Two brothers One ordinary Saturday Sixty years without answers

Every cold case has two stories. The story everyone knows and the story hidden inside the  evidence. For more than 60 years, one man has stood at the center of a mystery. Detectives believe he knew more than he ever admitted. His own family came to suspect him. Yet, despite decades of investigation, no one ever proved he committed a crime.

So, before we accuse, before we speculate, before we decide what happened, let’s go back to one Saturday afternoon in September of 1964 and follow the evidence one more time. September 12th, 1964. It was a warm Saturday in Fedville, North Carolina. Fort Bragg was bustling with soldiers preparing for Vietnam.

 Downtown Hay Street was alive with shoppers, families, and teenagers. On the weekend, one of the busiest places in town was the Broadway Theater. For kids, there weren’t many ways better to spend an afternoon and sitting through a double feature with a box of popcorn and a bottle of soda. For 11year-old Terry Westerfield and his younger brother, 7-year-old Allen, it should have been an ordinary day.

 In fact, that’s one of the things that’s made this case so difficult to understand. Nothing about that Saturday suggested that 60 years later, investigators would still be searching for answers. That morning, the boy’s mother, Margie Westerfield Brock, left work. The boys remained at home with the babysitter, Barbara Temple.

 Around 11:00, however, something unexpected  happened. the boy stepfather, Carl Brock, when he arrived at the house. And according to the babysitter, Barbara, Carl’s visit, well, it hadn’t been part of the day’s plans. Carl and Margie had been living separately on Fort Bragg. After their marriage had began to unravel, but he still had a key to the house.

Believing everything was under control, the babysitter, Barbara, stayed for a while before Carl eventually told her she could just leave. She left sometime around lunchtime, and from that point on, Carl said he was alone with the boys. And that detail would become incredibly important as the years passed. Because from that moment forward, every piece of the timeline depends almost entirely on Carl’s account.

That afternoon seemed uneventful. One neighborhood child later recalled stopping by to see if Terry and Allan could come outside and play. And according to police records discussed decades later, Carl told the child the boys couldn’t come out. Now, different accounts describe different explanations. One says one of the boys was watching television.

 Another account says they were both being punished. But either way, the children never came outside. Now, at first glance, that doesn’t sound so important. Neighborhood kids knock on doors every day and parents tell them no, not today or yes, they can come out and play. But either way, life seems to go on. Except this would become one of the last reported interactions anyone had had with Terry and Allen before they disappeared.

Now, Carl later told investigators that around 4:00 that afternoon, he loaded the boys into a borrowed red station wagon and drove them a few miles into downtown Fedville. Their destination, that would be the Broadway Theater. A double feature was played, and the boys were regulars there.

 Employees knew them by name. One worker later remembered that when they visited, sometimes they would become so excited they would race up and down the theater stairs and have to be called down just before the movie started. And that was exactly where two young brothers would have wanted to spend a Saturday afternoon, or so everyone believed.

Hours later, Carl returned to pick them up. And he said he waited and waited. And when the boys never appeared, he assumed their mother, Marjorie, must have picked them up herself and drove home. That explanation would eventually become one of the most debated parts of this entire investigation because detectives, well, they asked a simple question.

The exact same question that you’re asking right now. Why didn’t he just simply go inside? And this is the part where most stories tell you two little boys vanished from a movie theater. But before we can say that, we have to answer something even more basic. And that is, did Terry and Allan Westerfield ever make it into the Broadway Theater at all? Because after investigators interviewed ticket takers, ushers, concession workers, and employees who knew the boys, well, something unexpected happened.

No one could say with certainty that they had even seen Terry and Allan inside the movie theater that Saturday. Some reports suggested possible sightings, but none were definitive. That one unanswered question, well that’s haunted this case for more than 60 years. If you ask most people what happened to Terry and Allan Westerfield, they’ll tell you the boys disappeared from a movie theater.

That’s the story that’s been told for decades. But as we start digging into the original investigation, we found something that stopped us. No one can say for certain that Terry and Allen ever went inside that movie theater. Think about that for a moment. For 60 years, the Broadway theater has been considered the last place the boys were seen.

