A Philadelphia man brought an end to a missing child case – previously unsolved for 34 years – after browsing the Internet and finding that the person who disappeared was himself.
Steven Carter, 35, was searching MissingKids.com in 2010 when he stumbled upon an age-progression image of Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes that looked like him, ABC News reports.
“You look at the picture and it’s almost so similar you don’t know what to do,” Carter, a software salesman, told Fox News.
Steven then contacted his adoptive mother, Victoria, and sent her the baby image of Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes on the website.
Victoria Carter told ABC News that Barnes looked similar to photos they took of Steven when he was a baby. Victoria Carter claimed she adopted Steven at the age of 4 from a orphanage in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Steven was confirmed to be the baby in the photo after he provided police with information and completed a DNA match.
But Steven still faced a mystery in retracing his disappearance.
“I knew I was adopted; the only question was: How did I end up in the orphanage?” he told Fox News.
According to Victoria, Steven was placed in an orphanage because his biological mother, Charlotte Moriarty -- whose whereabouts are currently unknown -- had a tendency to disappear with 1-year-old baby Steven for weeks at a time. Cops eventually found the mom and took Steven away, but she provided authorities with a false name and birth information for him, making the police unable to track down his father, ABC News reports.
After solving the case, Steven was able to reach his biological father, Mark Barnes, who lives in California, and his half-sister Jenny.
“They’ve been amazing. Very supportive,” Steven told Fox News of the reconnection. “It’s really a slow-moving process for all parties. Nobody really knows what to do next and it's more of a build as we go.”
The hottest stories ripped from the headlines, from crime to courts, legal and scandal.
