Possible Connections

Poppypetals, can you post the website address of the pay site or is it not for general public access? I wish there were some way to get a look at Chaney's picture. Didn't have much success finding anything on him just doing a regular online search.

Will somebody help me with this stupid question, please: My IM inbox is full. If I transfer the IM's I want to keep to folders can I delete the inbox without loosing the stuff I want to keep? Thanks.
 
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Will somebody help me with this stupid question, please: My IM inbox is full. If I transfer the IM's I want to keep to folders can I delete the inbox without loosing the stuff I want to keep? Thanks.

There are probably several ways that you can save your pm messages. When I want to save messages, I select the message, and put my pointer at the top of it - above the name of the person who sent it. I then hold down the left finger button and slide the pointer down the message to amplify the text.

Next, I hold down the "control" key on my keyboard while hitting the "c" key. This stores the text in memory.

Now select a "write mail" icon and put your pointer in the place where the message goes. Hold down the "control" key again and hit the "y" key. This will take the PM in your memory and put it into the text of a message, which you can send to your e-mail address. You can then store the e-mail in a memory file on one of your drives and read it off-line.

Once you have stored your PM message where you want it, you can Delete it from your PM Box.
 
Elizabeth Ann Metzler
Abducted, molested, and murdered 6 December 1971
Anne Arundel County, Maryland...

In 1978, a man named Richard Miles Chaney, dob 19 November 1939, was arrested, tried and convicted of the murder of little Elizabeth Ann Metzler.

He was sentenced to Life without Parole - the highest allowable sentence at the time. In 2002 and 2003, he appealed his sentence, but lost. Now age 67, he is still incarcerated at:

Maryland Correctional Institute-Jessup
Address: P.O. Box 549, Jessup, MD 20794
Phone: 877-313-0632

Where was he on 25 March 1975?

An update... Chaney is no longer residing at the Jessup Correctional Facility. All Jessup inmates were moved out last week and transferred to other Maryland Prisons. Jessup Prison was the oldest in the US and is now closed down. No word yet as to Chaney's new home.
 
Thanks, Richard, for helping me out with the inbox insruction. I couldn't get back to you the last time we IM'd and have another instruction question for you when I get the box cleaned out. Will take a day or so.

Would it help to search on "Maryland Department of Corrections" to locate Cheney? Wonder why MD doesn't put pictures of inmates up.
 
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Would it help to search on "Maryland Department of Corrections" to locate Cheney? Wonder why MD doesn't put pictures of inmates up.

The website does not list the new addresses yet. It will have them when the site gets updated and the inmates get settled in. As to why Maryland does not include a photo of each inmate - I don't know. They probably don't want to infringe on their rights. Some other states do include photos, while other states do not even have a locator.

Here is a link to a free website where you can search for inmates:

http://www.inmatesplus.com/
 
Thanks Richard. I have checked that out couple times and again just now. It still says he's at Jessup. Probably a good idea to keep checking periodically. Maybe they will update it when they're settled, as you say.
Regards.
 
Thanks Richard. I have checked that out couple times and again just now. It still says he's at Jessup. Probably a good idea to keep checking periodically. Maybe they will update it when they're settled, as you say.
Regards.

I had reason to use the locater to see where the murderer of my cousin was transferred when they closed Jessup. I found he is in Hagerstown. While googling I came across anarticle about the closing of Jessup that stated 97 of the most problematic prisoners were transferred out of state...maybe Chaney was one of those and the out of state prison he was transferred to doesn't have a locater...just a thought.
 
It has been mentioned that perhaps a similar case somewhere might be the link which solves the case of the missing Lyon Sisters. There have been a number of such cases mentioned as having similarities. Here is one which I recently posted in the Cold Cases, but which might have a common link to the Lyon Girls.

One of the strongest possible suspects in the Lyon Sisters disappearance is Fred Howard Coffey, Jr. He came to Maryland LE attention in 1987 when he was convicted in North Carolina of 9 counts of child molestation and later was convicted of the murder of a five year old girl.

