Hearing about a missing child case never fails to send a shiver down the spine of those who read it. It's a devastating thing to think about, let alone have happen to you, but what's even worse is when there's no resolution. No answer, no knowledge, just a child gone missing without a trace.
That's exactly what happened to a family in Hawaii. Their son went missing one night and never returned. Then, over 30 years later, everything changed.
Events that happen in our youth impact us for life, especially when those events are distressing or traumatic.
If you feel like you're still holding onto childhood trauma, you're not alone, and you can heal from it. This free, easy quiz will help you uncover the roots of your struggles and set you on a clear path to happiness.
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Steve Carter has always known he was adopted. His parents got him from an orphanage in Honolulu, Hawaii, when he was four years old, bringing him to his new home in New Jersey where they gave him a wonderful childhood.
But a good upbringing wasn't enough to quell his curiosity surrounding his early years. He had no memory of his birth parents and no idea of what his life was like before the orphanage, but now, in his adulthood, he was ready to find out.
It all began in 2011 when he heard a radio program telling the story of a woman who learned that she was technically a missing person. She was abducted as a child and had no idea until she saw an old missing kid's poster with her face on it.
This shocking tale pushed Carter to learn more about what happened to him in his youth and how he ended up in the orphanage in the first place. He decided to look into missing children's cases in Hawaii to see if anything lined up.
And he couldn't believe what he found. That sudden whim led him to MissingKids.com, where he found a photo of a baby and a digitally aged-up image of what that baby could look like today, using composites of their birth mother and father. Carter knew the aged-up photo was too similar to how he looked now to be a coincidence. He said that he knew it was him right away.
"I got chills," Carter told PEOPLE. “I was like, 'Holy crap, it's me.'”
He then contacted the police, both so he could claim himself as the missing child and so he could get to the bottom of what happened to him.
He learned that his birth name was Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes. His father, Mark Barnes, reported him missing in 1977 when his mother, Charlotte Moriarty, walked out with Carter in her arms, saying she was just heading to the store, then never returned.
Charlotte had reportedly ended up at a stranger's home, giving them fake names for both herself and her baby, but was then sent to a psychiatric hospital. She left a few days later against medical advice but didn't take her son with her, leaving him to be a ward of the state.
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At the time of this discovery, Carter's case was one of the longest missing person cases the country had ever seen, with over 30 years passing between when he was abducted and when he was confirmed to be 'found.'
He did get to meet his birth father, who couldn't believe the news when he heard it. "All I could say was, 'Wow. Oh, wow. Wow.'"
Carter also got to reunite with his half-sister, Jennifer Monnheimer, who was only 8 when he and their mother vanished. She was actually the one who convinced Hawaiian officials to open the case back up and have the composite image of him made. Without her, he would never have known about his past.
It must be a shocking feeling for everyone involved, but it's also bittersweet. They've spent so many years apart that they can never get back, but they now also have a future they can spend together. There are things to both mourn and celebrate.
Carter has opened up about his story so other families who are missing a child can have hope that not only are they safe but that they'll return to them someday. For now, he gets to enjoy meeting a whole new set of relatives, opening the door to even more love in his life.
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