Man not kidnapped 1955 child

DNA testing disproved a Michigan man’s suspicions that he was a toddler kidnapped on New York’s Long Island in 1955, the FBI said yesterday, closing a chapter in a bizarre mystery that started after he began researching his roots on the Internet.

The FBI said in a statement that a test showed John Barnes, an unemployed man in his 50s who lives in a trailer in north-west Michigan, is not Stephen Damman, who disappeared at age 2 from outside an East Meadow market while his mother shopped.

The case had raised the hopes of the toddler’s father, Jerry Damman, who runs a 440-acre farm in Iowa.