Another dad's view of '55 tot mystery: It's 'a bunch of bull'

As the Michigan man who claims he may be the East Meadow boy who vanished from Long Island 54 years ago went public, his words and images sparked hopes while the man who raised him said his story is "bull."

John Robert Barnes, of Kalkaska, Mich., said he hoped DNA test results will prove him right, as relatives of Steven Damman, the lost boy, clung to hopes the mystery of what happened to the toddler could finally be solved.

- Click here to see photos of Steven Damman and his family from our archives

But Richard Barnes said he is John Barnes' father, and it remains a mystery to him why his son doubts his identity.

"It's a bunch of bull," Barnes said at his Kalkaska home. "I've been his dad all his life. Twenty years ago, he decided that he didn't look like his sister and brother. He thought he was switched and I thought he was through with it."

A family photo

He showed Newsday a picture he said captured John Barnes being cradled by his older brother, Rick, when John was about a year old.

The elder Barnes' sharp retort - he called it all "foolishness" - came as relatives of the missing Steven Damman got excited about the prospect the case has been cracked.

In his first public statements, John Barnes told The Associated Press that "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."

At issue is whether Barnes is actually Steven Damman, the 2-year-old East Meadow boy who disappeared on Halloween 1955. Damman's would-be relatives held out hope Wednesday that Barnes' hunch is right.

"I don't know if I'm related to the Dammans or the Barneses," John Barnes said. "I'm just waiting for the DNA results."

Law enforcement sources said a private test on genetic material from Barnes and Steven Damman's sister, now named Pamela Sue Horne, of Kansas City, Mo., has suggested the two could be related.

But Richard Barnes, who said he raised John Barnes in Michigan, denied vehemently that he had kidnapped the boy.

"We brought him home two days later," said Richard Barnes, referring to Aug. 18, 1955, when he said his son was born in a Navy hospital in Pensacola, Fla. "And he's never been out of our sight."

Both men's comments added to the intrigue of a 54-year-old case that fascinated Long Islanders from the moment news broke that the tot had vanished after being left with his 7-month-old sister, Pamela Sue, outside the Food Fair market in East Meadow for just a moment.

The boy was never found but the children's mother, Marilyn Damman, did find Pamela in a stroller. What authorities called the most massive search in the history of Nassau County turned up nothing, and the case faded from public view.

But it was preserved in painful memories and the Dammans' collections of sepia-toned photographs and news clippings.

'Always felt different'

In an interview reported on the online version of the Detroit Free Press, John Barnes said he always felt different from his older brother and younger sister. Barnes said he is 6 feet tall, but his two siblings are much shorter. They have brown hair and brown eyes, he told the Free Press, but he has green eyes and light skin.

John Barnes told the Free Press that as a child growing up, he never saw any baby pictures of himself. "When you get older, you start to realize things like that," he said in the interview.

Wednesday, Pamela Horne's son and father said they have reason to believe Barnes is their long-lost blood.

"It's overwhelming, of course, after all these years," said Jerry Damman, who spoke at his home in Newton, Iowa, to which he relocated after his son vanished. Damman and his wife, Marilyn, divorced later, and he said he is not in touch with her.

He said he has spoken with his daughter, Pamela, who is "hopeful" about Barnes' suspicions. Horne declined to comment.

But Matthew Greer, Pamela's son, told Newsday from his home in Kansas City that he recalls being 6 or 7 years old when his grandmother, Marilyn Damman, sifted through boxes of photos and held a picture of Steven Damman.

"This is your uncle," she said. "This is Steven. He was kidnapped and we never found him." Greer hopes the case can be solved once the FBI releases the results of the DNA test, thinking the revelation can soothe a wound that developed in the family over the case.

"I'm hoping that, if it is him, it will bring us closer together as a family," he said. "And we can all start to heal."