Police: FBI Searching Va. Property For Clues In Md. Cold Case
BEDFORD COUNTY, Va. (WJZ) -- It's a Maryland cold case stretching back 40 years. That's when the Lyons sisters, just 10 and 12, vanished.
Alex DeMetrick reports the long search to find them is now focusing on a small community in rural Virginia.
Sheila and Katherine Lyon disappeared in 1975 after walking to a nearby mall in Montgomery County for lunch. Their parents never saw them again. Interviewed 15 years ago, their loss had only grown.
"The brides he didn't walk down the aisle with. The grandchildren we don't have. The sons-in-law we didn't have," said Mary Lyon.
Experts projected how the girls would look as they aged and for 40 years, police chased leads---but it may finally be coming to an end 200 miles away in Bedford County, Virginia. The FBI is conducting a forensic dig in the small community of Taylor's Mountain.
"The community of Taylor's Mountain did not ask for this. This was brought to them," said Randy Krantz, the commonwealth attorney for Bedford County.
It started last September when searchers probed the area with cadaver dogs. How they came here is linked to two men police call persons of interest: Richard Allen Welch, Sr., who worked as a security guard when the girls disappeared, and his nephew, Lloyd Lee Welch, a convicted child sex offender currently in prison in Delaware. Neither have been charged in the Lyon case but Welch family members have property in Taylor's Mountain, which apparently produced leads.
"The investigative nature of this task force, regardless of the outcome of today's efforts, will be as tenacious as humanly possible," said Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown.
A lot has changed in 40 years but now the end goal of the investigation.
"Our mission...is to bring these children home, if at all possible," Krantz said.
A special FBI evidence collection team is heading up the search for the girls' remains. Because of the weather, it's expected to take a couple of days.
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