In June 1959, 4-year-old Danny Barter disappeared from Perdido Bay, Alabama while on a camping trip with his family. He has never been seen again.

Find a Grave, uploaded by user Dan

About the Barter Family

Paul Barter was raised in the Mobile, Alabama area and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He met Maxine Thompson at a local restaurant where she worked as a waitress. The two married and eventually had seven children – 5 boys and 2 girls. Maxine became a homemaker after she had the children.

Daniel “Danny” Barter was born on December 12, 1954 to Paul and Maxine Barter, the third youngest of the Barter children.

In 1959, Paul was a stockroom manager for Morrison’s Cafeteria in Mobile, and the Barters lived in a home on Thrush Drive in Mobile.

The Camping Trip

On June 16, 1959, Paul and Maxine and four of the Barter children – Steve, 11, Ronald, 10, Bobby, 8, and Danny, 4 – along with Paul’s brother, Jim Barter and his 11-year-old son Runeau, loaded up their station wagon and drove to Perdido Bay, AL for a camping trip at the beach. The Barter’s other children, Theresa and Michael, 3 1/2, stayed in Mobile with Jim’s wife, Vera Barter. Their other daughter, Wanda, then almost 13, was spending summer vacation with Maxine’s mother, Rennie Thompson in Toxey, Alabama.

That night, Paul and Jim slept in the tent and Maxine and the children 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,” said Danny’s sister, Wanda in 2008. “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.”

The area Wanda was referring to is along Boykin Boulevard in Lillian, Alabama, only an hour’s drive from their home in Mobile. Jim Barter owned the land they were camping on.

Where is Danny Barter?

On the morning of June 17, 1959, Maxine, Danny and one of his brothers, drove to a store in Lillian to buy soft drinks, food for breakfast, and a few snacks. (Early reports say it was Danny’s father who went to the store, but this is incorrect).

When they returned to the campsite, Maxine fixed breakfast and Paul played with the children. Afterward, Danny grabbed a bottle of Nehi soda to drink. Paul and Maxine promised to take him fishing later in the shallow Perdido Bay waters.

Between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m.,Maxine was untangling fishing lines on the fishing poles and putting hooks on. Danny was standing next to her during this time. A short while later, she looked up and Danny was gone.

She searched for Danny for about 10 minutes. When she could not find him, Maxine ran to a nearby house and called police.

Search and Investigation

Police, hundreds of volunteers, and sailors from Naval Air Station Pensacola and other bases along the Alabama and Florida coast searched for missing Danny Barter day and night.

Alligators were gutted to check for human remains, but nothing turned up.

Dr. S.R. Monroe, a veterinarian from Gadsden, Alabama, saw the newspaper articles on Danny’s disappearance. He owned champion bloodhounds at the time. Monroe called Baldwin County Sheriff Taylor Wilkins and offered to use his dogs to help search for Danny. Wilkins eagerly accepted.

Monroe rushed to Perdido Bay and he and his dogs spent several days searching the area for Danny Barter. The dogs kept going back to the pavement. Monroe concluded “the child did not leave the scene walking.” He also said that if Danny had been attacked and eaten by an alligator, his dogs would have led him to the scene of the attack, and they didn’t. Wilkins agreed it was unlikely that an alligator killed Danny.

Danny was afraid of the water, so his family did not believe he went in it on his own.

Maxine told law enforcement officials that she believed someone kidnapped her son, but they didn’t listen to her. According to Danny’s sister, Wanda, “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.”

However, Wilkins soon believed the kidnapping theory. Before the boy disappeared, he was holding his Nehi soft drink. No trace of that bottle was ever found, despite the massive search for Danny. This also led police to discount the alligator theory.

Danny Barter was never found.

Maxine Barter believed that if someone had kidnapped her son, he or she would take good care of him because he was such a sweet and beautiful boy.

Bizarre Incidents Prior to Danny’s Disappearance

There were a few bizarre incidents that occurred prior to Danny Barter’s disappearance, which further pointed to an abduction.

About a month before Danny vanished, Maxine was hanging clothes to dry on the clothes line in their backyard when she saw a strange man parked in a car on Thrush Drive in front of their home.

Maxine felt uneasy about the man because there were many young girls who lived in the neighborhood. So, she started walking towards the mystery man, but he put a newspaper up to cover his face. As she got closer to the man’s car, he drove away.

