What the Lyon Sisters’ disappearance taught me about cold cases.
I came of age in the shadow of a shocking crime. Nearly 40 years later, a dedicated cold case team finally brought the unspeakable to light.
I grew up in a leafy Maryland suburb outside Washington, D.C. where nothing much happened until a few days before Easter in 1975. That’s when two sisters from my hometown walked to our local shopping center for a slice of pizza and vanished without a trace.
Sheila and Katherine Lyon were 12 and 10 years old. I had just turned 13 and my sister Dede was 11. We had walked to Wheaton Plaza ourselves many times. And why not? It was a sunny, open-air shopping center with restaurants, record shops, shoe stores, a movie theater, and tons of people. In March 1975, there was the added attraction of holiday decorations, including an “Easter Castle” and a giant rabbit that talked and dispensed jellybeans from its paw.
When the sisters didn’t return home that night, their parents called the police. It was minor news at first. They may have run away, although no one really believed that. Most likely they just went to a sleepover and forgot to check in with their parents. That was Day One.
By Day Three, the entire Washington region began to panic. How could two blond girls simply vanish from a busy suburban shopping center blocks from their home in broad daylight? It was surreal. No one had witnessed an abduction or heard a scream. There were no signs of a struggle.
The grownups immediately reined us all in. No more walks to the mall, the park, or homes of friends. We were scared witless and didn’t resist.
The search for clues
Several people had seen Sheila and Katherine talking to a man at the mall with a tape recorder. Others described a greasy-looking teenage boy who appeared to be stalking them. Hundreds of police officers and volunteers searched woods, ponds, sewers and vacant lots. Posters with their photos were distributed nationwide.
Two weeks later, a motorist idling at a stoplight in Virginia spotted a blond child bound and gagged in the back of a station wagon. The car sped away before he could get a complete license plate.
Psychics sent reporters on a wild goose chase for the girls’ remains. Depraved opportunists phoned the girls’ parents to demand a ransom, then hung up when the father insisted on speaking to the girls himself.
As weeks went by and hopes for their recovery dwindled, a resigned sorrow settled over the region. Six months after Katherine and Sheila disappeared, the biggest criminal investigation in Montgomery County history quietly folded. No trace of them was ever found. Those of us who lived through it never got over it.
The incident sparked my interest in unsolved crimes, but nothing I’ve read, heard about, or conjured since has chilled me quite like the disappearance of the Lyon Sisters. For years, I couldn’t think of them without a shiver of horror.
The breakthrough
In 2013, a cold case squad from Montgomery County decided to take a second look at one of the initial suspects: the greasy-looking teen who had been cleared by police in 1975.
Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr., 18, had smoked weed just before meeting with police a few days after the girls disappeared. He showed up stoned and lied throughout the interview. His interrogators knew he was lying. They pegged him as an attention-seeking loser and dismissed him in disgust.
Detectives reviewing the case files decades later noted the striking resemblance between a 1975 police sketch and a 1977 mug shot of Welch. His long criminal history of sex offenses against girls was noteworthy as well. At the time the investigation was reopened, Welch was serving a prison sentence in Delaware for child sexual abuse.
Officials initiated a new, intensive investigation involving two generations of Welch family members, most of whom quickly circled the wagons. Detectives were undaunted. They interviewed dozens of witnesses and rigorously prosecuted those who refused to talk. Phones were tapped, properties in two states were searched. On Taylor Mountain in West Virginia, investigators organized excavations on Welch ancestral land.
They were ultimately able to locate the basement where the sisters had been imprisoned and raped for several days, the room in which they had been murdered, and the site on Taylor Mountain where their bodies had been destroyed.
Confronted with the evidence, Welch confessed. In September of 2017, he pled guilty to two counts of felony murder and was sentenced to 48 years in prison. It was scant comfort to the Lyon Family, who had waited almost the same amount of time for a resolution.
What I learned from the Lyon Sisters case
The meticulous, four-year-long interrogation, investigation and prosecution of Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr., drove home at least three key lessons that could apply to any cold case investigation:
· Discounted suspects deserve a second look. Based on Welch’s demeanor and clumsy lies, police couldn’t believe he possessed the criminal cunning necessary to abduct two adolescent girls without attracting attention. Indeed, some detectives today still believe he was assisted by family members who remain persons of interest. Regardless, the failure by police to take Welch seriously as a suspect not only delayed justice but left him free to assault other children over the next several years.
· Evidence can still be obtained decades later. Despite the lack of a body , and lack of cooperation by witnesses, investigators were still able to amass enough admissible evidence to compel Welch to plead guilty.
· Resolution doesn’t mean closure. In his book about the Lyon Sisters case, The Last Stone: A Masterpiece of Criminal Investigation (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2019), Mark Bowden wrote of Welch’s sentencing: “[It] was a thing beyond setting right, beyond the reach of justice, vengeance, forgiveness or healing. The only right response was despair. One could only embrace the sadness and turn away.”
It was intolerably sad to finally learn the truth about Sheila and Katherine, but also a relief. Their vanishing had touched a collective nerve, tapping into the terror of the unknown and fostering macabre speculation. I had come of age in the shadow of a horrific crime, and it haunted me for decades. That ended in 2017 when a dedicated cold case team finally brought the unspeakable to light.
Sources:
Dan Morse. “Imprisoned sex offender charged with murder in 1975 Lyon Sisters case.” Washington Post, July 15, 2015.
“The convicted sex offender being investigated in disappearance of sisters who vanished after trip to the mall in 1975.” DailyMail.com, February 11, 2014. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2557028/Convicted-sex-offender-seen-paying-attention-two-young-sisters-vanished-trip-mall-1975.html
Elizabeth Tyree. “Report: Man charged with killing Lyon sisters in 1975 set to plead guilty.” WSET-TV, September 7, 2017. https://wset.com/news/local/report-man-charged-with-killing-lyon-sisters-in-1975-set-to-plead-guilty-09-07-2017
Neal Augenstein. “Welch pleads guilty to 1st degree murder in 1975 Lyon sisters killings.” WTOP News, September 12, 2017. https://wtop.com/local/2017/09/plea-expected-1975-lyon-sisters-murder/
Mark Bowden. The Last Stone: A Masterpiece of Criminal Interrogation. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2019.
