A Philadelphia man who was adopted as a child found himself on a missing person’s website and ended up solving his own case.
Steven Carter, a 35-year-old software salesman, was adopted from a foster home in Honolulu, Hawaii, when he was 4 years old.
In 2010, Carter browsed a missing children’s website, MissingKids.com, for cases of children reported missing in Hawaii. He found an age-progression image that looked very similar to himself, created from a photograph of a baby named Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes.
Carter’s adoptive mother, Victoria Carter, told ABC News he sent them the photograph right away.
“He called some friends and he called us and wanted everyone to look at this website,” Victoria Carter said. “We all looked at it, and the timing was right. The birth date was one day different from his birthday. He looked very much like the baby from the few pictures we had of him when he was small. They recommended on the site that he call the police department in Honolulu, which he did.
“We provided the police with as much information as we had,” she said. “Three months later they did a DNA test on him.”
Eight months later, it was confirmed that Steven Carter was Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes.
Carter then attempted to find his biological parents, and found out what had happened.
His biological mother, Charlotte Moriarty, had a tendency to disappear with her infant son, Victoria Carter told ABC News. Carter’s biological father, Mark Barnes, would report her missing, and she would usually return within a few weeks. But one day, she took off with the baby and never returned.
“She was found in a house where she didn’t belong, we were told, and someone called the police and they found her with the baby,” Victoria Carter said. “The baby was put in foster care and she was taken to a mental health facility. At that point, she told them her name was Jane Amey, and that the baby’s name was Tenzin Amey. She gave a birth date that was one day off.”
Baby Steven stayed in foster care for three years while police searched for his father. But because they had been given the wrong name, they did not find him. After three years in foster care, Steven was put up for adoption.
“The mother has never resurfaced. The father lives in California, and Steven has talked to his father and his half sister, whose name is Jenny. He has two other half sisters who live with his father’s ex-wife,” said Victoria Carter.
