Investigators from two states were searching an area near Lynchburg, Virginia, for the remains of two young sisters from Maryland who were abducted in 1975, police said late Tuesday.
Capt. Paul Starks, spokesman for the Montgomery County, Maryland, police department, told The Associated Press that police are looking for the remains of Katherine Lyon, 10, and Sheila Lyon, 12. They went missing on March 25, 1975, after walking for lunch to a mall in Wheaton, Maryland. The department has had investigators in Bedford County, Virginia, since last week.
“Recent developments in the investigation have led law enforcement to the Taylor Mountain area of Bedford County,” the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release posted on its website.
In February, Montgomery County Police said they had identified a convicted child sex offender in a Delaware prison as a person of interest in the case.
Authorities established that Lloyd Lee Welch, 57, was at the mall the day the girls vanished and was seen paying attention to them. Welch, whom police describe as a former ride operator for a carnival company and a drifter who traveled the U.S. and often stayed in homeless shelters, has convictions in multiple states for sexually assaulting young girls and has been locked up in Delaware for more than 15 years.
Starks said Welch’s family has some connection to the area being searched in Bedford County.
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“This is just part of us continuing to stay on this case,” Starks said, “and an attempt to determine what happened and who is responsible.”
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