Robert Leon Desmond, known as Bobby, was 10 years old when he vanished from Kennebunk, Maine. The last confirmed sighting was August 1, 1964, from the Hovey Street home where he lived with his mother Alice and stepfather Chet. His disappearance went unreported for about a month; his absence came to light when he failed to show for the new school year and his parents told family he had run away.

Family recollections describe a chaotic household and episodes of violence by the stepfather. Dawn, a younger sister, says that on the night Bobby disappeared she awoke to find him motionless on a bedroom floor in his underwear and recalls being locked in the basement by her mother. The parents later moved from the house; the basement was cemented over in 1968. An excavation in 1976 recovered eyeglasses and animal bones but no remains. The case file was reportedly closed and later reopened, and it is listed as the oldest unsolved missing person case in the Maine State Police files.

Many details about what happened to Bobby remain unknown. Did anyone in Kennebunk in 1964 notice unusual activity around the Hovey Street house that summer?