Who Kidnapped The Lyon Sisters?

February 5, 2024

In this episode, Payton dives into the case of two sisters who disappeared after a day at the mall. The case seemed to go cold until the unthinkable happened.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

Listen on spotify

No items found.

Case Sources

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murderwith My Husband. I'm Payton Morland, and I'm Garrett Morland. And he's thehusband. I'm the husband.

Here we are, we're back, another week, another Murder withMy Husband episode. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who listens andsupports us. We really appreciate it. We know there's a lot of true crimecontent out there, so we appreciate you guys tuning in every week andsupporting us—listening, watching, however you're doing it. And again, thankyou. We appreciate it all.

Alright, let's skippity do da all the announcements wenormally do and just go right into your ten seconds today.

Well, I guess my ten seconds is going to kind of be abouttrue crime this week. Payton and I have been talking about—well, Payton'sreally listening for the millionth time to "Serial" again, and we'vebeen talking about that case. Interesting. I know he's out of prison. He hasn'tbeen exonerated or anything. I don't know what's going to end up happening withhim. I'm just kind of keeping up on the bits and pieces that Payton is tellingme. It's just always so interesting when there was a case that—and maybe thisisn't a good example—but half of the people think he did it and the other halfdidn't think he did it. It's interesting to see the evidence, to see whatdifferent people believe. I don't know what I think. Again, Payton's beentelling me bits and pieces. Just thought I'd bring that up because I don'tknow, I couldn't do it. I don't think I can make that decision, and that's apretty big one.

Well, these are the kind of things we actually talk about onour Twitch streams, and I think we're going to be talking about this one on thenext stream. But yeah, definitely. Garrett's never even listened to"Serial," obviously. You I talk about it, and I've listened to it alot, so he knows a little bit about the case. But this, you know, this one'sjust so... there's so many pieces to it. So I am excited to kind of dive intoit. We started talking about it earlier, and Garrett was like, "Wait,let's save this for the stream." So I'm kind of excited for that because Iknow I talk about how much I hate true crime and blah, blah, blah. Butsomething I find very interesting is solving a cold case. I don't know why, butI find that interesting. I think it's because I like the detective part of truecrime. I don't like everything else that comes with it, but the detective andre and figuring out like what has happened, where's the evidence, what's goingon, where isn't the evidence, who's corrupt, who's not corrupt. I find thatinteresting. Find that intriguing. You like nonviolent true crime, I think.Correct. Well, like might be a stretch, but say I'm watching a documentaryabout a really gruesome murder. You won't be in the room with me. But if I'mwatching a, watched one, "American Nightmare," yeah, say"American Nightmare." There's, you know, nothing super gruesome aboutthat. You watched it with, yeah, I was definitely into it more because I wastrying to figure out what's happening, yeah, what's all the commotion, what isgoing on. I will say although though you still won't sit down and put on like atrue crime show or anything. Never. You’ll catch me dead before that happens.You've become more interested in the nuances of true crime, like you just said.As far as you know, maybe even solving a cold case like that. That's actuallycool, you know, yeah, 100%.

All right, should we get into the episode? Let's do it. Oursources for this episode are "The Last Stone" by Mark Bowden,"Who Killed the Lyon Sisters" on Investigation Discovery, CNN.com,CharleyProject.org, WashingtonPost.com, InsideNova.com, and Medium.com.

Trigger warning: This episode includes discussions of sexualassault and child abuse, so please listen with care.

And I find this a little bit interesting because ofGarrett's ten seconds. I never know what Garrett's going to say for his tenseconds. I'm always taken, you know, by surprise. So let me just start off thisepisode with some cases run cold for a good reason, okay? It's like we're onthe same wavelength. That's crazy. There's simply not enough evidence, maybe,or all leads have dried up. No concrete eyewitness testimony. No matter whatthe situation is though, the longer a case is put on ice, so to speak, the lesslikely it is to be reopened and the chance of a new detective taking a look ispretty slim to none. Unless your name is Detective Chris Homrock. In 2013, hewas taking a second look at a 40-year-old cold case regarding two missing girlsnamed Sheila and Kate Lyon. But then one night, by some miracle that he can'teven explain, a file mysteriously appeared on his desk after he returned from abathroom break. It was an old testimony from one witness that was neverproperly followed through on. How does that happen? How does it just randomlyappear on his desk? No explanation. You see it happen in the movies and youwould assume this would never happen in person or in real life, but it justdid. So when he tracked down the teenager who made the statement back in 1975,it opened a giant can of worms leading to an entirely new investigation, onethat was more twisted, confusing, and frustrating than anything DetectiveHomrock had ever dealt with before. So that is what we are talking about today.

