Maryland

3 Charged With Impeding Lyon Sisters Murder Probe to Be Arraigned

Three relatives of Richard Welch -- a man named as a person of interest in the 1975 slayings of two young Maryland sisters -- will be arraigned Thursday on charges that they have impeded the investigation.

Leslie Engleking is charged with perjury; Gladys Stangee and Amy Welch-Johnson are charged with obstruction of justice. The three will be arraigned in Bedford County General District Court in Virginia.

Welch has previously been named as a person of interest in the deaths of the young sisters, 12-year-old Sheila Lyon and 10-year-old Katherine.

The girls left their Montgomery County, Maryland, home on March 25, 1975, to walk about a half-mile to Wheaton Plaza, now known as Westfield Wheaton mall. But the sisters never made it home.

Welch hasn't been charged and has said he's innocent.

His nephew, Lloyd Lee "Michael" Welch Jr., has been charged with two counts of murder. The younger Welch, a convicted sex offender, has been incarcerated in prison in Delaware since 1997 on a rape conviction. He was noticed paying attention to the sisters the afternoon they vanished, investigators have said.

Authorities say the sisters were kidnapped and taken to Bedford County, where they were killed. Their bodies have not been found, although investigators have conducted searches and forensic digs in the area of Taylor's Mountain in Bedford County.
 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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