The case below is an unsolved Missing Person Case from Virginia Beach, home to Fred Coffey in 1975 and location of at least two other crimes against children committed by Coffey. Note that although Judy was 22 years old, she was only 5 feet tall and weighed just 100 pounds. Note also that she had blue eyes - as did the Lyon Sisters.


------------------------------------------
Judy Ann Sylvester
Missing since January 24, 1977 from Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Classification: Endangered Missing

Vital Statistics
Date Of Birth: July 8 1954
Age at Time of Disappearance: 22 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'0", 100lbs
Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Brown hair; blue eyes.
Jewelry: Hand made necklace

Circumstances of Disappearance
Judy was last seen in 1977. She did not show up for work or pick up her paycheck from the restaurant she worked at in Virginia Beach.

Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Virginia Beach Police Department
757-427-8300

Agency Case Number: 2001006572

NCIC Number: M-071329422
Please refer to these numbers when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

Source Information:
NMCO
The Doe Network: Case File 684DFVA


LINK:
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/684dfva.html
 
Richard, fantastic job-as always. Everytime I hear of a case of this nature I can't help but think 'is this some of Freds work'. I believe Fred Coffey to be a serial killer possibly with numbers as high as Ted Bundy. He is suspect in numerous cases of the southeast. When he did that 12 yr. hitch in the Navy, he may have killed throuhout the US., & possibly Asia too. If we knew when & where he was stationed, it would help. I was told Fred had 3 vehicles, & no wonder, since some of these type killers drive 100K miles per year, riding around looking for victims. In my mind, Fred is suspect in all of these type cases commited between the early 60's & late 1986. I just hope LE checks some of the victims found with DNA left behind, against the DNA of Fred Coffey.
 
This is a Test. Once again the site is telling me I'm not logged in.
 
Hello, I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place for introductions, but I couldn't find an introductions thread, so here it is.

I've been reading over the threads relating to Sheila and Kate Lyon with much interest. I found this website after learning yesterday that a fictional novel, What the Dead Know, inspired by their disappearance has been published (and recommended on Salon.com as one of their recommended summer reading).

Like others here (how amazing, I wonder if I knew any of you then), I lived in Kensington in 1975 when the Lyon sisters went missing. In fact, I lived less then a quarter of a mile from them, on Glenway Drive, and went to Oakland Terrace Elementary School with Kate. She was a year older than me, so I didn't know her well, but I remember her. I have several vivid memories of her in the halls and at recess on the fields and playground. She was a very pretty girl with white-blonde hair. Very wholesome girl next door. I don't ever recall seeing or meeting her older sister.

Despite our close proximity, we did not run in the same neighborhood "pack" after school. I think this may be because a tributary of Rock Creek ran between our two parts of the neighborhood and our gang generally stayed on our side and their's on their side.

It has been very interesting to read other kid's reminicensces about the neighborhood at that time. And also interesting to consider possible adbuction strategies based on the character and layout of the neighborhood.

As a kid, I and all of my friends ran all over that area. It's not like today. My oldest son will be nine in September, and I would never dream of letting him run out of the house with a shout to be back by dinner time. Yet, that's what our parents did back then.

Some, perhaps trivial and even irrelevant, observations:

The neighborhood was very quiet. I've read many others here speculate that this would have made a car or van abduction along Drumm Avenue very difficult because neighbors would have noticed. I've thought a lot about this. First, although the neighborhood was quiet, we did not generally know people outside our immediate area. I, and my parents, had friends along Glenway Drive and Farragut Avenue and a few friends on the part of McComas that ran near our street. But, for instance, I only knew one boy who lived on the part of Drumm Avenue that intersected with McComas. I had only one friend on Jennings Drive. I vividly remember her because she was one of the only kids in my grade that had a swimming pool in her back yard and it was a big deal to get invited to her house. So, if I had been walking down Drumm Avenue in 1975, I don't think any of the people on that street, with the possible exception of the boy I mentioned, would have known me at all.

So, despite the fact that it was a quiet neighborhood, folks generally kept to themselves and their immediate neighbors.

