Callum Jones
Police in Maryland have uncovered new evidence in the case of sisters who vanished 50 years ago after nipping out for pizza.
During the spring school holidays of 1975, Katherine and Sheila Lyon were getting excited to celebrate their 11th and 13th birthdays.
The sisters headed out for pizza one day, but their mom, Mary Lyon, was left panicked when they did not return within their curfew.
Mary called 911 a few hours later, which led to a large-scale investigation across the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
Advert
Everything from planes to dogs were deployed across the region, but officials sadly could not provide any much-needed answers for the sisters' nearest and dearest.
The case sat cold for 42 years, until a breakthrough in 2017 that saw Lloyd Lee Welch Jr convicted for Katherine and Sheila's abduction and murder.
Chris Homrock, the deputy sergeant for the Montgomery County Police Department, was taking a look through some files when he stumbled across a document from 1975 he had never seen before.
The suspicious file belonged to an 18-year-old Welch, with a subsequent picture looking extremely similar to a drawing of an individual who was said to have leered at the sisters back in 1975.
Upon further digging, Homrock discovered Welch was in prison for molesting a 10-year-old girl in 1998.
He was serving 33 years behind bars for a serious criminal record including rape, domestic violence, and assault with a knife.
Homrock paid Welch a visit, with the prisoner saying: "I know why you’re here. You’re here about those two missing kids."
On September 12, 2017, Welch pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder for the killing and abduction of Katherine and Sheila.
The courts handed him two concurrent 48-year sentences, meaning that he will certainly be spending the rest of his life behind bars.
Once Welch completes his original prison term in Delaware in 2026, he will be moved over to a facility in Virgina to complete the rest.
To this day, Katherine and Sheila's body/remains have never been found, though police may have just provided an update in this long-running case.
The US Marshals Service confirmed last week they had 'new evidence' from a cold case in Taylor's Mountain, Virginia - an area that has long been connected to the girls' disappearance.
However, local officials did not disclose what exactly the evidence was and which case it is connected to.