Man finds himself on missing children’s website and uncovers haunting past
After having an 'amazing childhood' a man grew curious about why he was left at an orphanage and what he discovered changed his life forever
We all get curious about who we are and what we were like as children, but for some people finding the answers to these questions can be very difficult.
Steve Carter was adopted from an orphanage in Honolulu, Hawaii, when he was four years old, so essentially knew nothing of his life before then or who his parents were.
Thankfully, Carter still had a great childhood, but eventually grew curious about where he really came from.
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Speaking on the What It Was Like podcast, the salesman said: "I had an amazing childhood.
"I was adopted and raised by two individuals who are just phenomenal... They'll always be my parents."
However he didn’t know who left him at the orphanage, or why. These really are the questions that can keep you up at night.
But after hearing of a missing person story on the radio about a woman who discovered she was abducted as a child by finding her missing kids' poster in 2011, Carter got curious about his past.
Searching for details about missing children in Hawaii, he eventually found an image of himself as a baby alongside a digitally aged up image of what he could look like now, using images of his mother and father, on MissingKids.com.
Carter said that he immediately knew that it was him.
He then took steps to get to the bottom of this mystery and contacted the police. Carter completed a DNA test and after months of waiting, the police were able to confirm that it was him.
He learned his birth name was Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes, and that his father, Mark Barnes, had reported him missing after his mother, Charlotte Moriarty, went for a walk with him in June 1977, and never returned.
Charlotte had reportedly gone to a stranger’s home and given a fake name of herself and baby Barnes/Carter, before she went to a psychiatric hospital. Baby Barnes/Carter was then put in protective care.
This ultimately hampered the search efforts for the child and resulted in him being adopted by Steve and Pat Carter, who raised their son in New Jersey three years later.
Carter did eventually reconnect with some of his family, including a half-sister and his father, much to their surprise.
Speaking about their first phone call with his biological son, Max Barnes told People in 2012: "All I could say was, 'Wow. Oh, wow. Wow'.
"I always expected a knock at the door or a phone call."
Gerrard Kaonga