202. Who Kidnapped The Lyon Sisters?
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Download Arnott today spelled E-A-R-N-I-N in the Google Play or Apple App Store. When you download the Arnott app, type in murder with my husband under podcast. When you sign up, it'll really just help the show. It lets them know we sent you again. Type in murder with my husband under podcast.

Earn It is a financial technology company, not a bank. Subject to your available earnings, daily max, pay period max, and location. See earnit.com slash TOS for details. Bank products are issued by Evolve Bank and Trust, member FDIC. You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. I'm the husband. Here we are. We're back. End of the week. End of the week.

Another Murder With My Husband episode. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who listens and supports us. We really appreciate it. We know there's a lot of true crime content out there, so we appreciate you guys tuning in every week and supporting us, listening, watching.

However you're doing it. And again, thank you. We appreciate it. All right, let's skippity-doo-dah all the announcements we normally do and just go right into your 10 seconds today, Gare. Well, I guess my 10 seconds is going to kind of be about true crime this week. Peyton and I have been talking about, well, Peyton's re-listening for the millionth time to Serial again.

And we've been talking about that case. Interesting. I know he's out of prison. He hasn't been exonerated or anything. I don't know what's going to be happening with him. I'm just kind of keeping up on the bits and pieces that Peyton is telling me. It's just always so interesting when there was a case that, and maybe this isn't a good example, but

Or half of the people think he did it and the other half didn't think he did it. It's interesting to see the evidence, to see what different people believe. I don't know what I think. Again, Peyton's been telling me bits and pieces. Just thought I'd bring that up because, I don't know, I couldn't do it. I don't think I can make that decision.

And that's a pretty big one. Well, these are the kind of things we actually talk about on our Twitch streams. And I think we're going to be talking about this one on the next stream. But yeah, definitely. Garrett's never even listened to Serial. Obviously, you...

I talk about it and I've listened to it a lot. So he knows a little bit about the case, but this, you know, this one's just so, there's so many pieces to it. So I am excited to kind of dive into it. We started talking about it earlier and Garrett was like, wait, let's save this for the stream. So I'm kind of excited for that. Because I know I talk about how much I hate true crime and blah, blah, blah. But something I...

find very interesting is solving a cold case. I don't know why, but I find that interesting. I think it's because I like the detective part of true crime. I don't like everything else that comes with it, but the detective and recent figuring out like what has happened, where's the evidence, what's going on, where isn't the evidence, who's corrupt, who's not corrupt.

I find that interesting. I find that intriguing. You like nonviolent true crime, I think. Correct, yes. Well, and like might be a stretch, but say I'm watching a documentary about a really gruesome murder. You won't be in the room with me. No. But if I'm watching a documentary... Well, we just watched one, American Nightmare. Yeah, say American Nightmare. There's nothing super gruesome about that. You watched it with me. Yeah, I was definitely into it more because I was trying to figure out...

what's happening yeah what what's all the commotion what is going on i will say although you still won't sit down and put on like a true crime show or anything never never never you definitely dead before that happens you become more interested in um the nuances of true crime like you just said as far as you know the you know maybe even solving a cold case like that that's actually cool you know yeah 100 all

All right. Should we get into the episode? Let's do it. Our sources for this episode are The Last Stone by Mark Bowden, Who Killed the Lyon Sisters on Investigation Discovery, CNN.com, CharlieProject.org, WashingtonPost.com, InsideNova.com, and Medium.com. Sugar?

Trigger warning, this episode includes discussions of sexual assault and child abuse, so please listen with care. And I find this a little bit interesting because of Garrett's 10 seconds. I never know what Garrett's going to say for his 10 seconds. I'm always taken, you know, by surprise, so...

Let me just start off this episode with some cases run cold for a good reason. Okay. It's like we're on the same wavelength. I know. That's crazy. There's simply not enough evidence maybe or all leads have dried up. No concrete eyewitness testimony. No matter what the situation is though, the longer a case is perpetrated,

put on ice, so to speak, the less likely it is to be reopened. And the chance of a new detective taking a look is pretty slim to none. Unless your name is Detective Chris Homrock. In 2013, he was taking a second look at a 40-year-old cold case regarding two missing girls named Sheila and Kate Lyon.

But then, one night, by some miracle that he can't even explain, a file mysteriously appeared on his desk after he returned from a bathroom break.

