Bobby Dunbar was an American boy whose disappearance at the age of four and apparent return was widely reported in newspapers across the United States in 1912 and 1913. After an eight-month nationwide search, investigators believed that they had found the child in Mississippi, in the hands of William Cantwell Walters of North Carolina. Dunbar's parents claimed the boy as their missing son. However, both Walters and a woman named Julia Anderson insisted that the boy with him was Anderson's son. The court system eventually sided with the Dunbars as Julia Anderson could not afford a lawyer and they retained custody of the boy, who proceeded to live out the remainder of his life as Bobby Dunbar.