In April 1975, the Lyon sisters disappeared in a Washington suburb. The investigation was stalled, the bodies were not found, and the crime was declared unexplained. Thirty years later, detectives found a trail. It led to ... a jail where the well-known pedophile Lloyd Welch was serving a sentence for other crimes.
They knew that with Lloyd Welch they would probably only get one chance. So the Lyon Sisters' investigative team from the Montgomery County Police had been preparing for this meeting for months, throughout the summer and fall of 2013.
Rapist record
Its members even traveled to Quantico, Virginia to consult with FBI behaviorists who plotted impressive charts and collected comparative data to conclude that Lloyd was a typical hard case. Analysts predicted he would shut up as soon as he understood what they wanted to ask him.
Everything they knew about Lloyd Welch so far was in the police records. Lloyd's file began to swell rapidly after he entered Wheaton Plaza in 1975 with his made-up story - but now authorities weren't as sure that his criminal activities had not started sooner.
The Lyon sisters were last seen at Wheaton Plaza
Lloyd's past made up an impressive list of violations of the law. In Maryland, he committed theft (1977), burglary (1981), and assaults and beatings (1982). Florida - Orlando Burglaries (1977) and Miami Burglaries (1980). In Iowa - Sioux City Robbery (1987).
He then moved to South Carolina where he was arrested for drunkenness in a public place and theft of high-value property in Myrtle Beach (1988), Burglary in Horry County (1989), sexual assault on a ten-year-old girl in Lockhart (1992) ) and Drunk Driving in Clover the same year. Then there were two cases in Manassas, Virginia:sexual assault on a minor (1996) and beating (1997).
He eventually landed in Delaware, where he was arrested in 1997 for the sexual assault of a teenage girl. This was where the list of his exploits ended.
Suspicious witness
A typical case. Even in the most sluggish criminals, common sense or weakening hormones eventually prevail, and in their thirties they gradually avoid trouble. Or they either lose their lives or go to jail.
Welch's case ended with the latter. He was just serving a thirty-three-year sentence for assault in Delaware and detained in James T. Vaughn Prison in Smyrna . The members of the investigative team, however, were only interested in the story Lloyd told in 1975 as a potential eyewitness - albeit quite suspicious - of the abduction of Sheila and Kate Lyon.
The text is an excerpt from Mark Bowden's book “The Last Trope. The mystery of the disappearance of the Lyon sisters ", which has just been released by Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.
Though he failed the polygraph test at the time, the study found that he had not lied on one thing only:he was in Wheaton Plaza at the same time the girls went missing, and that part was of greatest interest to investigators. If he saw them with the kidnapper, years later he could confirm the evidence gathered against the prime suspect, known pedophile and murderer, Ray Mileski.
But the presence of Welch himself in the stories of girls gave investigators a lot to think about. Could he have been involved in their disappearance? Did he know Mileski? Welch didn't have to talk to the police at all, and he had every reason to do so. For a convicted pedophile, the slightest connection to the case of the Lyon sisters could mean serious trouble . Any attorney worthy of involvement would advise him to remain silent.
On the other hand, his willingness to help with an unresolved investigation might have earned him the favor of the Delaware State Parole Board. So it was quite a delicate situation.
Only chance
While preparing for the meeting, investigators talked to several members of Welch's family, few of whom knew him well. Those who remembered him were reluctant to admit their kinship and treated him with contempt.
Investigators did not know what to expect from him and were unsure how to proceed. At the weekly council, the captain kept asking, "When are you going to interview him?" But with only one chance, they refused to go to the element. Thirty-eight years after the girls had disappeared, Welch was the last untested clue. The two most important questions they wanted to know the answer to were:did Welch recognize Mileski and did they interact with each other?
Gaithersburg's Montgomery Police Headquarters is a two-hour drive from Delaware. Investigators passed Annapolis, crossed the long, high bridge over the Chesapeake Bay, and drove onto the flat agricultural east coast of Maryland. Fields of rustling head-high brown corn stretched on either side of Highway 301.
Sergeant Chris Homrock, driving the car, negotiated the final details of the strategy with Pete Feeney, Assistant Attorney at Montgomery State Coal, sitting next to him. In the back sat Detective Dave Davis, who would be in the interrogation room with Welch. At the Dover Police Headquarters in Delaware, where the suspect was transferred from prison that morning, an FBI agent was due to join them.
Getting Welch over to the police station was part of the plan. The inmates did not like to be seen talking to the policemen, and in the maximum security prison even the walls had ears . Persuasion at the highest levels had to be used for the Delaware Correctional Department to agree to this.
Great unknown
It was to be Welch's first visit outside the prison walls in years. But in just two years he could apply for a job outside the prison, and with this little bit of freedom on the horizon, a trip south of Smyrna could give him a taste of freedom and encourage him to cooperate.
Investigators knew that his instincts told him to remain vigilant. In the world of prisoners, unscheduled summons by officials rarely did any good. Welch was not told who wanted to see him or for what reason. Investigators were anxious to take him by surprise. The first reaction often revealed a lot in such situations. Will the investigators be able to persuade him to cooperate? Lloyd will be airing some trick about this, so they'll have to tempt him with something. But what?
In Welch's case, it ended with the latter. He was just serving a thirty-three-year sentence for an assault in Delaware and detained in the James T. Vaughn Prison in Smyrna.
Welch was under the authority of the Delaware government, and investigators had no influence over the local prison system or parole commission. And if they didn't have a carrot, they needed a stick, a way to convince Welch that silence would be far more dangerous for him than cooperation . However, with no pressure tool, they had to come up with something.
The longer they prepared for this meeting, the less likely it seemed that they would achieve anything. The risk of scaring Lloyd off was only the first on their list of concerns. If it agrees to cooperate, how are they to continue? Should I read Miranda's rights from him, or would it make him uneasy? If they don't, and he confesses complicity, they won't be able to use it in court.
Should they tell him about Mileski? About your hypothesis about the case? How much can they reveal to him? And if he resists, how are they going to keep him in the interrogation room?
Source:
The text is an excerpt from Mark Bowden's book “The Last Trope. The mystery of the disappearance of the Lyon sisters ", which has just been released by Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.