the FBI confirmed to the
Sun-Advocate on Tuesday that the case has gotten renewed attention from
Baldwin County authorities.
Tim
White said that while the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department
is the lead investigative agency and has jurisdiction in the case,
federal authorities can get involved when local agencies request
assistance
“And that
is what has happened,” White said. “Baldwin County
authorities have asked for our help in conducting interviews
and tracking down some people who have moved far away.”
If
necessary, he said, the FBI can also assist in conducting forensics
tests that are outside of the abilities of local law enforcement
agencies to provide.
“We
are here to do whatever we can do to help,” White said.
When
last seen on the morning of June 17th, 1959, Danny was playing at
the campsite,waiting on his parents to finish rigging fishing poles so
that they could cast their lines in the shallow waters of Perdido Bay.
According
to Danny’s sisters, Wanda McNelly and Theresa White, who
now live in Texas, the passing years have not diminished
the family’s stead fast hope that their brother could be alive.
“Our parents
are both gone now, and we can go and visit their graves,”
Theresa told the Sun-Advocate in an interview last week. “We
know where they are and what happened to them. Butte don’t
know for sure what happened to Danny. We can’t go and put
flowers on his grave. We believe in our hearts that he is still alive,
but even if he isn’t, whatever happened, we would like to know
so that we can at least put him to rest in our hearts and
minds.”
Digging
for facts in the case has been made more difficult by the passing of
time and the deaths of family members and investigators who were around
at the time.
The
family nevertheless clings to the belief that someone, somewhere,
knows something about Danny’s disappearance and maybe even
his whereabouts today.
“We would
love to get a phone call, a letter, anything, just to let us know what
happened,” Danny’s oldest sister Wanda told the
Sun-Advocate in an interview last week from her home in Texas.
Paul
Barter died of a heart attack in 1965 at the age of 46; Maxine passed
away 30 year slater, in 1995. Their youngest son Tony, who was born in
Feb.,1960,died 11 years ago of Hodgkin’s Disease. Unknown to
Mr.and Mrs. Barter, Maxine was about one month pregnant with Tony at
the time Danny went missing.
Also,
as the Sun-Advocate has learned from interviews with family members
and investigators, much of the information published in newspaper
accounts of the day is inaccurate, and that many of the original
investigative reports have either been lost or thrown out in the years
since the tragedy occurred.
Theresa,
th enext-to-the-youngest of the Barter children, was two years old
when Danny went missing. She and their brother, Michael, then 3-1/2,
did
not go on the camping trip but remained in Mobile with their aunt,
Vera Barter, the wife of Paul’s brother Jim, who owned the
beach front lot where they were headed.
Wanda,
who was just a month away from her 13th birthday, likewise did not
accompany the family on the trip, opting instead to spend part of her
summer vacation with her widowed grandmother, Rennie (Lester) Thompson
at Maxine’s childhood home at Toxey, Ala.
“I found
out what had happened when I walked into the kitchen that day handsaw
my
grandmother crying,” Wanda recalled. “Asked her
what was wrong, and she said that Danny was missing.”
A
native of Michigan, Paul Barter grew up in the Mobile area and enlisted
in theU.S. Army. He met his future wife, the former Maxine Thompson,
while she was a waitress at a local restaurant. He became a stockroom
manager for Morrison’s Cafeteria in Mobile, and the couple and
their children settled into a modest but comfortable home on Thrush
Drive Anthe Birdville section of the city.
It
was from that residence that Mr. and Mrs. Barter and four of their
children,Steve,then 11, Ronald, 10, Bobby, 8, Danny, and their 11-year
old cousin,Runeau Barter, loaded up the Paul and Maxine’s
station wagon on June 16th, 1959 and headed for the beach.
The
trip to Lillian would have taken about an hour under normal conditions,
and following what is believed to have been an uneventful journey,
the Barters pulled off U.S. 98 onto Boykin Boulevard leading to
the property, set up camp and bedded down for the night.
