This is one of those radical stories that only come along “once in a blue moon” (a phrase I made up to describe a rare event – use it, don’t use it).

Some of you (none of you) will remember the famous kidnapping of toddler Steven Dammanin New York, 1955. The boy was snatched when his mother popped into a store to buy a loaf of bread on Halloween and the crime has remained unsolved. Until now…

Weeeeooooooowwwww (CSI noise, as Horatio removes his shades).

Check this out from NY Daily News:

Man who says he’s Steven Damman, kidnapped 54 years ago, speaks

KALKASKA, Mich. – A Michigan man said Wednesday he is “99% convinced” that he’s the Long Island toddler kidnapped in a long-unsolved 1955 crime.

“I’m not upset about anything, I’m glad,” John Barnes told the Daily News in his home. “Everything’s kind of fallen into place.”

 

John Barnes

 

Barnes told the News that he harbored suspicions about his past for as long as he can remember. His mother, as she was dying 10 years ago, suggested she was not his biological parent, Barnes said.

The clincher came in March, Barnes told the News, when preliminary DNA tests indicated he might be related to Pamela Horne. Her nearly-3-year-old brother was kidnapped on Long Island back in 1955.

 

Steven Damman
Kidnapped 54 years ago

 

“It was great to find out I had a sister. I didn’t know about,” said Barnes, wearing a red bathrobe in his modest single-story house.

“There’s just a bond there. You can tell.”

Barnes is the same age as the boy who disappeared from outside a grocery store during the Eisenhower administration – little Steven Damman.

The case remained one of New York’s most enduring and mysterious crimes. The boy was snatched when his mother ducked inside the store to buy a loaf of bread on Halloween; 7-month-old Pamela was inside the baby carriage next to Steven was he was last seen.

Barnes sports a snaking scar along the right side of his face, and a dime-sized mole behind his right calf – both distinguishing characteristics noted by police when the Long Island child disappeared.

Barnes said his mother’s suggestion about his family tree led him to start investigating his past. From his earliest recollections, Barnes said, he was different from the rest of his family.

“I knew I didn’t belong to him,” Barnes said about the man who raised him. “And I was just trying to figure it out.”

Barnes spent hours in the local library, five days a week, trying to trace his past.

“I want to know who my real parents are, and I want to know what happened back in 1955,” he told the News. “I want to know who was involved in the kidnapping, and what was their motivation.

“Just answers to the questions I’ve had my whole life.”

But he’s waiting for final confirmation from the FBI before staging a full-on family reunion. The tests will take 30 to 60 days to complete.

“I’m about 99% convinced,” he said. “But I want the FBI to tell me.”

[more here]

Well I certainly do hope the FBI pull finger because I’m writing this from the South of France without all the facts of the case in front of me and, JUST by looking at this article, I am TELLING you this is the guy.

God, it’s awesome.

What a vibe!

The best part of it all is he didn’t trust or dig his family for his whole life. What a great up yours at the very end.

“Oh, there you have it, you kidnapped me. Shot.”

I wonder how Maddie will look in 50 years time?