He Found His Own Face on a Missing Children’s Website: The Extraordinary Story of Steve Carter, the Man Who Solved His Own Disappearance After 34 Years

He Found His Own Face on a Missing Children’s Website: The Extraordinary Story of Steve Carter, the Man Who Solved His Own Disappearance After 34 Years

Imagine growing up knowing you were adopted. You have loving parents, a stable life, and almost no memory of anything before the age of four. Then one ordinary day, while searching online for answers about your past, you click on a missing children’s database… and stare at an age-progressed photo that looks exactly like you. That is precisely what happened to Steve Carter. Born Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes, he unknowingly closed one of Hawaii’s longest-running missing-child cases. In a rare twist of fate, the “missing child” himself solved the mystery that had baffled investigators for more than three decades. A Happy Childhood with Lingering Questions Steve Carter was raised in New Jersey by Steve and Pat Carter, a couple who adopted him in 1980 when he was four years old. At the time, the family was living in Hawaii, where Steve senior, a U.S. Army officer, was stationed. During a visit to an orphanage in Honolulu, they met a bright-eyed little boy registered under the name Tenzin Amea. …