Katherine "Kate" Mary Lyon was a preteen who vanished in 1975 along with her sister, Sheila Lyon. A man has been charged with the abduction and murder of both sisters, but their remains have never been found.
Case[]
Disappearance[]
Kate disappeared from Kensington, Maryland, on March 25, 1975, along with her sister, Sheila Lyon. The girls left their home on Plyers Mill Road between 11 AM and midday that day. They were planning to walk to the Wheaton Plaza Shopping Centre, around half a mile away. They wanted to see the Easter exhibits at the mall on their first day of the Easter holidays. At around 1 PM, a friend of the girls saw them speaking to an unidentified man outside the Orange Bowl. The man was about 6’0 tall, approximately 50 to 60 years old, and wearing a brown suit. He was carrying a briefcase with a tape recorder inside. Other children were seen speaking into a microphone this man was holding. He would eventually become the main suspect in the sisters' cases. However, Kate and Sheila were seen again at the Orange Bowl, this time by their brother, eating pizza. The girls were last seen walking westward along Drumm Avenue by a friend. This would have been one of the most direct routes they could have taken home. They have not been heard from since.
Investigation[]
The girls did not return home as expected at 4 PM. At 7 PM, the police were contacted, and an extensive search for the sisters began. Kate and Sheila’s case resulted in one of the largest police investigations in the Washington metropolitan area’s history. Numerous volunteer groups assisted by combing vacant lots and stream beds. The sister's disappearance was also one of the most high-profile cases in the national media for months after they vanished. Media attention on the case peaked on May 23, 1975, when the Maryland Lieutenant Governor, Blair Lee, ordered 122 National Guardsmen to aid in a search of a Montgomery County forest.
In the weeks after the Lyon sisters’ disappearances, their family received several extortion-type phone calls. The most concerning of these calls occurred on April 4, 1975. An anonymous man demanded that the girl’s father, John Lyon, leave a briefcase containing $10,000 in the restroom of an Annapolis, Maryland courthouse. Law enforcement officials instructed John to leave a briefcase containing $101, the minimum amount needed to make the crime a felony, at the drop-off location. John did, but it wasn't collected. The same anonymous caller rang again and claimed that there were too many police at the courthouse to go in and get the ransom. After this point, John refused to participate in the caller's demands unless he would let him hear his daughter's voice. The caller never contacted him again despite claiming he would.
Suspects[]
There have been several suspects in the sisters' disappearances, including suspected serial killers John Brennan Crutchley and Howard Coffey, who was convicted for murdering a ten-year-old girl in North Carolina in 1979. He had a job interview in Silver Springs, Maryland, just six days after the girl's disappearance. Raymond Rudolph Mileski Sr. was another suspect. He lived in Suitland, Maryland, in 1975 and murdered his wife and teenage son during an argument in 1977. Mileski has claimed to harbour information in Kate and Sheila’s case, and other prison informants have suggested the same thing. He offered to tell police what he knew in return for more favourable prison conditions, but nothing was found when his former home was searched. Mileski died in 2004.
In 2014, the Montgomery County Police Department requested public assistance regarding a vehicle that may have been involved in the sisters’ disappearances. At around 7:30 AM on April 7, 1975, a witness in Manassas, Virginia, reported seeing two young girls who resembled Kate and Shelia Lyon in the back of a 1968 beige Ford station wagon. The girls were both bound and gagged and seemingly upon realising the witness was tailing him, the diver cut through a red light and sped west on Route 234. The station wagon had Maryland licence plates with the possible combination “DMT-6**”; the last two numbers are unknown because of the bending of the car’s plate. This combination was issued in Cumberland, Hagerstown and Baltimore, Maryland, at the time. The area was searched that evening, but nothing was found. This lead has since been deemed "questionable" by police.
Also in 2014, Lloyd Lee Michael Welch Jr. and Richard Allen Welch Sr. were announced as the prime suspects in the sisters’ cases. Lloyd, sometimes also known as Michael Lee Welch, was 18 years old and had an extensive criminal record, which included sex offences committed against young girls. Between the 1970s and the 1990s, he was employed by a traveling carnival. On March 25, 1975, he had been at the Wheaton Plaza Shopping Centre, where he was seen watching Kate and Sheila. He also returned after the disappearance and told a security guard he had seen a man with a tape recorder abducting the girls. Authorities were contacted, and he underwent a polygraph test, which he failed. Afterwards, he admitted to fabricating his story. In 2013, a sergeant reviewing the case noticed that Lloyd resembled a sketch of a suspect and that certain details in his story indicated he at least witnessed the girl's disappearance.
Lloyd, who had been serving a 30-year prison sentence in Delaware since 1997, was questioned by police. Despite initial concerns that he would refuse to speak, he spoke for hours during his first interview on October 16, 2013. He claimed he had left the mall with his Kate and Sheila that day. He also claimed to have seen Richard sexually assaulting one of the girls in his father's home in Hyattsville, Maryland, before both girls were killed and dismembered by Richard and Lloyd's father. According to Lloyd, their remains were taken to Taylor Mountain and burned. Richard and his sister did indeed own land on the mountain in the 1970s.
Human DNA and what police believe was a significant amount of human blood were discovered in the basement of Lloyd's father's former home in Hyattsville. However, the DNA was too degraded to match a specific individual. In 2014, Lloyd's cousin, Henry Parker, told detectives that in 1975, the two had met on Taylor's Mountain Road in Thaxton, Virginia. Henry said he helped Lloyd remove two army-style duffel bags, each weighing appropriately 60-70 pounds and smelling of "death, from his vehicle. Henry threw the bags, which were covered in red stains, into a fire. He did not know what was inside them.
In July 2015, Lloyd was indicted for two counts of first-degree felony murder for Kate and Sheila’s deaths. In September 2017, he pled guilty to the charges. While he admitted to the Judge that he had participated in the girls' abduction, he denied murdering them. He received two 48-year sentences, which are to be served concurrently.
Police believe there was a "conspiracy" in Kate and Shelia’s presumed deaths but that the other individuals involved are either dead or there is insufficient evidence to charge them. Active searches for the sisters recommenced in 2014, but no new information has ever been found. Kate’s remains have never been found.
Characteristics[]
- Blonde hair.
- Blue eyes.
- Birthmark on the inside of the upper thigh.
Clothing and accessories[]
- Bright red jacket with no collar, fuzzy lining and a front zipper.
- Blue floral print shirt.
- Possibly a sleeveless undershirt.
- Floral print underpants.
- Blue Wrangler jeans with flared bottoms and a front zipper.
- Dark brown and beige argyle nylon knee socks.
- Beige suede Wallaby shoes with dirty beige laces.
- Red hat.
- Orange baby beads with the name "Kate" written either in black letters on white beads or in white letters on black beads.
Sources[]
- Kate Lyon at the Charley Project
- Kate Lyon at NamUs
- Kate Lyon at NCMEC
- Kate Lyon at the Doe Network
- Kate Lyon and Sheila Lyon on Wikipedia