Paul
and Jim spent the night in a tent. Maxine Barter, the four boys and
their cousin, Runeau, slept in the station wagon.
“It
was a camping trip, but they actually went there to help clear the land
for a beach house they wanted to build,” Wanda
said.“it was a little way back from the beach and there was
quite a bit of sand.The water there was shallow, and you could walk a
long way out into the bay before it got past your knees.”
That fact,combined
with the knowledge that the little boy was scared of theater and
wouldn’t go near it unless accompanied by an older sibling or
his parents, are two of the main reasons why they do not believe Danny
drowned.
The
sisters likewise do not believe he would have wandered into the thick,
prickly coastal undergrowth that bordered the campsite, and the fact
that the little boy was bare-footed, shirt-less and dressed only in a
pair of gray shorts on that hot, muggy summer day.
The
morning of June 17th began like any other day at the beach for a
typical family,the sisters said, recalling what they had been told
about
the incident.
“You have
to understand that neither of us was there, and our
parents didn’t talk much about this in front of us when we
we regrowing up because it was upsetting and very hard
for them,”Wanda said. Much of what they now know comes
from talking with their siblings who were there and who could recall
details of the trip.
After
awakening that morning, Mrs. Barter, accompanied by Danny and another
of
the children — whom they believe to have been
Ronald—drove to a nearby store in Lillian to buy food
for breakfast, some snacks and soft drinks.
News
articles of the day indicated that it was Mr. Barter who drove to the
store but both sisters said those reports were incorrect. Also, they
said, one of those soft drink bottles would later become known as
a major“missing piece of the puzzle”.
Arriving
back at the campsite, Maxine prepared breakfast while Paul played with
the children. Afterward, Danny opened one of the Nehi® soft
drink sand was walking around holding the bottle at the time he went
missing.
According
to a report published in The Pensacola News Journal on June 18th,
1959,Mrs.Barter described her son as a
“mommy-daddy baby”who would not stray far away from
them. They had promised to take Danny fishing later that morning in the
shallow waters of Perdido Bay, and she told the paper that he was
standing next to her while she attempted to untangle a line on one of
their fishing poles.
Mrs.
Barter said that she had put three hooks on lines when she looked up a
few minute slater, sometime between 9:30 and 10 a.m., and noticed Danny
was gone.After a quick search of the perimeter turned up no trace of
Danny,his mother “became desperate” and ran to a
nearby house to call for help, according to the newspaper.
That
help arrived in the form of scores of volunteers, law enforcement
officials, and sailors from Naval Air Station Pensacola and other bases
along the Florida and Alabama Gulf Coast. The intense search continued
that afternoon and well into the night, and for a week afterward.
Several
times over the coming days, searchers formed human chains
and walked shoulder-to-shoulder through the shallow waters of the bay
and nearby woods but found no sign of the child.
Dr.
S.R. Monroe,a Gadsden veterinarian who learned about the search from a
newspaper headline, called to offer the use of three of his
champion bloodhounds.Baldwin Sheriff Taylor Wilkins gladly accepted the
offer and the dogs and their owner were rushed to the scene by Alabama
State Troopers.
Dr.
Monroe, who is now deceased, spent several days searching the area with
the hounds,and stated flatly to the Mobile Press Register on June
21st that, in his opinion, “the child did not leave the
scene walking.”
Although
news reports of the day made it sound as if the site was overrun
by giant,man-eating alligators, poisonous snakes, and quicksand bogs,
none of the siblings remember the campsite as being that dangerous.
“I’m sure
there were alligators and snakes around,”
Theresa said.“But it wans’t at all like they made it
out to be.It was a nice place.”
Sheriff
Wilkins told the Press-Register at the time that he did not believe the
child was attacked by a ‘gator since Dr.
Monroe’bloodhounds failed to pick up a trail which could
have led to the scene of such an attack.
Lillian
resident Carl P. Klein, who helped to organize one of the searches, in
an article published by the Mobile Press Register on the 25th
anniversary of the disappearance in 1986, said that he didn’t
put much stock in the alligator theory, either.
