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Chapter 1: What happened to Terry and Alan Westerfield in September 1964?
All right, everyone, if you have been waiting for the perfect moment to pick up my latest novel, The Missing Half, this is it because it is officially out on paperback and there is more waiting for you inside. There is nothing better than getting cozy and diving into a story that you can't put down. And now you can take the missing half anywhere.
Crack the spine, roll the cover, and lose yourself in a mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end. And in paperback, the ending extends beyond where the story has before. And just when you think you have it all figured out, now there is a new chapter. One more piece of the puzzle. One more twist that you didn't see coming.
If you're ready for a story full of secrets, surprises, and a final turn that will stay with you, grab your paperback copy of The Missing Half now, wherever books are sold. Our card this week is Terry and Alan Westerfield, the King of Diamonds from North Carolina.
Chapter 2: How did the Fayetteville Police Department respond to the boys' disappearance?
A large part of a parent's week is playing shuttle driver, dropping off and picking up our children. It's so routine that we take for granted that second part, picking them up. So what would you do if you dropped your child off somewhere and when you returned to pick them up, they were just gone? disappeared, never to be seen again for 60 years.
That's what happened to Terry and Alan Westerfield in September of 1964. Since then, the Fayetteville Police Department has tried to unravel the mystery of what happened that day. And at the center of it, there's one big question still left up for debate. Were Terry and Alan ever even dropped off at all? Or was the story of their disappearance told by their stepfather just one big lie?
I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck.
Chapter 3: What inconsistencies exist in the stepfather's account of the events?
Fayetteville, North Carolina is known for being a military town through and through. Back in the 60s, it had Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base, now known as Pope Field after the two bases merged. At the time, the Vietnam War had been raging for years, and that conflict was shaping Fayetteville.
It was kind of the jumping off point for the guys that left from the United States and went to Vietnam. The city was bustling at that time and was growing by leaps and bounds.
That's Lieutenant Jeff Locklear of the Fayetteville Police Department giving us a little history lesson. Considering the town's large military presence, you'd assume that crime was rare. But it's not. Not now and not back in 1964 when Alan and Terry went missing. In their case, all started with a call from their mother, Margie Westerfield Bach.
Chapter 4: What was the role of the babysitter in the boys' disappearance?
She phoned police in the early morning hours of September 13th after returning home from a night out. She expected her boys to be fast asleep after a night at the movies, but they weren't in their beds.
Margie's husband and the boys' stepfather, Carl Bach, had gone to pick them up from the movies, but when they didn't show up, he assumed that the 11-year-old Terry and 7-year-old Alan might have been with her.
He figured the mom had swung by and picked him up, didn't think twice about it, returned home. And then when they started thinking about where the children are, he asked her. And she's like, no, I didn't go pick him up. And then that's really where this whole thing started.
Now, if this happened today, we'd bring up the theater's security cam footage, roll it back and see what we could find. But that wasn't an option in the mid 60s. So officers had to hit the pavement and they searched up and down the streets around the theater, but with no luck.
Chapter 5: What did witnesses say about the boys' presence at the theater?
At some point, officers went to the boys' neighborhood, known as the Bordeaux, looking for anyone who knew them or who had seen them that night. Maybe they could give insight into why the boys would take off on their own or where they might have gone if that's what happened here.
Normally, in a situation like this, you would expect the boy's friends to say something like, yeah, you know, they didn't like their stepdad or they were having problems with their mama. Or, you know, one of the boys was having problems with a kid at school, bullying him or whatever. But that's not what the file reflects. The file would reflect that the kids are happy. The kids like the stepdad.
Life was good.
So assuming they didn't run away, what happened to the boys between the time they were dropped off at the theater and when they were supposed to be picked up?
So we're going to go to the theater and talk to the people who work there and see if they saw those kids there.
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Chapter 6: How did the investigation evolve over the decades?
We're going to talk to the person that sells the popcorn in the movie theater. We're going to talk to the person that's tearing the tickets. We're going to talk to the janitorial staff there. Everybody who was there may have seen these kids. We're going to go out and talk to them.
It turns out the brothers were regulars at the theater.
In one of the interviews that's conducted, the lady said she knew them very well because she knew when they showed up, sometimes they liked to run up and down the stairs. And she'd have to kind of call them down a little bit, you know, and slow them down. So they knew them quite well there at the theater.
But that woman didn't see the boys the night of the 12th.
Chapter 7: What theories have emerged regarding the boys' fate?
In fact, if you read some of the supplemental reports like Lieutenant Locklear did, it appears no one did. Though something might have gotten lost over time. That or old news reports were inaccurate because at least one news report says that some employees did think that they saw the boys that day.
But even if that's true, it seems that no one could place them there with 100% certainty, which made investigators ask a very critical question, the one at the heart of this case. Were the boys ever dropped off there to begin with? It turns out September 12th was a slightly unusual day because the child care plan changed suddenly without their mom Margie knowing.
That Saturday, Margie had to work, so she left the boys at home with their babysitter, Barbara Temple. But around 11 a.m., their stepfather, Carl, showed up.
So him showing up was not part of the plan as far as the babysitter was aware, but she was figuring, well, he's the stepdad, and he says he's here now, he's going to take care of him. Then, you know, that wouldn't be something to be out of the ordinary.
Chapter 8: What can listeners do to help in the case of Terry and Alan Westerfield?
Now, the reason this wasn't part of the plan was because at the time, Margie and Carl, who had only gotten married the summer before, were already on the outs. Carl had moved out and was now living on base at Fort Bragg, where he worked as a military police officer. But he still had a key to the house and would occasionally borrow the family car.
Even though Carl showed up that Saturday, the babysitter was still willing to stay. And she stuck around till like 12.30 or 1 p.m. when Carl then told her to leave. After she left, Carl says that he fixed the boys some food and let them play for a bit. Then around 4 p.m., he dropped them off at the Broadway Theater, only a few miles away, for a double feature.
Carl says that he was back at the house when Margie arrived home from work at around 5.30 p.m. Now, she wasn't psyched to find out that he dismissed the babysitter and dropped the boys at the movies, but she didn't have time to argue about it. She had plans that night. So she was out the door by 6.30 p.m.
She went to the playpen, the NCO club at Pope Field, and stayed there until she arrived home at 2 a.m.
It's possible Margie had their shared vehicle that night because Carl was getting around in an old-school-looking red station wagon that he borrowed from a friend. That's how he was able to go back to the theater to pick up the boys at 7.45. He told police that he waited outside the theater in his car until 9.30 a.m.
I would have sat there for a total of 30 seconds before I got out of my vehicle, right? Because my mom always told me, when I pull up, you better be standing there waiting.
When almost two hours had passed with no sign of Terry or Alan, Carl said that he assumed maybe Margie had picked them up, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to investigators who have looked at this case. Carl says that he just went home after this and didn't realize anything was wrong until Margie got home.
But, like, what did he think she would have been doing with the boys during that time after he got home and realized they weren't there? Carl knew that Margie was out on a town that night. Did he think Terry and Alan were, like, hanging out at the bar all night with their mom? The picture Carl was painting wasn't making a whole lot of sense.
But by continuing to talk to people in the boys' neighborhood, investigators were starting to see a different picture come into focus. Hi everyone, Ashley here with some exciting news. The Deck will not only land right here in your feed for you to listen to every week, but now we are also on camera for you to watch on YouTube.
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