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Amazing break in the case - it is huge news here in the DC area. My friends have been calling me tonight since they know I've been following the case so closely. I've learned so much from these threads and appreciate all of the hours people have put in here trying to crack this case. Let's hope new information comes to light as a result of the suspect's name being released tomorrow. I hope their parents can finally get answers after all of these years. It will be interesting to know if any of our potential suspects on these threads are the suspect they are pointing at tomorrow. Here is a brief snippet from the local news:

http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/246854...sappearance-of-the-lyon-sisters#axzz2sy27qy63
 
There is a 12 or 12:15 press conference tomorrow has anyone heard where this will be aired? It has to be aired, right?
 
Door to Door search in Kensington March 1975

There have been a number of questions regarding the search conducted by Montgomery County Police (MCP) in Kensington following the disappearance of Sheila and Katherine Lyon on 25 March 1975. Some have asked how thorough the search was, and how it was conducted. Also there have been questions about the search of ponds, pools, streams, etc.

Hopefully this will help describe what was being done and reported immediately after the girls' disappearance.

-----------------------------------------

What follows is a portion of a Washington Star Article dated 28 March 1975 titled "Still No Trace of 2 Sisters" by Jacqueline Bolder and Brad Holt:

Quote:

Hundreds of interviews, and intensive neighborhood search and dogged evaluation of countless telephone tips by Montgomery County police have turned up no trace of Sheila Lyon, 12, and her sister Katherine, 10, missing since Tuesday night from their Kensington home....

... Today, county police planned to retrace some of the areas they already had searched and were to check on all storm drains and trash dumpsters throughout the Wheaton area. ... they also have been checking out all vacant cars and houses. ...

... At 9 a.m. yesterday (27 March) almost 100 county police and cadets again began scouring the neighborhood near the Lyon family home and the Wheaton Plaza complex.

Many off duty officers joined the searchers. One said he was there because "it could have been my children."

While the men searched on foot, three scuba divers, members of the police tactical squad, plumbed the depths of several ponds, streams, and sewers in the area. At the Kensington Garden Nursing Home on McComas Avenue, a 6-foot-deep pond yielded only a bicycle wheel.

Meanwhile, a 15-man detail spent the day continuing a door-to-door canvass of neighborhood residents.

With a short explanation, then a show of his badge and the pictures of the missing girls, each officer asked, "Have you seen either of these girls?"

One woman, Mrs. T. L. Sedgwick, answered, "No, I'm sorry. I haven't. I've heard and read a lot about it and I'm very sorry for the parents,. I hope you find them okay. If I see them or hear anything about them, should I call you?"

The officer answered, "Yes. Please do. Anything will help. Thank you."

Mrs. Sedgwick's name and address were logged by the officer, who then went on to the next house.

"One man alone today interviewed 36 people," said Lt. Rudolph Werner of the juvenile dividion, " and that"s 36 that he wrote about. The other guys haven't turned in their notes yet, so we really don't know how many people we've talked to. But it's easily in the hundreds."

"We still know about as much now as we did when the report first came in Tuesday night," one officer said.

But there are incessant phone tips to check (police have received calls about the girls being sighted anywhere from Alexandria to all parts of Maryland) and each call must be carefully checked.

"It's true," said one juvenile division officer, "that sometimes kids wander off and then don't want to come back because they're afraid of being punished, but we have no reason to believe that this is the case."

The officer said that the kidnapping of two children is rare. "It's usually one," he said. "But you just don't know. Maybe if two are together, they have a false sense of courage and do something they wouldn't normally do." Unquote.
 
-------------------------


A Chronological listing of Washington Post stories (1975 - 1980) on the Missing Lyon Sisters, Sheila and Katherine.

Here is a list of some Articles which appeared in the Washington Post following the disappearance of the Lyon Sisters. These are available on microfilm and (for a price) on line. Section, page number and column listed (example: C1-6).

Note that back in 1975, there were three editions of the Post, and sometimes a story would appear in one but not the others if the story broke later in the day. Sometimes newer information was added in later editions.

Other area and local newspapers also carried stories, most notably the Washington Star which went out of business in 1982. Their stories are also available on microfilm.

------------------------------------------

All of the following articles appeared in the Washington Post:

27 March 1975 (Thursday). B2-1 Missing Girls (photos of girls and caption only)

29 March 1975. B2-1 Police Press Search for Missing Girls (photos of girtls) - by Deborah Sue Yaeger

31 March 1975 (Monday). C1-6 Missing Girls' Family Draws Sympathy - by Alice Bonner

1 April 1975. C1 Police Seek Man Seen Talking to Two Lyon Sisters (TRM sketch 1) - by Elizabeth Beeker

2 April 1975. A1-1 Man in Lyon Search Seen by Others (TRM sketch 1 and photo of tracking dogs) - by Deborah Sue Yaeger

3 April 1975. D9-1 Police Call Off Dogs in Lyon Girls Hunt (photo of John and Mary Lyon) - by Deborah Sue Yaeger

4 April 1975 (Friday). A16 2nd Sketch Released In Disappearance of 2 Lyon Sisters (TRM Sketch 2) - By Deborah Sue Yaeger and Donald P. Baker