“The dogs
(Dr. Monroe’s bloodhounds) always came back to that point near
the pavement,” Klein said.
He
also said redid not believe Danny had wandered away from the site or
gotten lost.
“Our mother
always said the same thing,” Theresa told the Sun-Advocate.
“As
far as we know, he got that far and that was it,” Wanda added.
Although
no footprints were found leading toward the bay, Navy divers
—Anthe chance that Danny could have drowned or been snatched
by an alligator and dragged to an underwater den — scoured
the floor of the bay and set off underwater explosive charges at
several deep-water holes in an effort to dislodge a body.
Mrs.
Barter said in published reports that one diver assured her that, in
his opinion,the boy did not drown.
Several
large alligators were shot and gutted to see if any evidence could be
found that one of the large reptiles might have eaten the child, but in
spite of those efforts, no such evidence was found.
After
three days,Sheriff Wilkins likewise said publicly that he
was“nearly satisfied that the boy did not wander into the
woods or water near the campsite.” Although admitting
that authorities could not substantiate a kidnapping since no ransom
demand had been received and no one had actually seen Danny being
abducted,Wilkins said that he tended to lean in that direction,
“since every foot of th eland for five miles around and almost
as much water has been thoroughly searched without finding a trace of
the child.”
The distraught,sedated
mother agreed.
“Indefinitely
believe now that someone picked him up and has carried
him away,” she told a Press Register reporter at the scene.
“Mother tried
to tell them the whole time that she was afraid he had been kidnapped
but nobody would listen to her,” Wanda recalled.“You
could see the bridge going into Florida from the site.Someone could
have
grabbed Danny, got on U.S. 98 and been long gone in a couple of
hours.”
The
kidnapping theory has been bolstered by another seemingly
trivial clue that actually could be an important “missing
link”to the abduction theory — despite the massive
search, no trace of the Nehi® soft drink bottle Danny was
holding at the time of his disappearance was found, which leads family
members and researchers to discount the theory that he met a violent
death in the clutches of an alligator.
If
Danny was snatched by a stranger, or if he some how willingly got into
a
waiting vehicle, he could have been holding the bottle, family members
said.
“If
head been attacked by an alligator, in all likelihood, he would
probably have dropped the bottle during the attack,” Reuss
told theSun-Advocate.
And,
the sisters agreed, their parents would have no doubt have heard the
child screaming or calling for help had an alligator been after him or
had he become disoriented and lost.
“There’no
way he could have walked that far away that they couldn’t here
him calling,” Wanda said.
Mrs.
Barter said in published reports that she believed someone had walked
up
the road to the somewhat secluded campsite, unnoticed to anyone there,
and grabbed the child.
“You couldn’t
see the campsite from the road, you had to go down along
path,” Wanda said. Unknown to the family, a kidnapper could
have parked a car nearby and been lying in wait in the thick
undergrowth
waiting for an opportunity to grab the child.
Mrs.
Barter told the Pensacola News Journal at the time that if Danny had
indeed been kidnapped, it could not have been for monetary gain.
“I
know it wasn’t for ransom, because we have no money saved and
are supporting our children on my husband’s
income,”she said in the June 21, 1959 article.
In
a 25th anniversary article published in 1986 in the Mobile
Press Register,former Baldwin Co. Sheriff Wilkins – who at
that time was operating a security company in Bay Minette –
said that memories of the incident still haunted him.
“You know,
we never found the slightest trace of the boy,” he said.
“Not one piece of clothing or anything concrete to tell us if
he drowned or somebody took him.”
Wilkins
added that searchers “didn’t leave
anything unturned,” and that while he personally hated to send
the people home, after weeks with no trace, he had no choice.
The
Pensacola paper reported that a “wake-like” funeral
pall seemed to hang over the searchers when they were told it was over.
Even
so, the former sheriff slept in his car at the site for three nights
after calling off the search just in case Danny might wander back, or
that some clue or other evidence would be found.
