It has been almost 40 years since a ten-year-old girl and her older sister vanished from a suburban Washington mall. While the two children mysteriously vanished without a trace, a sex offender who is currently behind bars told the authorities that he left the mall with those two children that day.
The convicted felon who is the “person of interest” in this reopened case is Lloyd Welch, a man who also told the Washington Post that he witnessed one of the girls being sexually abused by his uncle the next day.
Welch is currently serving a 30-year sentence in a Delaware prison for his involvement in the sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl, where he had pleaded guilty. Welch has been charged with several different charges of child sexual assault over the years.
Detectives interviewed Welch where the statements from the affidavit discussion read, “During these interviews, Lloyd Welch has admitted he left Wheaton Plaza in a vehicle with the Lyon sisters on the day they disappeared.”
He added after leaving from his uncles home, “he left the residence and never saw the sisters again.”
Welch and his uncle are officially persons of interest in the case and authorities have been holding “forensic dig” on a set of land owned by the 69-year-old uncle and it was reported that bones were discovered, but it is still unsure if the bones belong to these two girls.
Thomas Welch, cousin of Lloyd, believes that his uncle had nothing to do with this case and stated, “I still don’t feel in my heart that my uncle had anything to do with this.”
Photo By: AP/FBI