So, for today's case, we're traveling back, back to 1975, toa little suburban town about a half hour north of Washington, D.C., known asKensington, Maryland. At the time, about 50,000 people called the Kensingtonarea home, many of them middle to upper-class citizens. It was a place whereyou felt safe if your kids rode their bikes to the neighbors, if they stayedout until the streetlights came on, even if they forgot to mention that they'dbe having dinner at a friend's house. Kensington in 1975 felt like it existedinside its own little protective bubble. But I will say, I feel like a lot ofsuburban areas felt this way in the '70s. But for Kensington, it felt that wayuntil March of that year when the bubble finally burst and the people ofKensington saw the horrors the real world had to offer.

So inside that Pleasantville-like illusion lived John andMary Lyon. John was fairly well-known for being a local radio DJ, while Maryhappily took on the role of a full-time mom to their kids. It was four kids:15-year-old Jay, 9-year-old Joe, 12-year-old Sheila, and 10-year-old Kate.

They were always well-behaved, polite, and obedient.Together, they made the perfect little Norman Rockwell-style family. Sheila hadthis bright blonde hair that she often wore in low-hanging pigtails. Herwire-rimmed glasses made her all the more identifiable. She was the quieter ofthe two sisters, the one who preferred to stay in and read or to just help hermom cook. But now that she was in seventh grade, she was seeing the merits ofhaving a social life. She had begun experimenting with makeup and had plans totry out for the cheerleading squad. Her younger sister, Kate, on the otherhand, was more of a tomboy with a shorter, even blonder head of hair andfreckles that peppered her nose and cheeks. Kate was the more athletic,outgoing, and daring one of the two sisters. In fact, she'd just talked herparents into getting her ears pierced for the very first time.

But the girls never gave Jay or Mary a reason to doubt theirgood behavior. They stayed on top of their grades. They never lied to theirparents about where they were going or who they were with. They were alwayshome by curfew. An unwavering trust had been built between the sisters andtheir parents, particularly because they always looked out for one another. AndSheila and Kate did almost everything together. They were the best of friends.

So on March 25th, 1975, all of the Lyon children were offfrom school for Easter break. That month had been a rough one when it came toweather. The area had actually suffered two different snowfalls. But thatafternoon, the climate was finally showing signs of spring. It was warm, thesun was out, and Sheila and Kate wanted to be outdoors. So they asked theirmom, Mary, if they could take a walk over to the Wheaton Plaza mall.

Now, you have to remember how much of a social nucleus amall was back in the day. It was a place to see and be seen, particularly ifyou were a teenager. So this was kind of a rite of passage for the two girls toget to go off to the mall by themselves. Not to mention, the walk was easy forthem. It would only take about 20 minutes by foot from their house. That'sextremely close. So Mary said okay. The two girls could go alone under onecondition: be home by 4:00 p.m. to help with dinner. And the girls are like,easy.

At around 11:00 a.m., the girls took off for the outdoorshopping center with about $2 in their pocket. This was more than enough at thetime for them to both get a slice of pizza in the food court, which was about50 cents at the time. So in fact, Jay actually spots his sisters from adistance around 2 p.m. that afternoon at the mall. But he doesn't say anythingto them because he doesn't want to ruin their little adventure. And you know,this is probably older, hanging with the older kids, letting them have fun too.

Now back at the Lyon's house, 4:00 p.m. rolls around, onlySheila and Kate aren't home yet. Even Jay makes it back in time for dinner,saying he saw his sisters at the mall a few hours ago. They probably just losttrack of time. But when it starts getting dark, the Lyons start to panic. Theystart calling around to their friends' houses, thinking, did the girls end upsomewhere for a sleepover and just forget to call? When that doesn't pan out, Maryand John hop in their car and begin driving around the area searching for theirtwo daughters themselves. But a few hours later, with still no sign of Kate orSheila, their parents know it's time to go to the police. And by the followingday, the hunt for Sheila and Kate Lyon begins in earnest.

I mean, I know it's always someone, but there's so many kidsat the mall, right, and so many people. So I know you always think, what arethe chances it's going to happen to me, and that's horrible.

So it certainly helps that John is a radio personalitybecause the case gets a lot more attention than it might have otherwise. And inthe first three days of their disappearance, police received more than 300 tipsfrom people claiming to have seen the girls at the mall before they vanished.On top of this giant stack of leads, police are also combing every square inchof the Kensington area, from the woods to storm sewers to vacant houses in thearea. But nothing pans out. That was until April 7th when investigators gettheir first real lead in the case.

And I mean, it's devastating whenever we're talking about amissing kids' case, and the next phase of the investigation is three dayslater. Yeah, it's like, whoa, we already passed 48 hours, which were a crucialtime period. Yeah, I was going to say that you said in the first three days,and I was thinking, freak, yeah.

