Katherine Mary Lyon and Sheila Mary Lyon disappeared without a trace in 1975. In 2013, a team of cold case investigators with the Montgomery County, Maryland, police made a break in the case. Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr. pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder for the girls’ abduction and murder.
About Murders of Katherine and Sheila Lyon in brief
Katherine Mary Lyon and Sheila Mary Lyon disappeared without a trace in 1975. Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr. pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder for the girls’ abduction and murder. In 2013, a team of cold case investigators with the Montgomery County, Maryland, police made a break in the case. Welch, then serving a lengthy prison sentence in Delaware for child sexual abuse, had a long criminal record that had begun a few years after the girls’ disappearance with a burglary arrest in their jurisdiction. The two sisters were born to John and Mary Lyon in Kensington, Maryland. They had an older brother, Jay, who later became a policeman. Their father, John Lyon, was a well-known radio personality at WMAL, a local radio station then held by the owner of the ABC Television affiliate in Washington and the now-defunct Washington Star. It was their spring vacation and they planned to have lunch at the Orange Bowl, a pizza restaurant which was part of the mall. They left home between 11:00 AM and noon. Their mother had instructed them to return home by 4:00 PM; when they had not arrived by 7: 00 PM, the police were called and an extensive search was conducted. The girls’ remains have never been found. The sisters’ disappearance continued to be featured in high-profile stories in the national media for months. It had long been \”one of the most high- profile unsolved cases in the D. C. area.’ “ The Lyon Sisters, their case resulted in one of the largest police investigations in Washington metropolitan area history.
In September 2017, Welch pleaded guilty in the Lyon Sisters’ murder. He was questioned at a police station, failed a lie detector test, admitted he had lied, was released and was not questioned again until more than 38 years later. He made statements that further implicated him although he continued to protest his innocence. One of his relatives told them he had helped Welch burn two heavy, bloodied duffel bags in Bedford County, Virginia, In July 2015, Welch was indicted and charged with theGirls’ murders there. His uncle is a person of interest as well. Police discovered that a mug shot taken of Welch in 1977 bore a strong resemblance to a police sketch of a possible suspect who had been seen staring inappropriately at the Lyon sisters in the shopping mall. Police were told by witnesses that the sisters were in the Wheaton Plaza mall at approximately 1 PM. A neighborhood boy, who knew the sisters, reported that he saw them together outside the Orange bowl speaking with an unidentified man, about 6 feet tall, 50 to 60 years old, and wearing a brown suit. The man was carrying a briefcase with a tape recorder inside; there were also other children around who were speaking into a microphone he was holding. The witness’s description of the man led authorities to view the unknown person as a prime suspect in the sisters’ case.
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This page is based on the article Murders of Katherine and Sheila Lyon published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 10, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
