Sometimes when a child is adopted, eventually they go looking for their birth parents. That is exactly what happened to a man from Philadelphia named Steve Carter. Steve was adopted as a child and raised by a loving family in an upper class neighborhood in New Jersey. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his parents, but he had always wanted to know how he ended up where he was.

One day Steve was looking on the internet when he read a story about Carlina White, a woman that had been raised by the woman who stole her from the hospital when she was born. She found out what really happened to her when she spotted a baby photo of herself on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website.

Although Steve didn’t expect to find a photo of himself on the website, he clicked through the photos anyway. What he found shocked him. Not only did he find a baby photo of himself, but he found an age progression photo that was a spitting image of himself.

Steve had been adopted from a Hawaiian orphanage at the age of four. He knew very little about his family, but with his light skin and blonde hair, he doubted that he was native Hawaiian. When he saw the photo, Steve immediately contact the Honolulu police department and told them what he’d found. They ran with the info, and after doing a DNA test in February 2011, Steve finally found out who he really was.

His birth name was Marx Panama Moriarty Barnes. He had been reported missing by his father, Mark Barnes, after his mother, Charlotte Moriarty left for a walk with her son and never returned. He was just six months old at the time.

Eventually, Charlotte was arrested and placed in a psychiatric unit. Her son was put in protective custody. However, not wanting them to know her true identity, Charlotte lied about her and her son’s names and birth dates.

Mark Barnes, Steve’s dad, says he drove around the island for a year and a half searching for his son. Eventually, he gave up and was certain that his son was dead.

What he didn’t know is that Pat and Steve Sr. had adopted his son and he was growing up in New Jersey. Pat says that she always felt like she’d taken someone else’s child, although they had legally adopted Steve.

Jennifer Monnhaimer, Charlotte Moriarty’s daughter, was the one that convinced Hawaiian officials to put the age progression photo on the Missing Kids website. She was never willing to give up on finding her brother.

Check out the video below to learn more about Steve’s story and be sure to share it with your family and friends.