It was an old testimony from one witness that was never properly followed through on. How does that happen? How does it just randomly appear on his desk? No explanation. You see it happen in the movies and you wouldn't assume this would never happen in person or in real life, but it just did. So when he tracked down the teenager who made the statement back in 1975, it opened a giant can of worms leading to an entirely new investigation. Why?

One that was more twisted, confusing, and frustrating than anything Detective Homrock had ever dealt with before. So that is what we are talking about today.

So for today's case, we're traveling back to 1975 to a little suburban town about a half hour north of Washington, D.C., known as Kensington, Maryland. At the time, about 50,000 people called the Kensington area home, many of them middle to upper class citizens. It was a place where you felt safe if your kids rode their bikes to the neighbors, if they stayed out until the streetlights came on.

Even if they forgot to mention that they'd be having dinner at a friend's house. Kensington in 1975 felt like it existed inside its own little protective bubble. But I will say, I feel like a lot of

suburb areas felt this way in the 70s. But for Kensington, it felt that way until March of that year when the bubble finally burst and the people of Kensington saw the horrors the real world had to offer. So inside that Pleasantville-like illusion lived John and Mary Leon. John was fairly well known for being a local radio DJ, while Mary happily took on the role of a full-time mom to their kids.

It was four kids, 15-year-old Jay, 9-year-old Joe, 12-year-old Sheila, and 10-year-old Catherine, or Kate.

They were always well-behaved, polite, and obedient. Together, they made the perfect little Norman Rockwell-style family. Sheila had this bright blonde hair that she often wore in low-hanging pigtails. Her wire-rimmed glasses made her all the more identifiable. She was the quieter of the two sisters, the one who preferred to stay in and read or to just help her mom cook.

But now that she was in seventh grade, she was seeing the merits of having a social life. She had begun experimenting with makeup and had plans to try out for the cheerleading squad.

Her younger sister Kate, on the other hand, was more of a tomboy. With a shorter, even blonder head of hair and freckles that peppered her nose and cheeks, Kate was the more athletic, outgoing, and daring one of the two sisters. In fact, she'd just talked her parents into getting her ears pierced for the very first time.

But the girls never gave John or Mary a reason to doubt their good behavior. They stayed on top of their grades. They never lied to their parents about where they were going or who they were with. They were always home by curfew. An unwavering trust had been built between the sisters and their parents.

particularly because they always looked out for one another and Sheila and Kate did almost everything together. They were the best of friends. So on March 25th, 1975, all of the Lyon children were off from school for Easter break. That month had been a rough one when it came to weather. The area had actually suffered two different snowfalls.

But that afternoon, the climate was finally showing signs of spring. It was warm, the sun was out, and Sheila and Kate wanted to be outdoors. So they asked their mom, Mary, if they could take a walk over to the Wheaton Plaza Mall.

Now you have to remember how much of a social nucleus a mall was back in the day. It was the place to see and be seen, particularly if you were a teenager. So this was kind of a rite of passage for the two girls to get to go off to the mall by themselves. Not to mention the walk was easy for them. It would only take about 20 minutes by foot from their house. That's extremely close. So Mary said, okay, the two girls could go alone under one condition.

be home by 4 p.m. to help with dinner. And the girls are like, easy. At around 11 a.m., the girls took off for the outdoor shopping center with about $2 in their pocket. This was more than enough at the time for them to both get a slice of pizza in the food court, which was about 50 cents at the time. So in fact,

Jay actually spots his sisters from a distance around 2 p.m. that afternoon at the mall. But he doesn't say anything to them because he doesn't want to ruin their little adventure. And, you know, this is like very typical. He's probably older, hanging with the older kids. Letting them have fun, though, too. Now back at the Leon's house, 4 p.m. rolls around. Only Sheila and Kate aren't home yet. Even Jay makes it back in time for dinner saying, yeah, he saw his sisters at the mall a few hours ago. They probably just lost track of time.

But when it starts getting dark, the Leons start to panic. They start calling around to their friends' houses, thinking, did the girls end up somewhere for a sleepover and just forget to call? When that doesn't pan out, Mary and John hop in their car and begin driving around the area, searching for their two daughters themselves. But a few hours later, with still no sign of Kate or Sheila, their parents know it's time to go to the police.

And by the following day, the hunt for Sheila and Kate Leon begins in earnest. I mean, I know it's always someone, but there's so many kids at the mall, right? And so many people. So I know you always think, what are the chances it's going to happen to me? And that's horrible.

So it certainly helps that John is a radio personality because the case gets a lot more attention than it might have otherwise. And in the first three days of their disappearance, police received more than 300 tips from people claiming to have seen the girls at the mall before they vanished.