So on April 7th, a witness calling from Nassau, Virginia,about a 50-minute drive from Kensington, says that that morning at around 7:30a.m., he saw something disturbing. A beige 1968 Ford station wagon withMaryland plates was stopped at a light in front of his car, and in the backseat, there appeared to be two little girls fitting Kate and Sheila'sdescription, bound and gagged. The caller had jotted down the license platenumber but couldn't get the last two digits because as soon as the car in frontof him saw that he'd taken notice of the girls, they bolted through the redlight at full speed.

Okay, so they just took off. The police go to their systemand run the digits they have, only they can't seem to find a match without thefull plates. However, there's a few other tips on potential suspects coming in,and police take notice when they start to repeat a pattern. For example,several of the callers claimed to see a young man about 140 pounds, 5'10"or 11" following the girls through the mall that day. So several peoplenoticed this man. Okay, they said he was a teenager, maybe early 20s at most,because he had acne scars around his cheeks. One eyewitness said a personfitting this description was waiting and watching the girls through his storewindow. It seemed like he was ready to pounce once they came out.

Is it interesting to you that people always say this aftersomething bad has happened? Like, oh yeah, actually, I did see him, and he waskind of creepy and looked like a stalker. But in that moment, apparently notcreepy enough because no one said anything or did anything, you know what I'msaying? It's probably pretty common actually to subconsciously notice someoneand be like, that guy's a little creepy. But then once you hear two girls wentmissing, you're like, okay, that guy was definitely creepy, you know? Youprobably put two and two together in your head, I'm assuming. Yeah, I can seethat.

Then there's a second suspicious character that wasrepeatedly identified at Wheaton Plaza that day. It was an older gray-hairedman carrying a tape recorder who kept stopping kids to interview them. Now,this description happened to fit one man who'd been on the police's radarbefore, and his name was Ry Meski. Now, Ray had lived only a block or two awayfrom the Lyon's Residence at the time of their disappearance, so chances werehe'd definitely seen the girls around before. He had charges on his record forpetty crime and pedophilia. There were also rumors that Ray had been a part ofa child sex ring and was known to scout for victims down at the Wheaton PlazaMall. Plus, he'd inserted himself into the investigation twice after the girlsdisappeared. Once, he called to suggest to police that they grant the kidnapperimmunity if he brings the children home safely, and then he offered his owndescription of the person he allegedly saw the girls leave the mall with thatday.

So police did their best to look into Ry as a primary Personof Interest, going as far as to excavate his backyard in 1982. Oh, jeez, thiswas after he murdered his wife and son and was sent to prison. So Ray goes on.I know I just dropped a bomb. Wait, wait, wait, say that again. So Ray's asuspect in this case, but as we know, this case is going to grow cold, right?And then after the girls go missing, long after, he murders his wife and son,on a completely unrelated... So they just happen to find the guy that murderedhis wife and son through another case that he wasn't even related to. No, no,it's a completely unrelated case. They catch him for murdering his wife and sonyears later, and then they're like, well, he was a suspect in this girl's case,so maybe we excavate his backyard and see if we can find anything. I see, Isee, I see. Yeah, you following me now? I'm following you now. But he's not inprison. He isn't. I mean, he's in prison, obviously. Yes, so okay, so hedoesn't live there. I see what you're saying now. Got it. But there was neverenough evidence aside from him fitting the vague description of the taperecorder man, so the Ray Meski lead fell between the cracks over the years, asdid all the others.

I mean, what are the chances that he murdered... I guesshigh chances that he murdered his family and also murders another girl or acouple of girls before while... and you know he was at the mall that day, yeah.But I mean, it's just... it's really sad. Two sisters go missing, basically inbroad daylight from the mall, and no one has any idea. The case can go coldthat fast, yeah, with no bodies, no more leads, and absolutely no concreteevidence to point detectives even in the right direction. The Lyon sisters'case hit a wall. It was passed down through several generations ofinvestigators, all of whom would open the case file, take one look at it, andrealize there were just no more blocks left to build with. And it continuedthis way until 2013, when that Detective Chris Homrock took over those files.But unlike those before him, he couldn't put this case back in the freezer.Something about this abduction haunted him. It kept him from sleeping at night. Particularly the feelingthat police had to have missed something back in 1975, and maybe when it cameto their best potential suspect who would go on to murder his wife and son, RayMeski.

So Chris did everything he could to revisit the Meski leadyears later, but it wasn't going to be easy considering that Ray had died threeyears earlier in 2010. So he's still pretty confident that it's Ray. He's like,"I feel like this is the best thing we have to go on." And I mean, ifthe guy lives two miles from them and then goes on to murder his own wife andson, it's kind of like, "Well, I feel in cases that are a little up anddown and a little iffy, it's always the person that isn't the obvious answer."

