Development in 1975 case of missing Maryland sisters

Sheila Lyon, 12, and Katherine Lyon, 10, disappeared on March 25, 1975 near the Wheaton Plaza in Montgomery County. The news conference was held in Wheaton, Maryland near where Sheila and Katherine Lyon vanished in 1975.

Sheila and Katherine Lyon.

A sex offender doing time in a Delaware prison was indicted Wednesday in the 40-year-old disappearance of two young sisters from a Maryland shopping mall.

His uncle, Richard Welch, was named a person of interest in October.

Authorities began searching a mountainside in Bedford County, about 200 miles from where the girls vanished, previous year for their remains. Their disappearance at the time resulted in one of the largest police investigation in Washington Metropolitan Area and is considered one of the most high-profile unsolved cases in that area.

The pair were allegedly murdered by Welch “during an abduction with the intent do defile”, Randy Krantz, Commonwealth attorney for Bedford County, Virginia, told reporters.

John McCarthy, the state’s attorney for Montgomery County, Maryland, doted over the young girls who lost their lives far too early at the hands of a child predator. Witnesses also confirmed that he was at the same mall as the girl’s on the day they went missing and was seen paying close attention to them.

They say evidence shows the girls were murdered in Virginia, but their bodies have never been found. They believe there may be more victims who have never come forward, and are investigating whether he may have committed other sexual offenses against children during his travels. Richard Allen Welch, Sr., who was a security guard at the shopping center is thought to own or once owned property where the authorities are digging today. He said they now have not decided if they will be seeking the death penalty. During a press conference in Wheaton, Maryland, where the girls disappeared, law enforcement announced charges against Welch. Welch said he saw the sisters get into a auto with a man. Welch spoke to police and failed a polygraph test, according to the affidavit, but investigators did not pursue him further as a suspect.

According to court documents reviewed by the Washington Post, the cold case breakthrough came two years ago when authorities determined Welch matched the description given by a friend of the sisters of a long-haired man seen staring at the girls. In December, Richard Welch’s wife, Patricia was charged with perjury after testifying in front of the grand jury.

The Post also reported that Welch asked a relative in rural Virginia to wash bloody clothes that he was carrying in a duffel bag, according to a search warrant affidavit.

Welch is now serving time in a Delaware prison for a sex crime for which he pleaded guilty in 1998. Welch told the relative that the blood was from raw hamburger, but investigators believe that it could link him to the Lyon sisters’ presumed deaths, The Post reported, citing the affidavit.

Officials stressed Wednesday that the investigation remains active and more charges are possible.