On top of this giant stack of leads, police are also combing every square inch of the Kensington area, from the woods to storm sewers to vacant houses in the area. But nothing pans out. That was until April 7th, when investigators get their first real lead in the case. And, I mean, it's devastating whenever we're talking about a missing kids case and...

The next phase of the investigation is three days later. Yeah. It's like, well, shoot, we already passed 48 hours, which were crucial time period. Yeah. I was going to say that you said in the first three days and I was thinking. Freak. Yeah. Yeah. So, um,

On April 7th, a witness calling from Manassas, Virginia, about a 50-minute drive from Kensington, says that that morning at around 7.30 a.m., he saw something disturbing. A beige 1968 Ford station wagon with Maryland plates was stopped at a light in front of his car. And in the back seat, there appeared to be two little girls fitting Kate and Sheila's description,

bound and gagged. The caller had jotted down the license plate number but couldn't get the last two digits because as soon as the car in front of him saw that he'd taken notice of the girls, they bolted through the red light at full speed. So they just took off.

The police go to their system and run the digits they have, only they can't seem to find a match without the full plates. However, there's a few other tips on potential suspects coming in, and police take notice when they start to repeat a pattern. For example, several of the callers claimed to see a young man about 140 pounds, 5'10 or 11",

following the girls through the mall that day so several people noticed this man they said he was a teenager maybe early 20s at most because he had acne scars around his cheeks one eyewitness said a person fitting this description was waiting and watching the girls through a store window it seemed like he was ready to pounce once they came out is it all is it interesting to you that

always say this after something bad had happened like oh yeah actually I did see him and he was kind of creepy and looked like a stalker but in that moment apparently not creepy enough because no one said anything or did anything you know what I'm saying it's probably pretty common actually to not to

To maybe subconsciously notice, I'm going to be like, that guy's a little creepy. But then once you hear two girls went missing, you're like, okay, that guy was definitely creepy. You know, you probably put two and two together in your head, I'm assuming. Yeah, I can see that. Then there's a second suspicious character that was repeatedly identified at Wheaton Plaza that day. It was an older gray haired man carrying a tape recorder who kept stopping kids to interview them.

Now, this description happened to fit one man who'd been on the police's radar before, and his name was Ray Molesky. Now, Ray had lived only a block or two away from the Leon's residence at the time of their disappearance, so chances were he'd definitely seen the girls around before.

He had charges on his record for petty crime and pedophilia. There were also rumors that Ray had been a part of a child sex ring and was known to scout for victims down at the Wheaton Plaza Mall. Plus, he'd inserted himself into the investigation twice after the girls disappeared. Yeah.

Once he called to suggest to police that they grant the kidnapper immunity if he brings the children home safely. And then he offered his own description of the person he allegedly saw the girls leave the mall with that day. So police did their best to look into Ray as a primary person of interest, going as far as to excavate his backyard in 1982. Oh, geez. This was after he murdered his wife and son and was sent to prison. So Ray goes on...

I know, I just dropped a bomb. Wait, wait, wait. Say that again. So, Ray's a suspect in this case. But as we know, this case is going to grow cold, right? And then after the girls go missing, long after, he murders his wife and son.

On a completely like unrelated. So they just happened to find the guy that murdered his wife and son through another case that he wasn't even related to? No, no, no. It's a completely unrelated case. They catch him for murdering his wife and son years later. And then they're like, well, he was a suspect in this girl's case. So maybe we excavate his backyard and see if we can find anything. I see. I see. I see. Yeah. You following me now? I'm following you now. But he's not in prison. He is in prison. Or I mean, he's in prison, obviously. Yes. Yes. So, okay. So he doesn't live there.

I see what you're saying now. Got it. But there was never enough evidence aside from him fitting the vague description of the tape recorder man. So the Ray Molesky lead fell between the cracks over the years, as did all the others. I mean, and what are the chances that...

He murdered, I guess high chances that he murdered his family that also murders another girl or a couple girls. And, you know, he was at the mall that day. Yeah. But I mean, it's just, it's really sad. Two sisters go missing.

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With no bodies, no more leads, and absolutely no concrete evidence to point detectives even in the right direction, the Leon sisters case hit a wall. It was passed down through several generations of investigators, all of whom would open the case file, take one look at it, and realize there were just no more blocks left to build with. And it continued this way until 2013, when that detective, Chris Homrock, took over those files.