Oh, so you're saying not Ray?

I don't think so. It seems like in a case that we do whereit's black and white, I mean open and shut, like this guy did this, he wascaught on camera, this, of course, but in cases where they're not 100% sure, itseems like evidence is everywhere. They don't have anything, everything's upand down. It's always the person that they're not looking at, right? If youknow what I'm saying. I do.

So as Chris is going through the evidence, he realizes thatthere were a lot of stones left unturned when it came time to kind of digthrough this evidence. For example, Chris learned that Ray had purchased landin Lancaster County, Virginia before Sheila and Kate disappeared. So Chrisdecides now years later with Ray dead to go out there, and he spent weeksliving in a motel while he oversaw a dig on the property, thinking he mightuncover the girls' remains. But there was nothing. Chris then revisited the oldMeski house, combing every inch, even tearing through the concrete in thebasement, thinking it might lead to something. But then eventually, Chris alsohit a wall.

One night in the summer of 2013, Chris realized it wasprobably time to pack the case up like so many detectives before him. He feltlike he had failed the Lyon family. But by this point, he'd pulled at everysingle thread he could think of. It was late in the evening when Chris took atrip to the bathroom to splash some water on his face. While working on thiscase, he then went back to his desk, prepared to put those case files in theirboxes one final time. That was when he spotted something on top of his folders:an eyewitness report from 1975 that he didn't remember seeing before. It was asix-page transcript dated April 1st, 1975, from an 18-year-old kid named LloydLee Welch. Chris was baffled by how this ended up here on top of his stack offiles and how he'd missed this statement after scrutinizing them tirelesslyover the last few years. I mean, this guy has moved and tried to dig upproperty after property, okay? Yeah, I don't know how that happens, meant tobe, but how it got there was nowhere near as important as what was inside. Thewitness claimed he saw the two girls leaving the mall with an older man who fitthe exact description of that tape recorder man. But Lloyd's account includedanother critical detail, one the others didn't have: he mentioned that the taperecorder man walked with a limp. And guess who also walked with a limp?

Ray. Ray Meski. Oh man, I might be wrong, okay? Who was Ray?Ray had been shot in the leg when he was robbing someone's home years beforethe Lyon case, which is why he had a limp. So now, Chris is certain the taperecorder man and Ray Meski have to be the same guy; like this is just nowalmost concrete, yeah?

But here's the thing: back in 1975 when Lloyd Lee Welch gavethat statement, police dismissed it outright for a few reasons. One was Lloydwaited a few days to report what he saw. It wasn't until the Lyon familyoffered a reward that he finally came forward with this information. I don'tthink that's a huge red flag to me because I think a lot of people just,"I don't want to get involved; I want to stay out of it." So yeah,the second one also isn't a huge red flag to me: he agreed to take a polygraphtest and failed it. Then he admitted to the police it was all a lie; he wasjust going off the information that he had seen on TV. All, well, that part isa red flag. Yeah, that's a big red flag.

So, police actually could have arrested Lloyd right there,but being he was still a teenager, they let him go and dismissed his statementas bogus. But now, in 2013, Chris was looking at this file and going,"Wait a second, this person could be the key to identifying Ray once andfor all. Let's see if Lloyd Lee Welch is still around." And it turns outhe was. How weird would that be? You're not contacted for something, and then40 years later, a detective shows up at your door. I feel like in a lot of theseries podcasts that I listen to, this happens often, okay? Where they weresomehow in the first couple of days after the investigation, saw something, andthen no one ever talked to them again until this journalist comes out ofnowhere and is like, "Hey, I'm researching this case."

So, at this time, Lloyd was now in his mid-50s, serving timein a Delaware prison for child molestation charges, and he was coming to theend of his 33-year sentence, which meant he'd soon be up for parole. Whichmeant, if Chris and his team wanted to speak with Lloyd, they should probablyneed to work fast; like it's safer with their witness in prison, yeah?

So, a little background on Lloyd: he had a rough upbringingin Hyattsville, Maryland, about a half-hour drive from Kensington. He grew upin a home with a physically and emotionally abusive father. He dropped out ofschool in seventh grade, and before he turned 18, had left home to fend forhimself. In the '70s, he met a 16-year-old girl named Helen, who he traveledaround the East Coast with, working odd jobs while getting into trouble withdrugs and the law. Since the time he'd filed that report with police back in1975, he'd acquired a long rap sheet, including everything from sexual assaultto battery to grand larceny.

So when Chris Homrock first met with Lloyd on October 16th,2013, he was coming in with a theory: if Lloyd did see something back in 1975and happened to just go to the police after the family announced a reward,maybe he wasn't an innocent bystander in the whole thing. Maybe he knew Ray andwas even working with him in some capacity. It was possible that Ray wasgrooming young men around Lloyd's age at that time to lure his victims for him.I mean, he was in prison for child molestation too. And this was a rumor aboutRay grooming young men to help him get his victims, this had been circulatingsince Ray was first pegged as a potential suspect. I mean, he killed his wifeand son, so yeah.