And, it really was a quiet neighborhood in the sense that there weren't a lot of people outside most of the time. Mostly just kids playing. It's not like today when it is common to see people out jogging or walking with strollers. I never saw such things when I was a kid and roaming the neighborhood. Frankly, I think it would have been very easy to either lure or strong arm the girls into a car on Drumm Avenue and no one else be the wiser. It would just be a matter of timing and the opportunity would be there most of the time.

So, if you're ruling out the little boy's sighting of the girls on Drumm Avenue because of the quiet, close-knit character of the neighborhood, I'd rethink that.

Now, the point about how difficult it would be to follow the girls from Wheaton Plaza through the neighborhood is a much stronger one. It's been a long time since I was in the neighborhood (moved away in 78 and have been back only a few times) but I recall that the streets were quite winding and that the most common walking route to the Plaza involved cutting through several vacant lots or unpaved areas. In other words, if one was heading to Wheaton Plaza or Glenmont Pool, which was next to Wheaton Plaza, one would not walk only on streets. So, a car trying to follow the two girls out of the mall and on their way home, would have had trouble. To do it, I think the person would have had to be very familiar with the layout of the neighborhood and the path used by folks walking to the mall. In other words, someone who knew how the foot traffic went, could watch the girls leave the mall, zip around from University Blvd and into the neighborhood and then wait for them at a point along Drumm. This scenario needs the perpetrator to be very familiar with the neighborhood and how walkers get to the mall from it and also with the general direction the Lyon sisters would be moving in (in other words, where they lived in the neighborhood). This is because, if they had lived elsewhere in the neighborhood (say Jennings near Maybrook Avenue, for instance), they would not have headed down Drumm at all to get home.

This suggests that, if the girls were abducted while walking home, the perpetrator lived in the area and knew (or knew of) the girls at least somewhat, enough to know they lived over on Pliers Mill past the school. Other facts suggest the abductor knew the girls. The fact that he was able to get both of them in the car and without anyone noticing also suggests he was familiar to them.

The idea that the abductor was not a stranger to the neighborhood doesn't jive well with the Tape Recorder Man, though, as that man appears to have been a stranger to the Lyon family and didn't get recognized by neighborhood residents once the sketches were released. So, despite the oddity of his presence at Wheaton Plaza on that day, I wouldn't jump to a firm conclusion that he was involved. I agree that he might have been, but I wouldn't get wedded to the idea.

Also, there are (or were) several wooded areas between Wheaton Plaza and the Lyon home where an abduction could have taken place. I'm really glad this never occurred to me while I was a kid because I ran all around in those woods and the thought that the crime occurred there would have totally creeped me out and probably caused me to stay in my yard. But, I wonder now if they weren't grabbed in one of those areas.

First, where Drumm Avenue intersects with McComas, there used to be a nursing home (perhaps it's still there?) that had a lot of land around it and a pond. Then adjacent to that and backing up to Jennings was a large wooded area. Relying on my memory as a ten-year old, I'd say it was at least 5 or 6 acres. It was very overgrown, full of woods and fallen trees and a dry creek bed, I think. I walked on a path through these woods to Jennings every day on my way to and from school. If the girls cut through this path to Jennings as well, this would have been a great opportunity to grab them, and even kill them, without anyone seeing a thing. Now, obviously their bodies weren't ever found there. And, from mapquest it appears a subdivision now sits were the woods were, so I'm assuming if their bodies were there, they would have been found when the land was clear cut and graded. That means, if they were grabbed (and killed) in those woods, the perpetrator had to remove their bodies without being seen. That would have been a very tricky feat.