One report,publicized
in the June 25th edition of the Pensacola NewsJournal,claimed that a
Lillian resident reported to Sheriff Wilkins’office that
— several days after Danny went missing— persons in
a car on the main road of the community were seen to let a small boy,
about Danny’s age, out of the vehicle and pull away. The
witness said the boy ran off after the car but if any other details
were
ever provided, or if the incident was investigated further, it was not
reported to the public or to the family.
Wilkins
die din2002.
About
a month after the disappearance, Paul
Barter’semployer,Morrison’s Restaurant, obtained
the services of investigator Edward J. Foster, of New Orleans-based
PendletonDetectives Inc., to conduct an independent investigation. The
results of that investigation were never shared with Baldwin County
officials nor made available to the family.
The
Sun-Advocatecontacted the Pendleton organization, which is now located
in Jackson,Miss., in an attempt to obtain a copy of the report.
Official sat the present company said that the New Orleans office was
sold to Vinson Security Service in 1963. Vinson still operates in New
Orleans but did not respond to a Sun-Advocate email asking if records
from 1959still exist.
In
a series of what family members say appeared to have been unrelated
incidents at the time, those separate occurrences now seem to lend more
credence to the theory that their brother may have indeed been
kidnapped, both sisters told this newspaper.
About
a month before Danny’s disappearance, Maxine Barter was
hanging out her washing on the clothesline in their yard when she
noticed a strange man parked in a car on the street in front of their
home on ThrushDrive.
There
were a lot of young girls who lived in the neighborhood at the time,
and Mrs.Barter was afraid it might be a possible attempt to kidnap one
of their two daughters or someone else’s.
“When mother
started walking toward him he put a newspaper up to hide
his face,” Wanda recalled. “As she got closer, he
drove away.”
Not
long afterward, a neighbor saw a “Peeping Tom”
standing looking into the window of the Barter boys’ bedroom
one evening.
The brothers,including
Danny, were sleeping on bunk beds in the room at the time.
“Our neighbor
had a German shepherd that ran around to the side of
outhouse,barking,” Wanda said. When the neighbor came to get
dog, seesaw the man and ran to tell Mrs. Barter.
By
the time they could get around the house, the unidentified intruder had
fled, but left several clearly defined footprints in the soil
underneath
the window.
The
Mobile Police Department supposedly made plaster casts and photos of
the
prints but Sun-Advocate calls to that department asking for information
on the old records were not returned.
Another incident,which
may have not gotten the attention it deserved at the time, was at the
Lillian store which Mrs. Barter and the two boys visited on the morning
of June 17, 1959.
Danny
and one of his brothers remained in the car while Mrs. Barter went
inside. A car driven by an unknown man pulled up beside the
Barter’svehicle, and the driver sat staring intently at the
two boys before driving away from the store. It made such an impression
on Danny’s older brother that he reported the incident to
hi smother when she came back to the station wagon.
“As
farads we know, the man didn’t bother them, just
looked at them,” Wanda said.
If
Baldwin or Mobile County officials still have any of the records,
members of the family say they would love to see those documents.
Several
months after Danny disappeared, Mrs. Barter wearied of people riding
by staring and pointing to their house.
“Everytime
she would go to the store, someone would bring it up,”Theresa
said. “She finally got tired of the whispers and
couldn’t take it anymore and told daddy she wanted a new
house, just to try and get away from some of that.”
Mr.
Barter was approved for a VA-backed loan and so they moved into a new
home on Mobile’s Dog River.
Some
time later,they moved back to a rental house in the Birdville
neighborhood.
“It
was real emotional struggle for both Mother and Daddy,”
Theresa recalled. “They had a hard time dealing
with Danny’s disappearance.”
In
1962, their grandmother, Rennie Jackson Thompson, invited them to come
and live in a home their uncle had built, so the family packed up and
moved to Choctaw County.