 But according to investigators who later reviewed the case files, employees who knew the brothers well could not for certain place them inside the movie theater that Saturday afternoon. Some older newspaper accounts suggest possible sightings, but none that were confirmed with certainty. Now, that’s not a small detail. That’s the foundation the entire case sits on.

The Broadway wasn’t just another movie house. Terry and Allan were regulars. Employees recognized them. One theater worker remembered the boys would sometimes race up and down the stairs before the movie started. They weren’t strangers. They were the kind of kids people remembered. which makes what happened next even harder to explain.

If they came that afternoon, why doesn’t anyone clearly remember seeing them? If they bought tickets, who sold them? If they stood in the lobby or bought popcorn, who spoke to them? If they sat through an entire double feature, who sat nearby? Who handed over the popcorn? Those questions have echoed through this case for more than six decades.

 Now, imagine this scene. It’s a Saturday afternoon. Children are everywhere. Parents dropping kids off, cars pulling up, cars pulling away. the smell of buttered popcorn drifting out the front doors. It’s entirely possible two young brothers, they could disappear into that crowd without ever drawing attention. But it’s also possible they never reach that crowd at all.

And that’s where this case changes because if Terry and Allan never entered the movie theater, then they didn’t disappear from a movie theater. They disappeared before anyone could independently verify they ever arrived. Seems to me that’s an entirely different investigation. And this is the point where I’d normally tell you what I think happened.

I’m not going to do that because once you decide what happened, you stop asking questions. Instead, I want you to remember one simple fact. No witness has ever been able to stand up and say, “I’ll watch Terry and Allan walk into that movie theater.” For me, that’s where this mystery, that’s where it really begins.

The last confirmed hours of the boy’s lives don’t end inside a dark movie theater. They actually end with one man’s account of what he says happened. And from this point forward, almost every major event in the timeline depends on whether that account is accurate. Next, we need to understand that timeline.

 Not the version that’s been repeated over the years, but the one built from interviews and police reports and the memories of the people who were there. Because somewhere between an ordinary Saturday morning and a routine trip to the movies that afternoon, two little boys vanished. Every investigation reaches a point where detectives  have to ask themselves a question.

Who can independently verify what happened in the disappearance of Terry and Allan Westerfield? That question becomes surprisingly difficult to answer because after the babysitter walked out the front door, almost everything that happened for the rest of that Saturday afternoon comes from one person, Carl Brock.

 Before we go any further, it’s important to understand who Carl was. He wasn’t simply the boy’s stepfather. He was a military police officer stationed at Fort Bragg. He understood criminal investigations. He understood interviews. He understood interrogation techniques. And he also understood crime scenes. Years later, when detectives tried to persuade him to cooperate, in other words, take a lie detector test, [snorts] Carl reminded them that he had once used many of those same techniques himself while serving as an MP and refused to take the lie detector

test. Now, it would be easy to say that makes him guilty, but actually it doesn’t, but it does tell us something. Carl was not an inexperienced witness sitting across the table from the detectives. He knew how investigations worked. Carl and Margie hadn’t been married very long.

 Some accounts say roughly seven, maybe eight months. But by December of 1964, their marriage, well, it was already unraveling. Carl had moved out of the home and was living on Fort Bragg, although he still had a key to the family home, and he would occasionally borrow the family’s car. That Saturday, he did unexpectedly arrive while the boys were being watched by their babysitter.

The babysitter was not expecting him, and she did remain for a while until Carl told her she could leave. Now, from that point forward, according to Carl, he spent the afternoon alone with Terry and Allen, that simple fact would become one of the cornerstones of this entire investigation. Carl later told detectives he drove the boys to the Broadway theater around 4:00 for a Saturday double feature.

 [gasps] Margie arrived home from work right around 5:30. She wasn’t pleased to learn Carl had dismissed the babysitter and changed the day’s plans, but it seemed she already had plans of her own. And around 6:30 that evening, she left for the NCO club at Pope Field, expecting the boys would be home later after the movies.