Now, Chris wasn't alone when he first sat down with theincarcerated Lloyd in 2013. He was joined by fellow Montgomery County detectiveDave Davis for the perfect good cop-bad cop matchup. Immediately upon enteringthe interrogation room, Lloyd shows he's a step ahead of them. He says, "Iknow why you're here. It's about those two missing kids, isn't it?"

So, after reading Lloyd his rights, they get to talking. Andwhat Lloyd says is this: back in 1975, he was at a liquor store when he saw aman put two girls in the back of his black Plymouth and drive away. That's whenthey whip out a photo of Ray Meski, and Lloyd nearly jumps out of his chair,screaming, "Yeah, that's the guy, that one right there!"

But the circumstances sound a little different from thatoriginal statement he gave, right? There's no mall, no tape recorder, no man,no limp. So Chris thinks, "Okay, this is a little weird." So he saysto Lloyd, "Originally, you said you were at the Wheaton Plaza Mall."But Lloyd insists, "No, no, no, I'd never been there." So they pullout his original 1975 statement, and Lloyd is a deer in the headlights, clearlycaught in a lie. What will be the first of hundreds over the course of thisinvestigation, by the way. Oh, so this doesn't sound like it would be fun fordetectives. Just lie after lie, trying to sift through what's the truth. Thatsucks.

So still, Lloyd decides to keep up the charade. He says hedoesn't even remember going to the police station and reporting this, let alonetaking and failing a polygraph. And that's when Dave shows him a sketch.Remember the teenager some witnesses said was stalking the girls, the kid withthe acne scars? This fits a very younger description of Lloyd Lee Welch. Okay,so Chris and Dave feel pretty confident Lloyd was involved in some way,especially if he's still lying all these years later. And while he's not asuspect yet 'cause they don't have any evidence, they keep pulling at thisthread. And like I said, it's not like he's sitting at home with a wife and twokids and goes to work every day. No, he's in prison. We were literally, Garrettand I were just discussing this in the car. But very rarely do you get thesqueaky clean suspect. I mean, if someone's going to murder someone or kidnapsomeone, there's usually signs, red flags, a history of violence, somethingalmost always, yes.

So when they ask Lloyd his theory on what he thinks happenedto those girls that day, he says something that sends a chill down their spine.He mentions that they were probably sexually assaulted, killed, and thenburned. Who says that, right?

Burned feels oddly specific to the detectives. It's not atheory you just kind of pull out of thin air. Like, sure, maybe the sexualassault and the kill, but to burn the bodies? The freak. And Lloyd's behaviorthat day leaves them without a shred of doubt. Between the constant lies andhis repetitive requests for protection and immunity, they know there'ssomething he's hiding. He didn't just watch a stranger kidnap two girls thatday.

Yeah, so the detectives figure the next steps are to hookLloyd up to another polygraph to see what he caves to. That's so strange to me.They keep doing that. I mean, what else do you have to go on? Is it just likeintimidation at this point? So if he fails, then maybe he confesses. Yes,because polygraphs don't do anything in court these days. Well, I mean, that'show they got Chris Watts to confess. It's true. Yeah.

So in February of 2014, Lloyd is back in the interrogationroom hooked up to a lie detector, and after answering a few questions aboutthat day back in 1975, he fails pretty miserably again. But once the polygraphis over, he tells Dave he has a confession to make: he actually did know RayMeski.

He wasn't some stranger to Lloyd after all. They used to dodrugs together, and there was one time when he went over to Ray's to party, andhe actually saw the Lyon sisters there. Lloyd claims they were tied up in hisbasement, one you could only get to by around the back of the house and down aflight of stairs. But Lloyd says he got so scared after seeing the missinggirls that he ran away.

Now, this would be a huge piece of testimony if it weretrue, but you're going to start to see a pattern here with Lloyd. And theproblem is, he's lied about everything else. It'd be impossible to know if he'stelling the truth or not. Get caught in one lie, make a sharp left turn untilyou arrive at another. And this is actually going to be pretty hard. Rememberhow we talk about if you're guilty, one of the safest things — and there'snobody that's found one of the safest things you can do is just deny, deny,deny. Don't talk, talk, don't talk, 'cause then it's like what do they reallyhave on you? True. Well, another thing you could do is just lie and lie and lieand lie and change your story so much that the truth becomes so hard to seebecause it's like which one is it? So distorted.

