Lyon Sisters Case: Trial Date Set for Man Charged in Murders of Missing Girls

A convicted sex offender charged with murder in the 1975 disappearance of two young sisters from a Montgomery County mall is tentatively set to go on trial next month.

Lloyd Lee "Michael" Welch Jr. made his initial appearance Thursday in Bedford County (Virginia) Circuit Court. An attorney was appointed for him and a judge set a tentative trial date of Nov. 24, media outlets report.

Welch was transferred this week from a Delaware prison to Virginia.

Now 58, he is charged in connection with the disappearance of 12-year-old Sheila Lyon and her 10-year-old sister, Katherine. The girls were last seen at the Wheaton Plaza mall on March 25, 1975. 

Authorities said Welch was at the mall the day the girls vanished and was seen paying attention to them.

They have said they believe 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 the county.

Welch is charged with two counts of first-degree felony murder "while intending to defile," which carry the possibility of the death penalty.

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Until his extradition to Virginia this week. Welch had been incarcerated in Delaware since 1997 on a rape conviction. He was indicted in July in the Lyons sisters case, and prosecutors said they were prepared to prosecute "a no-body case."

"Typically in a homicide you have an autopsy and you have a body and you can prove what the cause and mechanism of death is," Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy said. "In a no-body murder case you have to prove that they are in fact dead and you have to prove the agent by which they died."

Welch's uncle, Richard Welch, has been named a person of interest in the case, but has not been charged. He has said he is innocent.

"Richard Welch remains a person of interest in this case, as do other people, and I underline other people," said Bedford Sheriff Mike Brown in July.

Three other people are accused of impeding the murder investigation. Leslie Engleking is charged with perjury; Gladys Stangee and Amy Welch-Johnson are charged with obstruction of justice. All three are relatives of Richard Welch.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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