She wouldn’t return until approximately 2:00 that following morning. At first glance, that seems pretty straightforward. But let’s stop and ask a simple question. [gasps] Who was responsible for the boys that night? Margie had plans. She goes to the NCO club and doesn’t come home to around 2:00 the following morning.

the babysitter. Well, she was dismissed around noon earlier in the day. That just leaves Carl. Well, according to Carl, he was responsible. He said he intended to pick the boys up after the double feature. He later told investigators he returned to the theater around 7:45 p.m. and waited until 9:30 p.m.

 And when Terry and Allan never appeared, he drove home believing Margie must have picked him up. That explanation has remained one of the most hotly debated parts of this entire case. Not because it’s impossible, but because it raises another question. If Carl believed he was responsible for picking the boys up, why would you assume someone else had them? And there’s another detail investigators never seemed to be able to reconcile.

Carl said he waited outside in his car for nearly two hours. But according to the investigators interviewed decades later, there’s no indication that Carl went inside the movie theater to ask an usher or maybe check with the ticket booth or possibly see if two young boys were still sitting through the second feature.

Now that in itself doesn’t prove anything. I mean people do react differently under stress and people make decisions that seem strange in hindsight. Maybe even someone in the military, Carl. But then again, the detectives keep returning to the same question. If your children didn’t come outside, wouldn’t you go inside looking for them? Then there’s the other part of Carl’s story that investigators questioned.

That borrowed red station wagon. neighbors noticed Carl hadn’t parked it in the driveway. Instead, it was left roughly two blocks away. Now, Carl later explained he hoped to borrow Margie’s car and didn’t want her to know he was there. Now, detectives, they never found that explanation entirely convincing, but again, that isn’t proof of a crime.

I mean, they were separated, and we don’t really know what their dynamic was while they were married or what it was during the separation. So again, this strange act, maybe it’s not so strange after all. It again certainly isn’t proof of a crime. Simply another piece of behavior that investigators believe deserved a closer look.

 Now, this is where it’s easy to make a mistake. to look back 60 years later and see the unanswered questions and decide we’ve solved a mystery. But the reality of it is we haven’t. [gasps] Good investigations don’t begin with conclusions. They start with evidence. Some of Carl Brock’s decisions seem difficult to understand. Others may have perfectly innocent explanations.

We’ll never know. Our job isn’t to fill those gaps with assumptions. Our job is to simply recognize where those gaps exist. Now, as detectives rebuilt that September afternoon, they kept returning to Carl. Not because they found the boys, not because they found blood or they uncovered some type physical evidence tying Carl to the crime or crime.

In fact, none of those things were ever found. They kept returning to Carl because nearly every critical moment in the timeline depended on Carl’s account. And that’s a difficult position for any investigation, especially one where two little boys have never been found. There’s a phrase detectives use from time to time, strong suspicion.

It’s uncomfortable at all because after all, suspicion, well, that’s not evidence. And evidence is what solves crimes. By the late 1960s, investigators had spent years interviewing witnesses. They retraced Carl Brock’s movements. They questioned family members. They searched. They followed leads. And they kept coming back to the same person.

But they kept running into the same problem. They just couldn’t prove it. No blood, no crime scene, no eyewitnesses, no confession. And the most painful of all, no Terry and no Allen. Without those things, there was no case to present to a jury. Only questions. And that’s what makes this case so frustrating. On one hand, detectives would eventually say publicly they believed Carl Brock knew more than he had ever admitted.

But on the other hand, they also admitted they never developed enough evidence to charge him. Those two statements can both be true. And that’s exactly where this case has remained for decades. Now, here’s something I want you to think about. Let’s just pretend just for a moment, okay? Just for a second that Carl’s entire account is accurate.

He dropped the boys off. They walked away. He returns later. They’re gone. If that’s true, then someone else crossed paths with Terry and Allan. Someone else saw two young brothers alone in downtown Fedville on a Saturday afternoon. And that someone else has never been identified. That’s why this case has always been so difficult.