But unlike those before him, he couldn't put this case back in the freezer. Something about this abduction haunted him. It kept him from sleeping at night. Particularly the feeling that police had to have missed something back in 1975. And maybe when it came to their best potential suspect who would go on to murder his wife and son, Ray Molesky.

So Chris did everything he could to revisit the Molesky lead years later. But it wasn't going to be easy considering that Ray had died three years earlier in 2010. So he's still pretty confident that it's Ray. He's like, I feel like this is the best thing we have to go on. Yeah. And I mean, if the guy lives two miles from them and then goes on to murder his own wife and son, it's kind of like...

I feel in cases that are a little up and down and a little iffy, it's always the person that isn't the obvious answer. Oh, so you're saying not Ray. I don't think so. It seems like in a case that we do where it's black and white, I mean, open and shut, like this guy did this, he was caught on camera, this, of course. But in cases where...

They're not 100% sure. It seems like evidence is everywhere. They don't have anything. Everything's up and down. It's always the person that they're not looking at. Right. You know what I'm saying? I do. So as...

Chris is going through the evidence. He realizes that there were a lot of stones left unturned when it came time to kind of dig through this evidence. For example, Chris learned that Ray had purchased land in Lancaster County, Virginia before Sheila and Kate disappeared. So Chris decides now, years later, with Ray dead, to go out there. And he spent weeks living in a motel while he oversaw a dig on the property, thinking he might uncover the girl's remains. So he decides to go out there and he goes to the motel.

but there was nothing. Chris then revisited the old Molesky house, combing every inch, even tearing through the concrete in the basement, thinking it might lead to something. But then eventually, Chris also hit a wall.

One night in the summer of 2013, Chris realized it was probably time to pack the case up. Like so many detectives before him, he felt like he had failed the Lee and family. But by this point, he'd pulled at every single thread he could think of. It was late in the evening when Chris took a trip to the bathroom to splash some water on his face while working on this case. He then went back to his desk, prepared to put those case files in their boxes one final time. That was when he spotted something.

On top of his folders was an eyewitness report from 1975 that it was one Chris didn't remember seeing before. It was a six-page transcript dated April 1st, 1975 from an 18-year-old kid named Lloyd Lee Welch. Chris was baffled by how this ended up here on top of his stack of files and how he'd missed this statement after scrutinizing them tirelessly over the last few years. I mean,

moved and tried to dig up property after property. Okay, yeah. I don't know how that happens. Meant to be. But how it got there was nowhere near as important as what was inside. The witness claimed he saw the two girls leaving the mall with an older man who fit the exact description of that tape recorder man. But Lloyd's account included another critical detail. One the others didn't have. He mentioned that the tape recorder man walked through

with a limp. And guess who also walked with a limp?

Ray? Ray Molesky. Oh, man, I might be wrong. Okay. Who Ray had been shot in the leg when he was robbing someone's home years before the Leon case, which is why he had a limp. So now Chris is certain the tape recorder man and Ray Molesky have to be the same guy. Like this is just now almost concrete. Yeah. But here's the thing. Back in 1975, when Lloyd Lee Welch gave that statement, police dismissed it outright for a few reasons.

One was Lloyd waited a few days to report what he saw. It wasn't until the Leon family offered a reward that he finally came forward with this information. I don't think that's a huge red flag to me because I think a lot of people are just, I don't want to get involved. I want to stay out of it. Yeah.

So, yeah. The second one also isn't a huge red flag to me. He agreed to take a polygraph test and failed it. Then he admitted to the police it was all a lie. He was just going off the information that he had seen on TV. All right. Well, that part's a red flag. Yeah. That's a big red flag. So police actually could have arrested Lloyd Wright there. But being he was still a teenager, they let him go and dismissed his statement as bogus. But now in 2013, Chris was looking at this filing going, wait a second. This is a big red flag.

This person could be the key to identifying Ray once and for all. Let's see if Lloyd Lee Welch is still around. And it turns out he was. How rude would that be? You're not contacted for something and then 40 years later.

A detective shows up at your door. I feel like in a lot of the series podcasts that I listen to, this happens often. All the time. Okay. Where they were somehow in the first couple days after the investigation saw something and then no one ever talked to them again until this journalist comes out of nowhere and is like, hey, I'm researching this case. Yeah.

