FBI: Test Confirms Michigan Man Not Long-Missing New York Boy

June 20, 2009

foxsnew.com

DETROIT — DNA testing disproved a Michigan man's suspicions that he was a toddler kidnapped on New York's Long Island in 1955, the FBI said Thursday, closing a chapter in a bizarre mystery that started after he began researching his roots on the Internet.

The FBI said in a statement that a test showed John Barnes, an unemployed man in his 50s who lives in a trailer in northwest Michigan, is not Stephen Damman, who disappeared at age 2 from outside an East Meadow market while his mother shopped.

The sample showed Barnes could not have the same mother as Pamela Damman Horne, the sister of the toddler who was with him when he disappeared, the FBI said. She was found in her stroller, unharmed, around the corner from the market.

The case had raised the hopes of the toddler's father, Jerry Damman, who runs a 440-acre farm in Iowa, and stunned the community where the Halloween kidnapping occurred. Damman, now 78, had said he hoped for a resolution after five decades of silence. "It's too bad we had to go through all of this for actually nothing in the end," he told The Associated Press.

Barnes has said he has long suspected the couple who raised him are not his biological parents, and the FBI took his DNA sample after he connected with Horne and took a trip to Iowa to try and catch a glimpse of the man he believed to be his father. He said he began investigating his origins years ago because he believed he never fit in...

Barnes did bear a striking resemblance to a photo of the missing toddler... But his father, Richard Barnes, immediately dismissed the speculation as "a bunch of foolishness," and said John Barnes was born in a Navy hospital in Pensacola, Fla., on Aug. 18, 1955.

Cheryl Barnes, John Barnes' sister, said she was not surprised by the test results. Mending fences, she said, won't be easy. "He pretty much lost two families today," she said.

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John Barnes/Stephen Damman: Man bears striking resemblance to missing NY boy

June 17, 2009

By JOHN FLESHER, Associated Press

news.yahoo.com



KALKASKA, Mich. – The same chubby cheeks. The same round face and bright, blue eyes. And, most important, the faint scar on his chin.



John Barnes does indeed bear a striking resemblance to photos of a 2-year-old boy who was snatched from outside a bakery on New York's Long Island in 1955. And he hopes DNA tests will confirm the suspicions he's harbored virtually his entire life — that the couple who raised him were not his biological parents.



"I'm really glad that I'm finally finding all of this out, finding out who I'm related to. Because I didn't want to get old and die and not know," Barnes, a laborer who is now in his 50s, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.



Barnes said he never really bonded with the mother and father who raised him. They didn't look like him, and they just didn't seem like family. "They would say, 'Oh, you look like your grandpa so-and-so or your uncle so-and-so.' But they never had any pictures to show me to compare it with. ... I just had a hunch that something was fishy," Barnes said.



"I never asked them if they kidnapped me. I asked them why I was so different from them," Barnes said of his parents. Asked about a possible abduction, the man who raised Barnes called the idea "a bunch of foolishness." "I'm his dad," Richard Barnes said. He shook his head and replied, "no, no," when asked by a reporter if he had kidnapped John Barnes.



John Barnes said the woman who raised him hinted before her death about a decade ago that she was not his biological mother. "She requested that I come over there by myself, and she wanted to talk to me. I think that's what she was trying to tell me," he said.



Years earlier, Barnes had started his own investigation...



..."This story's really strange. I can't believe it myself sometimes." Barnes said he was born in 1955 — the same year a 2-year-old Stephen Damman disappeared — but only saw his birth certificate once and no longer has a copy. He said the FBI is looking into the discrepancy as part of its investigation. I wonder if he requested a birth certificate from the state of Florida and it came back 'not found'?



Richard Barnes is retired and lives in a rural subdivision just eight miles from his son, although the two have not talked in about a year. Richard Barnes said his son was born in a Navy hospital in Pensacola, Fla., on Aug. 18, 1955. "We brought him home two days later, and he's never been out of our sight," the elder Barnes said, referring to John's childhood.



During his research on the kidnapping, the younger Barnes said he drove to Newton, Iowa, where Jerry Damman, the father of the missing boy, lives. But they did not meet. "I didn't want to, you know, say, 'Well, I'm your long-lost son,'" Barnes said. "I just wanted to get a look at the guy."



Physically, Barnes resembles somewhat the Iowa farmer he believes could be his biological father, though they are far from identical. Both men have fair skin with a ruddy complexion. Both have blue eyes and wide, round faces. Reached Wednesday in Iowa, Damman told the AP "it's almost too good to believe" that Barnes could be his son.



Barnes said he has become close with the woman who could be his sister, Pamela Horne of Kansas City, and talks with her on the phone each day. They did a home DNA test in March.

"We got a really high score on it," indicating that they two could be related. "That's how the FBI got involved," he said.



See photo's here: news.yahoo.com

John Robert Barnes/Stephen Damman Photos tipped man he could be the kid snatched in '55

Right: John Robert Barnes,
aka Stephen Damman?

Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Associated Press
wfaa.com

KALKASKA, Mich. -- A Michigan man said Wednesday that pictures he found online led him to believe he could be the 2-year-old boy who vanished more than a half-century ago from a stroller outside a bakery on New York's Long Island.

John Robert Barnes told The Associated Press that he was doing online research within the past year to try to figure out who he really was, saying that from childhood he never felt as though he fit in with the family that raised him.

Barnes, who is in his 50s, saw pictures of the missing boy's mother when she was a young adult, thought the woman resembled himself at the same age and started to believe he might be Stephen Damman, who disappeared in 1955.

"I don't know if I'm related to the Dammans or the Barneses. I'm just waiting for the DNA results," Barnes said during an interview at his trailer home, located on a dirt road in Kalkaska, about 195 miles northwest of Detroit.

Police in New York's Nassau County have said a Michigan resident contacted their office in the past few months, saying he believes he is the missing toddler. The case was referred to the FBI. Barnes said the FBI took a sample of his DNA via a cheek swab in March and he's now "waiting for the FBI to tell me who I'm related to."

Stephen Damman's mother, Marilyn, left the boy and 7-month-old daughter, Pamela, waiting outside a bakery while she went inside to shop on Oct. 31, 1955, according to police and news accounts at the time. After 10 minutes, Marilyn came out of the bakery but could not find the stroller or her children, authorities said. The stroller, with only her daughter inside, was found around the corner from the market a short time later, authorities said.

The description of the child that vanished said the boy had blond hair, blue eyes and a fair complexion. It also said the boy walked with his toes turned out, and that he had a small scar underneath his chin. Barnes has a faint line, less than an inch, that runs below his chin and slightly up the right side of his face.

Investigators learned that the Michigan man who approached New York authorities also reached out to the woman he believes may be his sister, said Nassau County Police Lt. Kevin Smith, and the two conducted a private DNA test that found they could be related. Barnes said he did reach out to a sister in Kansas City, Mo., and that the two have become close...

The father of the woman and the missing boy, Jerry Damman of Newton, Iowa, has said he's hopeful the man is his son. Damann divorced the boy's mother a few years after the kidnapping and now lives on a farm with his wife, Charlotte. "After all those years, you kind of lost all hope," he said Tuesday.

Charlotte Damman's mother said Wednesday that her husband still has not talked with Barnes but that their son spoke with him Tuesday. "We'll just have to iron this out here as we go," she said.

wow. What a story. I hope this can bring John and his families some peace.