 Because whichever path you choose, you immediately run into another set of unanswered questions. If Carl is telling the truth, where are the witnesses? If Carl isn’t telling the truth, where is the evidence? Either way, in either direction, something is missing. And this is where I stopped reading the file and I just sat there for a while because I realized something.

 For all these years, people have argued over one man. Meanwhile, two little boys have almost disappeared from their own story. And that’s something I never want to have happen here. Terry was 11. Allan was seven. They weren’t evidence. They weren’t exhibits. They weren’t suspects. They were brothers. Brothers who climbed the stairs.

Brothers who rode bicycles through the neighborhood. Brothers whose mother expected them home that night. No matter what happened after that Saturday afternoon, those two boys, Allan and Terry Westerfield, that’s who this story really belongs to. As investigators continued working the case, they searched woods, fields, creeks.  They followed rumors.

They followed tips. Over the years, they even interviewed Coral again and again and again. Each interview ended the same way. More questions, no answers. One detective would later say something that perfectly captures this investigation. He believed he knew who was responsible, but he simply couldn’t prove it. And in America, there’s a line investigators cannot cross.

Suspicion. No matter how strong it may be, suspicion is never enough. So, where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us with two possibilities. One, investigators were completely right, but never found the evidence they needed.  Or perhaps possibility number two. Decades have been spent looking in the wrong direction.

Today, no one can say with certainty which one of those possibilities is actually true. And that’s why this case remains open. More than 60 years have passed since Terry and Allan Westerfield disappeared. The Broadway Theat’s gone. Fedville has changed a lot. Fort Bragg gave way to being called Fort Liberty and  thankfully now it’s back to being called Fort Bragg.

 The investigators who first worked this case are all gone. All the witnesses, well, majority of them are gone, too. And the ones that are left have grown old. And then there’s Carl Brock, the man detectives return to again and again. Carl Brock died in 2016. Whatever Carl knew, well, he took that with him. Maybe investigators were right about Carl all along.

 Maybe he knew exactly what happened and just simply refused to  say. Or maybe he made a series of decisions that looked worse with every passing year. Well, the real answer that waited somewhere else. Now, we can examine his timeline. We can question why he never entered the movie theater. We can even wonder why the borrowed station wagon was parked two blocks away.

We can go over every interview, every inconsistency, and every unanswered question. But we still cannot turn suspicion into proof. Now, that leaves the alternative, which is comfortable. And today, there’s still no physical evidence showing what happened to Terry. and Allan. No confirmed crime scene, no remains.

And it seems as of today, there is no final answer. The boy’s biological father, Melville Westerfield, he spent years searching for his boys. He followed leads, he asked questions, and he carried the loss of his sons for the rest of his life.  Margie, well, she died without knowing where her children were as well.

Investigators have said the case broke more than one horn, and it’s certainly difficult to imagine a better description than that. But there is one piece of hope left. DNA is available for comparison if unidentified remains are ever discovered. Margie preserved locks of the boy’s baby hair, and Margie also provided a DNA sample.

So even after all this time, Terry and Allan can still be identified. The boys can still be brought home. And before we close this case file, like I said earlier, Terry was 11, Allan was seven. The boys were not born to become the oldest missing person case in Fedville, North Carolina history. They were brothers. They rode bicycles.

[snorts] They played with the neighborhood children. They went to the movies often enough that theater employees knew them. And on one Saturday in September of 1964, they vanished from the lives of everyone who loved them. The unanswered questions matter, but their names matter more. The Fedville Police Department has said justice in this case, well, that may no longer mean an arrest.

It could be simply finding Terry and Allen and bringing them home after 60 years. And that’s still possible. And someone may still remember something. A car ride, a conversation, a place that was searched, or maybe one that wasn’t searched. A detail that seemed too small to mention in 1964, but that detail may mean everything  now.

 And until next time, this is Tim Eubanks with the Bucks Lemonade Podcast. Remember to lock your doors, turn your porch lights on, and  stay safe out there.