NEW YORK ( CNN ) -- Before Adam Walsh , Etan Patz and Madeleine McCann , before the first Amber Alert , before a young face stared back from the side of a milk carton , there was Danny . Danny Barter was 4 when he vanished in 1959 while on a family camping trip . Danny Barter vanished in 1959 . He was on a family camping trip to Alabama 's Perdido Bay . He was playing with his dad one minute , gone the next . `` Just like that , '' recalled his brother Mike Barter . Danny was 4 years old . Last weekend , his loved ones returned to the campsite and to the scene of the presumed stranger abduction . They came to remember Danny and to rededicate a half-century mission to find him . Even with the passage of time , their faith has not wavered . `` We 've never doubted that he 's ... out there , '' Mike Barter said . `` Until they prove otherwise , we hope one day we will be reunited . '' Their hope has been bolstered by investigators with the FBI and the Baldwin County Sheriff 's Office , which reopened the case last year after hearing of a recent conversation . `` A lead was sparked when someone was sitting in a public area talking about what happened , '' FBI spokeswoman Joyce Riggs wrote in an e-mail to the media . As cold case cops know , a wisp of a lead can turn into a big break , a fact FBI Special Agent Angela Tobon believes can solve the Daniel Barter mystery . `` Even if [ people ] think it 's insignificant , it 's probably not , '' Tobon said . `` Each little piece of the puzzle may not mean something , but when you put it all together , you get the big picture . '' Danny was the third youngest of Paul and Maxine Barter 's seven children . He had brown hair and big brown eyes . `` He 's such a very pretty and sweet child , '' his mom told the Mobile Register in an article published June 21 , 1959 . `` I can understand why someone would want to take him , because he 's such a pretty child . '' Three days earlier , Danny , his parents and his siblings were enjoying a family outing near the Gulf shore . Danny and his dad had just returned from getting some drinks at a store . Tents were pitched . Fishing poles were prepared . And then someone noticed that Danny was gone . `` I had first believed that despite Danny 's fear of water , he had wandered into the water and drowned , '' Maxine Barter told the Mobile Register . `` But not now . I believe he probably walked up the road , and someone picked him up . '' The search was extensive and immediate . Hundreds combed the land and the waters , looking for Danny . Bloodhounds were given his scent and dispatched to follow it . Alligators were killed and cut open . But there was no trace of Danny , then or now . For his parents and the police , the sickening conclusion was quickly reached : He was stolen by a human predator . Danny 's mom could not fathom that the kidnapper would bring harm to her boy . `` I hope now that someone did take Danny , because I know if anyone wanted him bad enough to kidnap him , they would take good care of him , '' she said . Fifty years later , the family longs for closure . Paul and Maxine Barter are both deceased , but their children carry on the decades-long pursuit to know the truth . On dannybarter.com , a Web site dedicated to finding answers , the family posted this plea to the public : . `` We strongly believe that someone out there knows what happened to Danny and possibly knows him as another identity . We hope to find him safe and sound . '' The FBI is also seeking information on Danny Barter . It has published two photographs of him on its Web site . One shows the smiling child , taken in the months before Danny was abducted . The other picture is age-progressed , depicting what Danny would look like today at 54 . If you have any information on the Danny Barter case , go to dannybarter.com or contact the FBI , your local police or the Baldwin County Sheriff 's Office in Alabama .
FBI says it has a new lead in a 50-year-old cold case . The man was found dead on the side of an Arizona highway in 1979 after he had been missing for more than two years. Boy went missing during a family camping trip in Perdido Bay , Alabama . FBI says someone was overheard talking about the boy 's abduction .