So this happens countless times in the next several months,to the point where I won't even waste your time with some of the moreridiculous claims that he mentions. But Chris and Dave are already catching onto this, so they're taking every statement with a grain of assault, yet theyknow that somewhere buried in all of these lies is the truth. So they just keeppressing. And sure, if they wanted to arrest Lloyd at this point, theycertainly probably could because he'd already admitted to knowing the supposedkidnapper and seeing the girls without then going and reporting it. So in somesense of the matter, he's an accessory. But that's not what the detectives areafter. They want to get to the bottom of what happened to Sheila and Kate andmaybe find their remains if they can.

Yeah, so for now, they let Lloyd think he's helping themout. And the next time they meet, Lloyd offers them another major twist in thestory. It wasn't Ray Meski who he saw take the girls that day and keep them inhis basement. Lloyd was lying because he's scared of the real person whoactually took the girls, and it was his cousin Teddy Welch.

Now, this accusation is absurd to the police for one majorreason: Teddy would have been 11 years old at the time of the disappearance.Oh, come on, man. But again, they figure if they follow Lloyd down this rabbithole, it might get them to a different rabbit hole that gets them closer to thetruth.

Dude, I don't have the patience for this. That'd be sofrustrating, so annoying.

But they bite. After all, the Lyon family always said thegirls wouldn't have gone willingly with a stranger, but maybe someone closer totheir age, that could be a different story. However, Lloyd says Teddy didn'twork alone; he was with someone else that day, their shared uncle named Dicky.

So he claims that Dicky was using Teddy to lure the girlsinto the car and back to his house. In fact, Lloyd now claims he saw the girlsshortly after the kidnapping, only it was in Dicky's basement, not Ray Meski's.Now, police look into Uncle Dicky just to rule out any false leads, and whatthey find is he owned a beige station wagon.

Now remember that random tip that came in back in 1975, thatman in Virginia who said he saw two girls bound and gagged in the back seat ofa beige station wagon? Only they couldn't match the plates. Police now wonder,could that have been Dicky's car, and maybe Ry had nothing to do with this allalong? And although Dicky was local to Maryland, Lloyd and Dicky had family inBedford, Virginia, so maybe his car could have been there. It was actually upin this pretty creepy area called Taylor's Mountain.

It was a local rumor that a lot of bad things went down onTaylor's Mountain—families who isolated themselves from the rest of society,reports of incest, disappearances, murders. It was so off the grid, so out ofhand, that police rarely bothered even dealing with the people on Taylor'sMountain. That's nuts, dude. But this time, there was no ignoring it,particularly because at the top of the hill was a home belonging to a womannamed Lizzie Parker, who was Lloyd Lee Welch's aunt, right next to a plot of landthat belonged to Uncle Dicky, who's now been dragged into this case.

So police investigated the area and discovered there's alarge cemetery with several unmarked graves at the top of Taylor's Mountain.And when locals are asked about anything unusual happening there back in 1975,several of them mentioned the same thing: they can never forget the massivebonfire near the Parker House that seemed to last for days and reeked of humanflesh and hair.

Remember what Lloyd said back when he was asked what hethought happened to the girls? How maybe they were burned? The lies arestarting to come together with little seeds of truth.

Knowing all of this, the local Bedford Police, theMontgomery Police, and the FBI all join forces at this point to scout themountain for evidence for the sisters, which keep in mind up to this point,there's been nothing—zero physical sign of Sheila or Kate after the mall thatday.

So this feels like the closest they've come to something.They also begin reaching out to other members of Lloyd and Dicky's family tosee if they have statements to offer, and they find a pretty explosive piece oftestimony from Lloyd's cousin Lizzie Parker's daughter, who lived in that houseback in 1975. Her name is Connie Acres.

Now, it's October 2014, almost a year since Chris discoveredthat case file on his desk that led to all of this, and they go meet up withConnie. Connie, who was a teenager back in 1975, says she doesn't rememberUncle Dicky or Teddy coming to the house that spring with any young girls, butshe does remember Lloyd coming with his pregnant girlfriend, Helen, and amassive green duffel bag which stunk to high heavens when they opened it.

Connie noticed there were bloody clothes inside, but Lloydtried to say that he had bought a bunch of hamburger meat to cook that night,and that's what was in the bag. So that evening, Connie remembered that Lloydhad recruited the help of her brother to build a bonfire, and after that, theytossed the entire bag he brought up with them onto the flames, keeping the fireraging for the next several days, which is why all the neighbors knew about it.

So you're saying that all day and all night they just stayedthere and kept this fire going? Kept the fire going, which is why it stood outto all the neighbors. Just okay, got it.

So investigators follow Connie's lead to the exact spotwhere the bonfire happened. Now imagine being Connie, and it's this long later,and the police show up at your family's property or to you and say, "Hey,back when you lived on your family's property, was there anything weird withyour uncle Dicky?" And she's like, "Not my uncle Dicky, no, but mycousin who brought you to all of this. He did show up with a bag that smeltreally bad, and he said it was hamburger meat, and then they started a fire,threw the bag in the fire, and kept it going for days."