“Worked
at the shirt factory in Toxey and mother worked at Vanity Fairin
Butler,” Wanda said. “Daddy got cook’s
job on a boat out of Louisiana, so he was gone allot.”
Later,
one of their mother’s sisters, who lived in Corpus
Christie,Texas,became seriously ill and after a trip west to help care
for her,Maxine and family decided to move there in 1963.
“We
all stayed pretty close and we’ve been here
ever since,” Theresa said.
Family
members have not sat idly by through the years, but have worked in any
way they can to keep Danny’s story in the public eye.
They
have even contributed samples of their own DNA to a national database
for missing persons so that any evidence that turns up can be tested to
determine if it is in fact, Danny’s.
“Soar,
we have heard nothing, but that doesn’t mean
wedon’t have hope,” Wanda said. “There
is always hope.”
Danny
is listed on the website for the National Center for Missing and
ExploitedChildren, which has provided the family with an age-progressed
computer image of what he would look like today as a man in
his mid-50’s.
An
independent website featuring photos, scans of various newspaper
articles through the years, and other information has been set up
atwww.littleboylost-dannybarter.1colony.com.
Family
memberssay that somewhere out there today they believe Danny is
still alive,but simply does not know his true identity.
“If
has alive, Danny has a couple of distinguishing scars,”
Wanda said. Among those are:
n
Marks where befell and bit all the way through his tongue; and,
n
Scars on his fingers where he accidentally stuck his hand into a fan as
a baby.
Meantime,
both the family and Reuss say they intend to keep on searching,
asking questions, and keeping the faith that one day they will have
definitive answer to the nearly five-decades-old question of
what happened to Danny Barter.
“We
are planning to have a candlelight vigil for Danny in June, 2009 at
PerdidoBay, where Danny went missing,” Reuss said.
“Twill be the 50th anniversary and we hope the media
attention from thatwill get it national coverage.”
Maternal
unclesand aunts of the child in Choctaw County, Ala., would have
includedJ.B. and Dorothy Hatfield and C.L. and Zeola Thompson.
“It’sbeenso
long that it seems like most people just don’t
careanymore,” Wanda said. “We will never give
upcaring, or hoping, that one day Danny will be found alive or else
wewill find out what really happened to him.”
Persons
who haveany information that might be helpful in solving this case are
asked tocontact Baldwin Co. Sheriff Huey “Hoss”
Mackat251-937-0210; the Mobile District FBI office at 251-438-3674;
TheNational Center for Missing and Exploited Children
at800-843-5678(800-THE-LOST), www.ncmec.org; or Lynn
ReussatLhreuss1972@hotmail.com, or 334-759-0356: or info@dannybarter.com
Anewsarticle
was done about Daniel on December 24, 2006. It wasprinted in
the Mobile Press-Register.
Cold case remains warm
for missing boy's family
Sunday, December 24, 2006
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter
On a Wednesday morning in June 47 years ago, Daniel Barter, six
monthsshy of his 5th birthday, vanished along the banks of Perdido Bay.
In the days that followed, Danny, as he was known to his family,
becamethe subject of one of the most intense searches in Baldwin
County'shistory.
The manhunt included several hundred volunteers and emergencypersonnel,
the U.S. Navy, a trio of prize-winningbloodhounds,helicopters, skin
divers, mounted posses and even hunterswho stalked alligators and
sliced open their bellies searching forsigns of the3-foot-tall boy from
Mobile.
In the years since Danny disappeared from his family's
Lillian-areacampsite, relatives have waited fruitlessly for answers.
"My parents are both buried but I know where, I can visit thecemetery,"
said Theresa White of Victoria, Texas, who wasn't yet 2 atthe time of
her brother's disappearance. "With Danny, we just don'tknow."
Said Wanda McNelly of Fort Worth, Texas, who was 8 when her babybrother
went missing: "We don't care if it's bad or good news, we justwant to
know after all these years."