One evening, a neighbor’s German Shepherd took off barking and ran around to the side of the Barter’s outhouse. When the dog’s owner went after the dog, she saw a man peering into the Barter boys’ bedroom window. The boys, including Danny, were asleep on bunk beds at the time.

The woman ran to get Maxine, but the man fled. There were several clearly defined footprints in the soil beneath the window. Mobile Police Department made casts of the prints, but it is unclear what happened with them.

Another incident took place when Maxine, Dannie, and one of his brothers went to the Lillian grocery store on the morning of June 17th. Danny and his brother stayed in the car while Maxine went inside. An unknown man pulled up alongside the Barter station wagon and stared intently at the boys before driving off.

Danny’s brother felt really uncomfortable and told Maxine about it. She didn’t give it much thought until after Danny disappeared.

The Barters Relocate

Maxine had a hard time living in the Thrush Drive home without Danny. Every time she went to the grocery store, someone would mention Danny’s disappearance, and she couldn’t handle it.

Paul Barter was approved for a Veterans Affairs (VA) loan, so the family bought a house on Mobile’s Dog River. But they still struggled with Danny’s disappearance and in 1962, relocated to Choctaw County, about 115 miles north of Mobile, and moved into a home owned by Maxine’s brother.

Paul got a job as a cook on a boat out of Louisiana and was gone a lot.

In 1963, one of Maxine’s sister, who resided in Corpus Christi, Texas, became seriously ill. After taking a trip to visit her, the Barter family decided to relocate to Texas.

Paul Barter died from a heart attack in 1965 at the age of 46.

Decades Later

Danny Barter’s case went cold for decades. Police had zero evidence of his fate.

In 2008, the FBI reopened Danny’s case after hearing about a conversation. Investigators received a tip that a person was sitting in a public place talking about what happened to Danny.

Family members submitted DNA samples to a national missing persons database, in case any evidence turned up that could be tested to determine if it belonged to Danny.

After Danny

Maxine Barter passed away in 1995. Unbeknownst to Maxine at the time of Danny’s disappearance, she was one month pregnant with her eighth child, a boy later named Anthony. He was born in February 1960 and passed away from Hodgkin’s Disease in 1997. Danny’s brother, Robert Barter passed away in 2010. His surviving siblings still live in Texas and hope their brother’s fate will one day be known.

Danny’s smiling face is still seen on the FBI’s website.

True Crime Diva’s Thoughts

I think the bizarre incidents involving a strange man before Danny Barter’s disappearance are highly significant in this case. It sounds like it almost has to be the same man, and the person who took Danny.

This man may have spotted him somewhere in Mobile, and followed the Barter family back to their home.

I believe someone kidnapped Danny and lured him into a vehicle. Most likely, the weird man staring at the boys at the store is the one who took him. After he drove away from the store, maybe he parked nearby where he could see the Barters leave, and then followed behind. I think this man is also the “Peeping Tom” and the one parked on the street in front of the Barter home.

Nobody heard screams when Danny disappeared because he may have voluntarily got into his abductor’s car. It would have been far easier to lure a kid into a car in 1959 than today. Kids nowadays are taught “stranger danger”. What I don’t understand is how he could have wandered away without anyone noticing. He had been standing next to his mother right before he vanished.

Where were the other Barter family members when Danny vanished? If he got into a car, you’d think someone would have heard a car door shut or the sound of a car. How did the kidnapper get in and out of that area without anyone seeing him?

I wonder if police interviewed other campers who may have been camping near the Barters. Did they see or hear anything unusual?

Could someone have taken Danny to raise as their own? Absolutely. I’d like to think that is exactly what happened, but we know how evil this world has always been.

Sources

Campbell, Tommy. Title Unknown. Choctaw Sun Advocate. June 11, 2008. Retrieved from http://littleboylost-dannybarter.1colony.com/ .

Dezember, Ryan. “After 50 Years, Family Not Giving Up Hope”. Pensacola News Journal. June 23, 2009.

Falcon, Gabriel. “FBI Reopens 1959 Case of Missing 4-Year-Old”. CNN. June 23, 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/22/alabama.barter.mystery/index.html

Harwell, Hoyt. “Missing Mobil Lad Believed Kidnap Victim”. The Birmingham News. June 21, 1959.

“Search Continues for Barter Child”. The Troy Messenger. June 19, 1959.

“Young Boy Missing in Perdido Swamps”. Pensacola News Journal. June 18, 1959.

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