So at this time, Lloyd was now in his mid-50s serving time in a Delaware prison for child molestation charges. And he was coming to the end of his 33-year sentence, which meant he'd soon be up for parole. Which meant if Chris and his team wanted to speak with Lloyd, they should probably need to work fast. Like,

It's safer with their witness in prison. So a little background on Lloyd. He had a rough upbringing in Hyattsville, Maryland, about a half hour drive from Kensington. He grew up in a home with a physically and emotionally abusive father. He dropped out of school in seventh grade and before he turned 18, had left home to fend for himself. In the 70s, he met a 16-year-old girl named Helen who he traveled around the East Coast with, working odd jobs while getting into trouble with drugs and the law.

Since the time he'd filed that report with police back in 1975, he'd acquired a long rap sheet, including everything from sexual assault to battery to grand larceny. So when Chris Homrock first met with Lloyd on October 16th, 2013, he was coming in with a theory.

If Lloyd did see something back in 1975 and happened to just go to police after the family announced a reward, maybe he wasn't an innocent bystander in the whole thing. Maybe he knew Ray and was even working with him in some capacity. It was possible that Ray was grooming young men around Lloyd's age at that time to lure his victims for him. I mean, he was in prison for child molestation too. Yeah. So...

And this was a rumor about Ray grooming young men to help him get his victims. This had been circulating since Ray was first pegged as a potential suspect. I mean, he killed his wife and son, so. Yeah. Now, Chris wasn't alone when he first sat down with the incarcerated Lloyd in 2013. He was joined by fellow Montgomery County detective Dave Davis for the perfect good cop, bad cop matchup. And immediately upon entering the interrogation room, Lloyd shows he's a step ahead of them. He

He says, quote, I know why you're here. It's about those two missing kids, isn't it? So after reading Lloyd his rights, they get to talking. And what Lloyd says is this. Back in 1975, he was at a liquor store when he saw a man put two girls in the back of his black Plymouth and drove away. That's when they whip out a photo of Ray Molesky and Lloyd nearly jumps out of his chair screaming, yeah, that's the guy, that one right there.

But the circumstances sound a little different from that original statement he gave, right? There's no mall, no tape recorder man, no limp. So Chris thinks, okay, this is a little weird. So he says to Lloyd, originally you said you were at the Wheaton Plaza Mall. But Lloyd insists, no, no, no, I'd never been there. So they pull out his original 1975 statement and Lloyd is a deer in the headlights, clearly caught in a lie.

What will be the first of hundreds over the course of this investigation, by the way? Oh, so this doesn't sound... That would not be fun for a detective. No. Just lie after lie, trying to sift through what's the truth. That sucks. So still, Lloyd decides to keep up the charade. He says he doesn't even remember going to the police station and reporting this, let alone taking and filing a polygraph. And that's when Dave shows him a sketch. Remember the teenager some witnesses said was stalking the girls, the kid with the acne scars? Yeah.

This fits a very younger description of Lloyd Lee Welch. So Chris and Dave feel pretty confident. Lloyd was involved in some way, especially if he's still lying all these years later. And while he's not a suspect yet, because they don't have any evidence, they keep pulling at this thread. And like I said, it's not like he's sitting at home with a wife and two kids and goes to work every day. No, he's in prison.

We were literally, Garrett and I were just discussing this in the car, but...

Very rarely do you get the squeaky clean suspect. I mean, if someone's going to murder someone or kidnap someone, there's usually signs, red flags, a history of violence, something. Almost always. Yes. So when they ask Lloyd his theory on what he thinks happened to those girls that day, he says something that sends a chill down their spine. He mentions that they were probably sexually assaulted, killed, and then raped.

burned who says that right burn feels oddly specific to the detectives it's not a theory you just kind of pull out of thin air like sure maybe the sexual assault and the kill but to burn the bodies and lloyd's behavior that day leaves them without a shred of doubt between the constant lies and his repetitive requests for protection and immunity they know there's something he's hiding he didn't just watch a stranger kidnap two girls that day yeah so the detective

Investigatives figure the next steps are to hook Lloyd up to another polygraph to see what he caves to. That's so strange to me they keep doing that.

I mean, what else do you have to go on? Is it just like intimidation at this point? So if he fails, then maybe he confesses. Yes. Because polygraphs don't do anything in court these days. Well, I mean, that's how they got Chris Watts to confess. It's true, yeah. So in February of 2014, Lloyd is back in the interrogation room hooked up to a lie detector. And after answering a few questions about that day back in 1975, he fails pretty miserably again.

But once the polygraph is over, he tells Dave he has a confession to make. He actually did know Ray Molesky. He wasn't some stranger to Lloyd after all. They used to do drugs together and there was one time when he went over to Ray's to party and he actually saw the Leon sisters there.