There is also a large wooded area around the creek between Glenway Drive and Pliers Mill. With the exception of a plant nursery on the part of Drumm Avenue that comes off of Pliers Mill, this area was undisturbed and fairly isolated. Kids played in here all the time. There was even a rope swing down by the creek that we all loved to go and swing on. It was a popular hang out for years. I'm sure, during my five years living there, I climbed and crawled all over every square inch of that area. I also don't think the Lyon sisters would have had need to go down in there to get home. I think their most direct route home would have had them walking Drumm to McComas then around the nursing home and through the vacant lot at the end of Glenway Drive and up the hill to where Drumm Avenue started up again and dumped them out on to Pliers Mill. Or dwon Drumm to McComas, around the nursing home and through the path in the woods to Jennings and then to Pliers Mill. Those are the only two ways I would have walked from Wheaton Plaza to Pliers Mill at that time, anyway.

That portion of Drumm coming off Pliers Mill was quite isolated in 1975. My friend Becky lived at the dead end of Drumm and a boy my age named Rusty lived at the nursery. That road had a very rural feel to it, despite the suburban surroundings. It wasn't residential at all. So, that might be another good point to grab the girls and get them in a car without anyone seeing.

I know I'm just rambling here. Reading everyone's posts has just brought a lot of it back to me. I remember when the girls went missing. How scared and upset everyone was. For we children, it was quite eery. Funny, though. It really wasn't the end of my innocence. After a few months, we were all back running around the neighborhood like a pack of wild dogs. We played capture the flag, explored old Mr. Boyd's mansion and grounds (now Kensington Heights Park) and walked to Glenmont pool or McDonald's on summer days. I can even remember leading expeditions with flashlights up the storm drains to Glenmont pool in six grade! (It seemed very cool at the time, but now I wonder what I was thinking! Yuck!)

I want to say that I admire the rigorous and intelligent way some of you here, especially Richard and Thrasher, keep turning over and examining every possible clue and connection. There's always a chance something, even something small and seemingly inconsequential, you uncover will help solve the mystery of the Lyon sisters' disappearance.

As I've read through all the analysis and comments here, I've found myself becoming increasingly frustrated. It's very hard to know that I was there at the time and can offer nothing really to help with this case. I am also amazed at how little about the case I actually knew at the time. I think my parents must have shielded me from the details. I knew the girls were walking home from Wheaton Plaza and had been seen by a boy along the way, but I don't recall ever hearing about the Tape Recorder Man at the time. This fact is quite shocking to me now for several reasons. First, what if I or my friends had seen or encountered TRM somewhere? As far as I can recall, no one ever asked any of us. And I don't remember discussing it with my friends. Second, what if he had continued "interviewing" children. I would have had no warning to stay away from him and report him to my mother. I also never heard about the 15-year old girl abducted and left for dead in July 1975. I only learned about her while reading this board.

Well, enough for now. I want to do some more reading and see if anything else occurs to me.

And, if any of the Lyon family ever reads these board, my heart is with you all. I have thought of you and your missing girls many, many times over the years. I know this sounds odd, but I feel a strong connection to you and to Kate and hope someday we can learn what happened to her and her sister.
 
Welcome Emery! Please keep posting. You lived there at the time, know the dynamics of the neighborhood, and that helps. Even though you didn't know the sisters well, you vividly remember Kate, and that helps make them more real, not just another missing person. Of course we all know they were/are real, but it is always interesting to hear from someone who knew them or just simply saw them in their everyday life.

I've posted that I saw the neighborhood two years ago, and I know what you mean about the winding streets. It was pretty quiet, and with alot of trees. Plyers Mill seemed to be more of a busy road. Was it less busy then?

Again, welcome!
 
I've posted that I saw the neighborhood two years ago, and I know what you mean about the winding streets. It was pretty quiet, and with alot of trees. Plyers Mill seemed to be more of a busy road. Was it less busy then?

Again, welcome!

Thanks for the welcome!

Even in 1975, Plyers Mill was a main artery between Connecticut and Georgia Avenues. I don't know how busy it is these days, but it was fairly heavily travelled then. For instance, we had patrols and a crossing guard on Plyers Mill to cross to get to the elementary school.

You know, what I remember about Kate is thinking that she was very pretty and confident. This may have just been a factor of her being a year older than me, but I admired her and was just a little intimidated by her. When she disappeared, I just couldn't believe it had happened to her. To my nine-year-old brain, she just seemed like someone to whom nothing bad would ever happen. Perhaps my first life lesson that bad things happen to good people.
 