5 April 1975 B1-3 Telephone Rules Life of Lyon Parents - Hundreds of Callers Concerned About Two Missing Girls - By Donald P. Baker

6 April 1975 B1-6 Hunt for 2 Girls Still "Wide Open"

8 April 1975 A1 Lyon Sisters Possibly Seen in Auto - by Donald P. Baker

9 April 1975 (Wednesday) A16-4 No New Solid Leads Seen in Lyon Search

10 April 1975 C2-4 Police Widen Search for 2 Md. Girls

11 April 1975 A1-5 Desperate Hunt: Hundreds Involved in Lyon Case - by Donald P. Baker (Photos of girls)

16 April 1975 (Wednesday) C3 Extortion Try Made in Lyon Case

17 April 1975 (Thursday) C1-6 Police Give New Data on Lyon Sisters - by Alice Bonner (this is when it was reported that two boys had seen them near Drumm and Devin) Article continues on page C2-1; Later Report Made on 2 Missing Girls (photos of both girls and TRM sketch 2).

24 April 1975 A1-1 Vigil for Lyon Girls Distresses Family - by Donald P. Baker (snapshot photo of both girls together). This was on the eve of the one month anniversary of their disappearance.

23 May 1975 B1-1 Md. Guardsmen to Join Hunt for Lyon Sisters - by Deborah Sue Yaeger

25 May 1975 (Sunday) B1-8 Search Yields No Trace of Lyon Sisters - by Douglas B. Feaver (photo of National Guardsmen and Vehicles on dirt road) This was on the two month anniversary of the girls disappearance.

25 March 1976 (Thursday) A1 Year for Lyon Family: Despair, Bad Dreams - by Donald P. Baker. (photo of Mary and John Lyon and a photo of detectives) The One year Anniversary article.

5 September 1978 (Tuesday) A5-1 Disappearance of Lyon Sisters From Wheaton Still Probed.

25 March 1980 A1-1 The Missing Lyon Sisters: Not a Trace in Five Years - by Donald P. Baker (photos of girls on A12) Five Year Anniversary article.
 
Lyons Case Still Unsolved

Washington Post Article
21 Sept 1987 Page D-6
By Paul Duggan

A dozen years after the investigation opened, the missing persons case file on Katherine and Sheila Lyon has grown to fill three boxes the size of orange crates at Montgomery County's Wheaton police station.

They sit in a storage area, lately untouched.

"You get to a point where there's not much left to pursue," said Sgt. Gary Smith, a supervisor of the detective squad in charge of what has become Montgomery's most noted unsolved case.

The girls, daughters of WMAL radio disc jockey John Lyon, were walking home to Kensington from Wheaton Plaza when they disappeared on March 25, 1975.

Sheila was 12, Katherine, 10.

"Leads and leads have been checked," said Smith. "They've been checked and double-checked and rechecked." Only one still shows any promise, he said. Fred Howard Coffey Jr., a convicted child molester, who is also suspected in a slaying, is known to have been in Montgomery at about the time of the disappearance. He is awaiting trial in Charlotte, N.C., in the slaying of a 10-year-old girl. Montgomery detectives have been eager to speak with him for some time.

Coffey, though, has chosen to remain silent.

"As his case moves along down there, we're hoping something happens to change his mind," said Smith. Thus far, he said, detectives here have been unable to link Coffey to the Lyon girls.

We're in a holding pattern," he said.
 
Another Article on the Search Dogs...

The Washington Star Newspaper printed a long article on Tuesday, 2 April 1975, the day after the story and sketch of the Tape Recorder Man (TRM)
was first released.

The article, which started on Page A-1, was titled "Lyon Case Suspect Approached Other Girls" and went into the other sightings of TRM in detail.

It continued on Page A-3, and midway through that portion of the article, it talked about the Tracking Dogs used in the search for the girls. Here is what it said:

-----------------------------

... (MCP Chief of Juvenile Section) LAMASTRA said the dogs brought into the search yesterday (Monday, 1 April 1975), owned and trained by Tom McGuinn of Philadelphia, are known throughout hte country. He said he tried to involve McGuinn last Friday (28 March) but he and the dogs were elsewhere in the country on an investigation.

McGuinn said he works frequently with the FBI. He said he spent several months tracking Patricia Hearst, the newspaper heiress who allegedly changed from a kidnap victim to a member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA).

One of the dogs used in yesterday's hunt was wounded last May during the hour-long shootout between the SLA and the FBI which left five SLA members dead, McGuinn said.

Yesterday, the dogs led searchers to a storm drain gully behind the Wheaton Plaza parking lot and next to the Kenmont Swimming and Tennis Club. The gully is not on the girls' path home but, police speculated, could have been somewhere the girls dallied to play. There was no indication, however, of when the girls might have been there last week, or why they were there.