Okay, that would just be so strange. So they follow her leadto the exact spot where the bonfire happened. They begin digging around thearea, looking for any sign that the girls might have been there, and for thefirst time in the investigation, they actually find something.

No way. Along with several human bone fragments, theydiscover a small piece of wire that appeared to be a match with the wire-framedglasses Shea used to wear. Crazy, what a break in the case. And also, it'sinteresting what, like, a fresh pair of eyes will do, right? You just leave thecase for a bit, let's relook at it in x amount of years. It sucks that itcouldn't have been solved before, obviously.

Well, they did talk to him, but he said he lied, so theyjust said, "Okay, never mind, it's bogus." I mean, he was, so how oldwas he? He was 18, yeah. He was a teenager. It's so young too, right? I thinkyou're not thinking, "Oh, this 18-year-old kidnapped these twogirls," right? I mean, those witnesses did come forward saying that he waswatching them. Yeah, that's true too. I think everyone was so focused on Ray.So I'm telling you, and I'm not, Ray's not innocent in this. He did go on tokill people, so it is, oh no. But not in this case. And that's what I wassaying is sometimes they get so focused, I mean, I probably would do too, onthe person that it's usually somebody else, especially in cases like this.

So they also discover a piece of a beaded bracelet that wasjust like the one Kate was wearing the day she was taken. Unfortunately though,they weren't able to extract any DNA from the bones to conclusively say whetherthey belonged to one of the sisters. Still, detectives were certain they weremaking progress.

So at this point, they had eliminated the then 11-year-oldcousin Teddy, primarily because they learned he had two giant casts on his armduring the time the Lyon sisters were taken, and like he's 11, and thatcertainly would have come up in some eyewitness testimony. Like, if you seethese girls walking with a kid with two casts, you're going to notice it. Theyalso sat down with the elderly Uncle Dicky, who insisted he never played a rolein the girls' kidnapping.

So knowing all they know now, Chris and Dave full circleback to visit Lloyd again in May 2015. How ironic because Lloyd probably agreedto talk to them in the first place because he knew it would look good, so hecould come out on parole. Right, look good for him, but he's also incriminatingand screwing himself over at the same time. Yeah, I mean, but he did it, sothat's a good thing, right? But it's super interesting that if he didn't talk,he probably would never have gotten caught.

Yeah, although they circle back to him and they're like,"Okay, we're pretty sure we know what happened, like you've been leadingus on this hunt." Yeah, but it's back to you. I'm going to tell you howauthor Mark Bowden put it: he still acted like a fairy tale troll guarding atreasure, one who would only respond to the detectives' questions in long-formriddles.

So this is where we're at now with our prime suspect. Thiswas now the seventh time detectives had met with Lloyd, so you can imagine howfrustrated they have grown with him, yeah, particularly with his eagerness toblame everyone else in his family for what was looking more and more like hiswrongdoing. But this time he offers up a new name for the police: his father,Lee.

Still insisting Uncle Dicky was involved, Lloyd says thatDicky, who had been holding the girls captive in his house, recruited the helpof Lee to kill them, and then they left the remains under a bridge in theAnacostia River just a block or so away from Dicky's property. So Dave,expecting this to be just another riddle, follows the tip just in case.

He goes to Hyattsville to the area where the Anacostia Riverruns through and he checks out the scene. But surprised, things are not addingup. The water is so shallow that a body would immediately surface, plus thespace is wide open, so anyone dumping a body would certainly have been seen. SoDave leaves there feeling somewhat annoyed with himself for even wasting hisown time. He's like, "Come on." Yeah, this is until he realizes he'sat the intersection of Baltimore Avenue and 4714.

Baltimore Avenue was an address that he'd seen dozens oftimes on Lloyd Lee Welch's original police statement back in 1975, that onethat showed up on his desk. 4714 was the house Lloyd grew up in. He and Leewere the ones who lived next to the river, not Dicky. Impressive that he'sremembering all this, right, and that he's somehow piecing it together.

So Dave takes a walk to Lloyd's old house, knocks on thedoor, and gets permission from the current owner to take a look around. Andaround the back of the house, he sees something Lloyd has described multipletimes throughout his interrogations, perhaps one of the few details that heeven stayed consistent with: a basement accessible only down a flight of stairsaround the back of the house. The basement where the sisters were supposedlyheld captive.

He's now found this place, a basement that didn't belong toRay or Dicky but clearly to Lloyd and Lee Welch. And when Dave steps into thatcold concrete dungeon, he immediately senses this was definitely the place. Heknows he has to get a forensics team out here ASAP.

