Feature Photograph: Ronn Hague, a film and video instructor from Poplarville Mississippi Community College, and documentary director, with producer and narrator Sherri Marengo make sure all is correct before the filming begins. (Photograph by Bobby Ardoin.)
BOBBY ARDOIN
Editor/Consulting Writer
The mysterious and perplexing aspects of the Bobby Dunbar story with roots embedded firmly in Opelousas might be nearly 113 years old, yet it continues to be an intriguing detective case that has drawn the attention of a documentary film crew.
Videographers and interviewers from the south Mississippi area where investigators eventually discovered a boy suspected of being kidnap victim Bobby Dunbar, are compiling information for another investigatory story on the disappearance case that once riveted St. Landry Parish and drew national attention.
National newspapers like the Los Angeles Times carried stories about the alleged abduction of a four-year-old boy from a swampy St. Landry Parish area in 1912, including information of a subsequent trial that potentially involved a hanging sentence for the man accused in the kidnapping.
Ronn Hague, a film and video instructor from Poplarville Mississippi Community College and producer and narrator Sherri Marengo traveled to Opelousas last weekend to interview St. Landry Now publisher Carola Ann Hartley about aspects of the Dunbar case, whose narrative seemingly never appears to completely dissipate.
Marengo interviewed Hartley at length while the cameras rolled last Saturday at the Hartley residence on Market Street along with technical help from assistant director Adrienne Evans and Aimiyah Henry, a sound technician and camera operator.
Hartley, who has performed extensive research on the Dunbar case and possesses numerous photos she has collected over the years of the child thought to be Bobby Dunbar, is considered, Marengo said, to be perhaps the most knowledgeable source in this area of the state for information on the Dunbar story.
Hague said that his film and video production classes remain fascinated and incredulous about the Dunbar case and the trial of William Cantwell Walters, the man accused of kidnapping the boy.
“Right now we are working on a production and documentary on the Bobby Dunbar case and developing a script about what happened around Opelousas in 1912. (Marengo) has become interested after reading a book written in 2004 and thought we needed to do something,” said Hague.
There’s a possibility Hague said the documentary filmed in St. Landry and Mississippi, might be sold and edited further by a company that would air a script for television.
Hartley was interviewed in order to extract the essence of the story and how the elements of the Dunbar narrative coalesce with early 20th century parish history, said Marengo.
Her parents, Hartley said, were familiar with the Dunbar family, who claimed perhaps wrongly that Bobby Dunbar was their child who went missing during an outing along Swayze Lake.
Although Walters avoided the death sentence after his case was reviewed by the Louisiana Supreme Court, the boy taken from Walters in Mississippi was awarded to the Dunbar family and lived in Opelousas until his death in 1966.
“Bobby Dunbar grew up in Opelousas and later had a family of his own. He was quite successful in business. All we know for sure is there was a kidnapping. Louisiana at that time didn’t even have a law against kidnapping, so the man wanted for the crime was actually treated as a horse thief,” Hartley told Marengo during the interview.
Hartley recounted that during the William Cantwell Walters trial, a woman named Julia Anderson testified that the young boy considered to be Bobby Dunbar, was really her child.
“The Dunbar family wasn’t too excited about that and it turned out that it continued to be a he said, we said story. It’s a very complicated story with so many twists and turns. In 1914 there was a movie made afterward about the trial, which involved two of the most prominent lawyers in Opelousas during that time,” Hartley added.
Hague said the documentary will strive to set the record straight on many of the baffling aspects of the Dunbar case in addition to how the episode relates to Mississippi.