The dogs, after losing the scent they were pursuing in the gully, were returned to the front of the club, where they then tracked the girls' path between their home and the plaza (Wheaton Plaza Shopping Center).

Lamastra said that as a result of yeaterday's search, he feels certain the girls are nowhere in the partially wooded section between the girls' home and Wheaton Plaza. Little else could be deduced from the search, however, he said.

He said the dogs will search again today, but he declined to say exactly where. (see a previous posting this thread for the next day's report on the dogs in the Washington Star).

The dogs are German-bred, and were trained for two years before being sent out on searches, McGuinn said. Asked why the dogs were better than tracking dogs owned by the police, McGuinn, said, "These do it every day."

McGuinn said he charges $3,000 a day for his services but he reportedly is charging WMAL between $100 and $200 a day. ...
 
Here is a Washington Post article from 1999 when Haden Clark went on trial for the murder of little Michele Dorr.

------------------------------------------

Trial Starts in Disappearance of Montgomery Girl

By Katherine Shaver
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 27, 1999; Page B1

When Hadden Clark goes on trial today in Montgomery County in the 1986 disappearance and presumed murder of 6-year-old Michele Dorr, two fathers will be watching and listening with particular interest.

Still stunned after 13 years, Carl Dorr says he cannot truly believe his little girl is dead until he hears the details, no matter how grisly, for himself.

Sitting beside him, as he has through almost every court hearing over the past year, will be John Lyon, another Montgomery father who knows the pain parents feel when their children vanish.

On a spring afternoon in 1975, Lyon's daughters, 10-year-old Katherine and 12-year-old Sheila, left their Kensington home for a half-mile walk to Wheaton Plaza and were never seen again. No one has been arrested in the case.

(modsnip)

More at below link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/sept99/dorr27.htm
 
Lloyd Lee Welch Article 19 February 2014

DOVER, Del. — Investigators in the high-profile disappearance of two Maryland sisters in 1975 are focusing on a Delaware inmate convicted of sexually assaulting a girl of a similar age in the 1990s.

Lloyd Lee Welch, 57, was declared a "person of interest" in the disappearance of Sheila Lyon, 13, and her 11-year-old sister, Katherine, from the Westfield Wheaton shopping mall in Wheaton, Md., shopping mall, authorities in Maryland said last week.

(modsnip)


Maryland authorities have said Welch was arrested in several states and charged with sexual offenses against young girls. They believe there are some who may have not come forward.

"We understand we're asking people to think back several decades to remember details they may not think matter. However, the information you provide could be vital in our search for evidence, and put to rest difficult questions for the Lyon family and for any other victims who may exist," Steve Vogt, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Maryland, said in a statement last week.

LINK:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ryland-sisters-delaware-sex-offender/5601455/
 
They are searching and area in Bedford County, VA today. http://www.wdbj7.com/news/local/lyn...n-taking-place-on-taylors-mountain-r/28083490

One local reporter says "A woman tells me the search involves the 1975 disapperance of the Lyon sisters from MD. Lloyd Welch is a person of interest. She tells me investigators told her they believe her uncles might have been involved with Welch. One uncle owned property in the search area." https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=686407724775281&id=376192645796792
 
Get It Right!!!

That is what TV news reporter Frank Reynolds shouted at his news staff (on air) in 1981 when they were handing him conflicting reports that President Reagan was still allive and that he had died following the assassination attempt by John Hinckly.

In the following article, the editors wanted to make it clear that the bodies of the Lyon sisters had NOT been found as erroneously reported earlier...


----------------------

By: Ashlie Walter and Eleanor Roy newsadvance.com

UPDATE 17 Sept 2014, 5:15 p.m.:

Authorities said at a news conference this afternoon they are closing in on people who they believe are responsible for the disappearance of two Maryland sisters in 1975. Katherine and Sheila Lyon, 10 and 12 respectively, disappeared March 25, 1975 in Wheaton, Maryland.

Montgomery County, Maryland, Captain Darren Francke declined to say what led investigators to Bedford County or what the six-day search has turned up.

However, he said authorities are "zeroing in" on people they believe are responsible for the "abduction and murder," of the Lyon sisters.

Their bodies have not been found at this point.

"We know who was responsible — each and every one of them," Bedford Commonweath's Attorney Randy Krantz said.

Authorities at the news conference confirmed family members of Lloyd Lee Welch, the 57-year-old named a person of interest in the case, also are under investigation.
No arrests have been made at this time.

Francke would not confirm how many of Welch's relatives this included or where they live.
The investigation is expected to take several more days.

"We are getting to the point we need to be at in order to hold people accountable," Francke said. ... more at link below...

LINK:

http://www.newsadvance.com/news/loc...cle_a62c3a88-3de2-11e4-b222-001a4bcf6878.html
 
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