Neither McNelly nor White were on hand when the boy disappeared fromthe
easternmost area of Baldwin County on June 17, 1959. The oldersister
was staying with her grandmother, who lived about 100 milesnorth of
Lillian. The younger sister, not that she would haveremembered
anything, had been sent back to Mobile with relatives andanother young
brother, Michael, the day before.
At the bayside campsite, according to family members and
newsreports,were the boy's parents, Maxine and Paul Barter; three
brothers,Steve,Ronald and Bobby; an uncle and two cousins.
The Barter siblings' recollections of Danny's disappearance are hazy.
"I guess it's one of those type deals where you don't remember
thingsyou don't want to remember," Bobby Barter, 56, who now lives near
Corpus Christi, Texas, said in an interview.
Also, many of those involved in the search for Danny have died. But the
episode was well documented by the Press-Register. From those
reports,anarrative of the disappearance and subsequent manhunt
develops.
It was just about 9:45 a.m. and the Barters were preparing equipmentfor
a fishing trip when they realized Danny was gone. About 15 minuteshad
passed since his brothers had last seen him near the campsite'ssmall
beach. He had spent the night in his uncle's car with the otherchildren
and he was barefoot, still wearing the gray boxer shorts heslept in.
The search for Danny started at the beach, a few miles north of
the.S.98 bridge into Florida. Danny didn't like the water, and there
were nofootprints leading into the bay.
By the afternoon about 150 people were scouring the secluded and
swampyarea, looking for a brown-haired, brown-eyed boy. There were
statehighway patrol officers from both states, Baldwin County
sheriff'sdeputies, conservation officers, Foley firefighters, about 55
enlistedmen from Pensacola Naval Air Station and volunteers.
The search was called off at dark that day, but family members
werehopeful because Navy pilots had said that no body had surfaced on
thebay.
The next day participation in the manhunt grew to about
500,including270 enlisted men. The search focused on five square
milesaround the campsite. While mounted deputies from Escambia County,
Fla.,and Baldwin County combed higher, less-dense woods, bands of 25
menwalked shoulder-to-shoulder through Lillian Swamp searching sink
holesand thickets. On the bay, about a dozen boats dragged nets along
thebottom.
On the third day, a Gadsden veterinarian arrived with three
championbloodhounds to track Danny Barter's scent.
"These bloodhounds can pick up a scent, even in the water, up to
twoweeks old, and the only places they have trailed the child is where
hewas known to have been prior to the disappearance," the vet,
Dr.S.R.Munroe, told reporters after a day of unsuccessful searching.
With the weekend came doubts that the boy was alive. The massive
searchwound down and those who remained turned to more grim endeavors.
They tossed dynamite into pockets of deep water, hoping to jar
theboy'sbody loose if it were lodged below at depths invisible
todivers.Baldwin County Sheriff Taylor Wilkins Sr., who led the
search,orderedrescuers to track down large alligators.
Two gators -- one 5 feet long, the other 4 -- were caught and
guttedbutno remains were found. Still, there were reports of a
10-footer inthearea, and an attack by an alligator remained a viable
theory.
At home in Mobile, sedated by doctors, 34-year-old Maxine Barter
toldareporter in a Saturday interview that she was sure her
sonwaskidnapped: "I hope now that someone did take Danny because I
knowifanyone wanted him bad enough to kidnap him they would take good
careofhim."
The case remained open for years, but no leads ever
emerged.PaulBarter's employers, Morrison's Cafeteria, even hired
thePendletonDetectives Agency, but the family never received any
reportfrom theNew Orleans sleuths.
The FBI eventually got involved and the family, which had a
contactinWashington, even received a telegram from Director J.
EdgarHoover,pledging that the bureau would look into the matter, White
said.
Of all the cases Wilkins handled in his 28 years as
sheriff,thedisappearance of Danny Barter was one he could never
break.Wilkinsdied in 2002.
"It liked to have driven my daddy crazy," said Taylor "Red"
WilkinsJr.,a Bay Minette lawyer. "I don't believe it was a case, I
thinkanalligator got that baby."