Emery,

Thank you for your postings and insight to the area and the era.

You have done much to lend insight into what Kensington was like. I have visited the area several times, and in some ways, it is still the way you describe it. The "rural" area of Drumm Ave, however, is now the most heavily developed. There are many close town houses and appartments along the north side of the street today.

You are correct to say that perhaps the smallest thing could be that piece of the puzzle which solves this mystery. As you point out, there are many folks today who were children at the time, and who were never questioned. Yet, who better than the children who knew Kate and Sheila, to know their habits, friends, and their neighborhood?

You mention the wooded area as a potential abduction site. That was the first place that police focussed their search, along with every house, shed and yard between Wheaton Plaza and the Lyon house on Plyer's Mill Road. The search included use of specially trained tracking dogs.

I have personally trained and worked with such dogs, and feel that if there had been a physical attack or if the girls had been buried in that area, the dogs would have indicated very strongly. But I was not there and do not know the actual results of that effort. The news reports indicated that they did not find the girls, but that dogs had picked up some scent of the girls in the wooded area near Wheaton Plaza. This could have been a scent left by them when they walked TO the Plaza, however.

Were they abducted? Most likely, yes. By an acquaintence or a stranger? Hard to say. No acquaintences were ever developed as suspects, to my knowledge. Your observation that it would take someone familiar with the neighborhood to effect an abduction of two girls is well taken. It is one of the perplexing things about the case. Were they targeted well in advance? Or were they chosen on the 25th of March by a stranger who simply got very lucky in not being seen, and in intercepting the girls on those winding roads and foot paths? Perhaps the answer lies some where in between.
 
The "rural" area of Drumm Ave, however, is now the most heavily developed. There are many close town houses and appartments along the north side of the street today.

I'm not surprised. Even in 1975 it seemed like a little rural oasis that couldn't last, perhaps a glimpse at what the area might have been like in the early 1900s. I think the nursery might have had something to do with that. I'm sure that every bit of undeveloped land around there has houses now.
 
I meant to post this thought a long time ago and forgot. Years ago, we used to do a flea market on the roof of the public parking building at the corner of Monroe and Jefferson in Rockville. I don't recall if it was every Saturday or once a month. Anyway, things would get busy from maybe 10:00 AM to about 2:30 PM and then the customers would disappear. At first, I didn't know why but checked my watch and it was 3:00 PM by then. What seemed to be happening I noticed every Saturday was that people must have gone home to be there by 3:00 PM to fix dinner. It's made me wonder if maybe this might have happened about the time the girls started home from the mall so that there weren't too many people on the streets or was whoever took them able to intercept them in the parking lot of the mall away from the eyes of other people. I know it's been said a boy saw them on the street but I've wondered if he was mistaken or if he actually had seen them on the way to the mall rather than on the way home from the mall. It's mind boggling why someone didn't see something so I'm grabbing at straws for an explanation. Just a thought.
 
Actually, I believe March 25, 1975 was a Tuesday. The girls were on spring break that week. Since it was a normal workday for most everyone else, around 3pm is when the traffic and people being out would have increased. Of course being spring break more kids were home and also out and about. I wonder if TRM or whom ever did this realized there would be lots of kids hanging out at the mall that week.
 
Yes, March 25, 1975 was a Tuesday. The federial government closed at 3:00 PM, local government closed at 4:00 PM and private companies closed at 5:00 PM creating a staggered traffic pattern for the DC, VA, MD areas but there was still a lot of traffic congestion. Most people would be going home to get supper ready and possibly stopping in to pick something up from a grocery or mall quickly on the way. I think most people just wanted to get the heck home and out of the traffic and hustle and bustle of the work day and it would stand to reason...since this was a workday most people were at work. I'd really be curious as to what someone might tell us about the population attendance at the mall that day. I'm sure there were more shoppers that Easter week for the upcoming holday but is there a possibility they had thinned out or begun to thin out about the time the girls were leaving the mall?
 

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