The Lyon Sisters: In the horrible slaying of the Lyon sisters, justice may have been served, but there are no winners for Sgt. Chris Homrock.
“Who Killed the Lyon Sisters?” is a new true-crime programme debuting on Investigation Discovery (ID) on Saturday that looks into how the murder mystery was solved almost four decades later.
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Homrock, who has worked for the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland for 26 years and is currently a detective sergeant, agreed to participate in the show to tell his experience. He was the task force’s supervisor for the Lyon sisters.
“Even if we secured a conviction,” Homrock told Fox News, “we still don’t really consider this a triumph.” “There are several unanswered questions for which we never received satisfactory answers. We were never able to locate the remains that we intended to return to the relatives. We can only speculate on what happened to those girls on their last day of life.”
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Katherine and Sheila Lyon, the daughters of well-known Washington radio broadcaster John Lyon, were ten and twelve years old when they walked to a shopping mall near their home in Kensington, Maryland, on March 25, 1975. The girls vanished without a trace, and their bodies were never discovered.
Lloyd Lee Welch Jr., a convicted sex offender, revealed to police decades later that he assisted in the abduction of the girls and then gave them to his father Lloyd Welch Sr. and uncle Richard Allen Welch Sr., according to the documentary.
According to Hyattsville Life, Welch, who was 18 at the time of the disappearance, witnessed the men rape at least one of the girls and dismember the other in the patriarch’s dungeon-like basement. Despite the allegations, Homrock pointed out that none of Welch’s statements were supported by substantial proof.
Connie Akers and Henry Parker, Welch’s relatives, later testified that following the disappearance, Welch showed up at their property on the remote Taylors Mountain in west-central Virginia with bloodied clothing.
Welch claimed he was carrying spoiled ground beef at the time. Neighbors recalled witnessing a blaze and its peculiar pungent odour years later.
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Despite the fact that Welch was a person of interest who lived on the rural mountain with cousins, an aunt, uncle, and other family, the case remained unsolved.
“A major part of it was a lack of evidence,” Homrock remarked. “The case file had a lot of suspects, and there were around 20 boxes of records, files, and material in the case. There were at least three credible suspects in the region at the time, all of whom were known child predators… Each of these suspects is the subject of a thorough investigation, which includes flying across the country and interviewing victims, family members, and acquaintances… “However, we continued.”
For decades, the mountain was known as a rough and tumble location where locals looked out for one another and were wary of strangers.
People on Taylors Mountain didn’t start discussing about the cold case until 2013, when detectives from the Montgomery County, Maryland, cold case team arrived.
Based on a review of evidence in the case file, Welch, who had been imprisoned for a long time for sexually abusing another girl, was scrutinised.
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It was then that Welch’s cousins told police about his visit – and how he was carrying a duffle bag full of bloody garments, which he said was used to transport meat.
Another told them that Welch had two army-style duffel bags with reddish-brown stains on them and that he assisted Welch in setting fire to them.
Other residents of the mountain spoke to investigators of a fire that raged for days, emitting “the stink of death.”
“As one person put it, ‘What occurs on the mountain stays on the mountain,'” Homrock explained. “The blaze was never reported to the authorities, nor was the scent of burning flesh and hair.
They didn’t start talking until our [cold case team] started digging further and interviewed people… However, believe it or not, there were nice people who wanted to assist in the investigation.”
“Welch was referred to as the family’s black sheep,” he said. “The students were advised not to approach him.” He was shoved away by the adults. His own father and uncles distanced themselves from him. He was unfavourable.
Despite this, none of them ever called the cops. However, the children, who are now adults, told us that their older Welch relatives advised them to avoid Lloyd and not associate with him.”
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Authorities began digging on the mountain in 2014 in the hopes of finding the girls’ bodies. According to court documents, they did find a tooth, but officials have never disclosed if they were able to link it to the girls’ dental records.
Welch was described by Homrock as a “psychopath” who kidnapped the girls at a convenient time. Welch grew up in a troubled family and claimed that he was sexually molested by relatives as a child.
Homrock remarked, “He is where he needs to be.” “He’s a mastermind.” He was just as interested in interviewing the investigators as we were in interviewing him. He was testing our knowledge of him to see how much we knew about him. With him, there were a lot of cat-and-mouse games. In terms of extracting anything from him, he was quite difficult to nail down.”
“One of the witnesses we identified who was at the mall that day — she was a teenager at the time — recalls Lloyd being extremely obsessed with the Lyon sisters and following them around.” Homrock reflected, “It gave her the creeps.” “She immediately informed the authorities and a sketch was created.”
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The sketch, which turned out to be remarkably accurate, was not extensively distributed, and it appeared that it was not well shared within the police department, according to Salon. Welch later verified to authorities that he was the man in the sketch, according to the site.
Welch pleaded guilty to the murders of the Lyon sisters in 2017. According to Hyattsville Life, he was sentenced to 48 years in jail and will also serve another 10 years for a separate sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl. Welch will not be eligible for parole, and Homrock believes he will serve the remainder of his life in prison.
The Lyon sisters’ parents, according to Homrock, have “become family” to the investigators.
He remarked, “The family never stopped hunting for answers.” “It was our responsibility to bring them to justice.” We’re still in touch with the family, even though the case is closed and we don’t have all the answers… Lloyd will never be able to leave.
Anyone who spends time with Lloyd will quickly learn that if he’s ever free, it’s only a matter of time until he does something like this again.”
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