Disappearance of Marjorie West

Marjorie West
Portrait of 4-years old Marjorie West
Born	(1933-06-02)June 2, 1933 Bradford, Pennsylvania
Disappeared	May 8, 1938 (4 years old) McKean County, Pennsylvania
Status	Missing for 83 years, 7 months and 23 days
Nationality	American
Parents	Shirley (father) Cecilia (mother)
Relatives	Dorothea (sister) Allan (brother)

Marjorie West is a missing American child who disappeared on May 8, 1938. She was about to turn 5 years old when she was taken from McKean County, Pennsylvania on May 8, 1938.^[1] Her disappearance was heavily covered by both local and national media, but her whereabouts have never been ascertained. In 2018, The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit organization established by the United States Congress, referred to Marjorie West's disappearance as "the great unsolved mystery of the missing".^[2][3]

She was born in Bradford, Pennsylvania. Her parents Shirley (father) and Cecilia (mother) had three children, including Marjorie and her sister Dorothea and a brother Allan. She was the youngest child.^[4]

Disappearance[]

On May 8, 1938, Marjorie, along with her parents, 7-year-old brother Allan and 11-year-old sister Dorothea, attended a church in Bradford, Pennsylvania.^[5] After they attended the church, they went to Marshburg, Pennsylvania for a picnic to celebrate Mother's Day. Dorothea left Marjorie alone while she spoke to her mother. When Dorothea went back to Marjorie, she had disappeared and was never seen again. Her parents called the police, but the police found no evidence of Marjorie's whereabouts.^[6][7]

Five days after her disappearance, the state police commissioner of that time, P. W. Foote, told the newspapers that Marjorie's disappearance probably began with a Hide-and-seek game, which was one of her favorites.^[4]

Investigation[]

Police used dogs to pick up her scent trail, but nothing was found. The searches were conducted by 3,000 local people and 500 policemen, including the Civilian Conservation Corps and the American fraternal order Elks Lodge to trace the missing child. Despite conducting massive searches of five months, police couldn't find the missing child. "All available flash-lights in the city were pressed into service", noted the Bradford Era newspaper. The next day, police began a massive search and interviewed motorists ranging from motorcyclists to car drivers within a 300-square-mile area.^[2] The Bradford Citizen Reward Committee later offered a reward of $2,500 (equivalent to $46,000 in 2020) for her safe return and information. Later, on May 10, police found clues they thought were related to the case and brought a bloodhound in from New York, but the accounts vary.^[4]

Later developments[]

On the 70th anniversary of her disappearance, the fifth grade students at the School Street Elementary School developed different theories through offline and internet research on "who might have taken Marjory [sic]".^[3]

The Book: Finding Marjorie West[]

Mountain Laurel Publishing Corporation published Finding Marjorie West^[8] (ISBN 1-929382-05-7 Library of Congress Number 2010935611) in 2010. The book details how the author, Harold Thomas Beck, then Editor-in-Chief of the Mountain Laurel Review, resurrected the long forgotten disappearance of the little girl. He published two articles on consecutive anniversaries of the disappearance (1995 and 1996). He was contacted by the missing girl's older sister, Dorothea, in 1997 who provided additional information, corrected errors included in newspaper accounts, and sent along family photographs, including one of herself at age 65. The internet was just catching on and Mr. Beck decided to use it to publicize his stories and begin a search for the missing girl (then a woman) if she was still alive. He worked off the strong resemblance of the girls at similar ages as children, assuming the same as adults. He used Dorothea's photograph to find the missing Marjorie at the age of Dorothea in the photograph (65). He was contacted in early 2000 by a woman who claimed she worked with a woman who was identical to the woman in the photograph. Mr. Beck traveled to Florida, and then to North Carolina in search of the woman who was identified. He met with her at her home in North Carolina and told her of his suspicions she was the missing Marjorie West. While she did not admit it at the time, Mr. Beck began a correspondence with her before she finally admitted to him a deathbed admission by her mother.The story of the disappearance, subsequent search, how the story was resurrected, and Mr. Beck's search for Marjorie West are detailed in the book. The Mountain Laurel Review (a monthly publication since 1994) began publishing installments of the book in July 2018 and concluded in June 2021.

See also[]

• Disappearance of Bobby Dunbar
• List of kidnappings
• Sodder children disappearance

References[]