Unlike Wilkins Jr. and others who have weighed in over the
years,theBarters have long dismissed the alligator theory and cling to
theideathat someone stole Danny Barter to keep him as their own.
"We've never thought anything else except that he's
alivesomewhere,"McNelly said.
After the disappearance, Maxine Barter told her daughters about
astringof incidents occurring before Danny disappeared that
involvedshadyfigures lurking around the Barters' Thrush Drive home in
Mobile.Once,the sisters said, a peeping Tom was nearly caught staring
intoDanny'sbedroom window.
At 4½, Danny Barter was at an age that makes it
toughtoprofile a possible abductor, said Charles Pickett, a
seniorcasemanager for the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children.
"If you have a parent that lost a child they want someone younger
soitcan truly be their own," said Pickett, who has been involved
intheDanny Barter case for 22 years. "With pedophilia,
you'reusuallylooking for someone older."
Pickett said the breadth of the search for Danny Barter, going so
farasto bomb the bay and eviscerate alligators, was unheard of in
thosedays,particularly in such a rural area. It's unfair to wonder
iftoday'stechnology would have discovered the boy, Pickett said,
butit's certainthat if a little boy vanished from a campsite
nowadays,the story wouldbe national news.
Even if it didn't draw national news cameras,
DannyBarter'sdisappearance was a big enough story in Mobile to linger
foryears. By1963, the Barters had decided to move to Texas, where they
allstillreside.
"Mother said she was just tired of people gawking and riding
pastthehouse," McNelly said. "We needed a new start."
Paul Barter, who had worked for Morrison's in Mobile as a
stockroommanager, started his own diner outside Fort Worth, Texas,
beforedyingof a heart attack in 1965. Raising the family by herself
from thenon,Maxine Barter died in 1995.
"We always hoped that before Mother passed away that we would
haveanending," Bobby Barter said. "But it never happened."
Every so often someone might call family members claiming to
havesomeinformation or a recollection or a theory, but, White
said,everythingalways turns out to be a dead end.
Occasionally, White said, she'll contact the FBI hoping to track
downafile, or she'll check in with Pickett or request
anupdatedage-progression photo of her long-lost brother.
And she and McNelly keep in touch with Lynn Reuss,
anOpelika-basedvolunteer for Porchlight International, which is a
sortofclearinghouse for data on unsolved missing and
unidentifiedpersonscases that date back as far as 1920.
White even sent the Center for Missing and Exploited Children someofher
DNA should bones that may be Danny's ever turn up.
"Whatever the deal is, we just want to know," White said. "He'samissing
piece of us."
The
imagebelowis the newest age-progressed photo provided by the NCMEC
Robertsdale,ALRotary
Club Meeting
August4,2008
Last month I went to a
meeting with the Robertsdale,ALRotary Club in Baldwin Co. This is what
my slideshow is about. I gottomeet Captain Arthur and Sheriff Mack of
Baldwin Co. I also got tomeetDanny's sisters, Theresa and Wanda. They
came all the way fromVictoriaand Fort Worth, TX to be there. It is
always such a pleasure toput aname to a face.
We are hoping to one day know what happened to Danny and we believeheis
alive somewhere out there, this is not impossible. We hope toonedayfind
him.
Lynn
PictureUpdated
DANIELBARTER
|
DOB:
Dec
12, 1954
Missing:
Jun
18, 1959
AgeNow:
54
Sex:
Male
Race:
White
Hair:
Brown
Eyes:
Brown
Height:
3'0"
(91 cm)
Weight:
50
lbs (23 kg)
MissingFrom:
PERDIDO
BAY
AL
United States
|
AgeProgressed
|
|
Daniel's
photo isshown age-progressed to 53 years. He was last seen playing near
thebanks of Perdido Bay, wearing only shorts. |
|
ANYONE
HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT
National
Center for Missing& Exploited Children
1-800-843-5678(1-800-THE-LOST)
Baldwin
County Sheriff's Office(Alabama) - Missing Persons Unit |
|