Hours later, they're spraying the basement, with a chemicalthat will illuminate if old blood stains have been cleaned there. And oneparticular room in the basement lights up like a Christmas tree. There's nodoubt that someone had been brutally murdered there, which means detectivesfinally, probably, have the crime scene they've been searching for. It wouldstill, I mean, I guess it would all still be there; it doesn't just go away onits own. I think it's hard 'cause he was alluding to this basement but he waslike, "No, it was my uncle Dicky," "No, it was this,""It was Ray," when in reality it was at his house where he lived withhis father.

Yes, so about a week later, Dave and Chris pay one morevisit to Lloyd. This time he's a sitting duck, no matter what way he tries tospin it, he's going to be facing charges for this 40-year-old crime. Yeah,knowing that he's been caught red-handed, Lloyd offers one final tale of howthe events played out, and this might be the closest thing to the truth he'llever offer.

So here's what we have: he did lure the girls away from themall that day, but he insists Uncle Dicky was still the getaway driver. Thegirls were then kept in his basement by Lee and Dicky, his father and uncle,and Lloyd said he kept quiet because he didn't want them to hurt him as well.

After they died, Lloyd said he took Dicky's station wagon toVirginia, so again, we're now getting back to the other witness's statement todispose of a body for his dad and uncle, but keyword here being a body, notbodies. Yes, Lloyd says it was just the younger sister Kate, and that he didn'tknow whatever ended up happening to Sheila's remains. So take all this with agrain of salt, of course, there's no reason to believe Lloyd now, butparticularly because he's still making himself out to be the victim in thisscenario. Like, "I did it for my dad and my uncle, and I kept them in thebasement, and then I also dumped the bodies," which again, he's been lyingthe whole time, and also, he's literally in jail for molesting and sexuallyassaulting a girl.

Mhm. So this crime that happened is right up his alley, perse, right? I don't think it makes much of a difference. Yeah. In September2017, Lloyd Lee Welch pleaded guilty to two counts of felony murder. He likelyonly accepted the plea deal to avoid the death penalty.

Still, Lloyd Lee Welch will now spend the rest of his dayslocked up in prison with no hope for release. It's kind of crazy. He went fromgetting out almost on parole to life in prison, which is good. While justicewas served to one of the players in Sheila and Kate's murders, there are stillso many questions left unanswered in this case.

Who else was truly involved in the crime? Some of the Welchfamily members claimed Dicky often spoke about the Lyon sisters and admittedbehind closed doors that he had played a role in it. Lee Welch, Lloyd's father,was already dead so there was no getting his side of the story, plus the bloodstains found in his basement no longer contained any DNA, meaning there was notelling whether it did belong to Kate, Sheila, or someone else entirely

It seems like from the beginning, you would just blame yourdad, and he probably would have gotten away with it if he stuck to that storythe entire time, Stu, but because he ended up not—that I wanted—and admittingthat he dumped the bodies and he kidnapped the girls, you probably could havegotten away with it.

Yeah, if he said, "It's to my dad" cuz the dad'sdead. Yeah, except for there wasn't a witness who saw him at the mall. True, sothat does kind of place him there. Still, it turns out that Lloyd Lee Welch hadbeen beaten at his own game, a situation that proves no cold case is ever worthputting to bed completely because the truth comes out with time. And that isthe case of the Lyon sisters.

It's sad that it took so long. I'm glad that hopefully thefamily has some type of closure, if possible, if possible. Extremely sad. I'mglad they solved it though. Or I'm glad that detective ended up solving itbecause there's so many cold cases out there. And I think, you know, also,like, come on, dude, they're just in the mall, enjoying themselves, having agood time, and then someone sexually assaults and kills them. What is up withthat? Why are people doing that, man? I mean, I know that question is nevergoing to be answered, but it just sucks.

I also think, like, so often we see with these cases, wehave the truth, kind of, yeah, but it's like these murderers take these secretsto their grave, even after they've been convicted. I know you're in jail forthe rest of your life, never getting out, and that, yeah, that secret, like,what does it matter? You're not getting out. You don't even have to tell it tome. Tell it to her family. Like, tell it to the victim's family. Give them, orat least on your death bed, write a letter, like, something, I don't know. I'lljust... I mean, this, okay, so if we want to go here, it doesn't surprise me,though. I mean, they all have huge egos. They're all so manipulative, like,they're narcissists. Like, there's so many different words we can describe themas. It doesn't surprise me that they die with these secrets. Yeah, it's true.

All right, you guys, that was our case, and we will see younext week with a bonus episode if you're a member of Patreon or Applesubscriptions or just another regular episode.

I love it.

And I hate it.

Goodbye.

[Music]

‍

Sorry, no sources available yet.