Lloyd claims they were tied up in his basement, one you could only get to by going around the back of the house and down a flight of stairs. But Lloyd says he got so scared after seeing the missing girls that he ran away. Now, this would be a huge piece of testimony if it were true. But you're going to start to see a pattern here with Lloyd. And the problem is he's lied about everything else. It'd be impossible to know if he's telling the truth or not. Yeah.

Get caught in one lie. Make a sharp left turn until you arrive at another. And this is actually going to be pretty hard. Remember how we talk about if you're guilty, one of the safest things, and there's no body that's found, one of the safest things you can do is just deny, deny, deny, deny. Don't talk, don't talk, don't talk. Because then it's like, what do they really have on you? True. Well, another thing you could do is just lie and lie and lie and lie and change your story so much that the truth becomes so hard to see because it's like, which one is it? So distorted.

So this happens countless times in the next several months to the point where I won't even waste your time with some of the more ridiculous claims that he mentions. But Chris and Dave are already catching on to this so they're taking every statement with a grain of salt. Yet they know that somewhere buried in all of these lies is the truth so they just keep pressing. And sure if they

If they wanted to arrest Lloyd at this point, they certainly probably could because he'd already admitted to knowing the supposed kidnapper and seeing the girls without then going and reporting it. So in some sense of the matter, he's an accessory.

But that's not what the detectives are after. They want to get to the bottom of what happened to Sheila and Kate and maybe find their remains if they can. So for now, they let Lloyd think he's helping them out. And the next time they meet, Lloyd offers them another major twist in the story. It wasn't Ray Molesky who he saw take the girls that day and keep them in his basement. Lloyd was lying because he's scared of the real person who actually took the girls. And it was his cousin, Teddy Welch.

Now, this accusation is absurd to the police for one major reason. Teddy would have been 11 years old at the time of the disappearance. Oh, come on, man. But again, they figure if they follow Lloyd down this rabbit hole, it might get them to a different rabbit hole that gets them closer to the truth. I don't have the patience for this. I'd be so frustrated. So annoying. But they bite. After all, the Leon family always said the girls wouldn't have gone willingly with a stranger.

But maybe someone closer to their age, that could be a different story. However, Lloyd says Teddy didn't work alone. He was with someone else that day, their shared uncle named Dickie. So he claims that Dickie was using Teddy to lure the girls into the car and back to his house. In fact, Lloyd now claims he saw the girls shortly after the kidnapping, only it was in Dickie's basement, not Ray Molesky's.

Now police look into Uncle Dicky just to rule out any false leads. And what they find is he owned a beige station wagon. Okay, most beauty brands just don't really understand my hair, but Proz does. They have a formula that specifically addresses my hair, which makes sense because it's tailored just for me. You literally get on, you take a quiz, proz.

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Now, remember that random tip that came in back in 1975, that man in Virginia who said he saw two girls bound and gagged in the backseat of a beige station wagon, only they couldn't match the plates? Police now wonder, could that have been Dickie's car? And maybe Ray had nothing to do with this all along. And although Dickie was local to Maryland, Lloyd and Dickie had family in Bedford, Virginia. So,

Maybe his car could have been there. It was actually up in this pretty creepy area called Taylor's Mountain. It was a local rumor that a lot of bad things went down on Taylor's Mountain. Families who isolated themselves from the rest of society, reports of incest, disappearances, murders.

It was so off the grid, so out of hand, that police rarely bothered even dealing with the people on Taylor's Mountain. That's nuts, dude. But this time, there was no ignoring it, particularly because at the top of the hill was a home belonging to a woman named Lizzie Parker, who was Lloyd Lee Welch's aunt, right next to a plot of land that belonged to Uncle Dickie, who's now been dragged into this case.

So police investigated the area and discovered there's a large cemetery with several unmarked graves at the top of Taylor's Mountain. And when locals are asked about anything unusual happening there back in 1975, several of them mentioned the same thing. They can never forget the massive bonfire near the Parker house that seemed to last for days and reeked of human flesh and hair.

Remember what Lloyd said back when he was asked what he thought happened to the girls, how maybe they were burned? The lies are starting to come together with little seeds of truth. Knowing all of this, the local Bedford police, the Montgomery police, and the FBI all joined forces at this point to scour the mountain for evidence for the sisters. Which, keep in mind, up to this point, there's been nothing. Zero physical sign of Sheila or Kate after the mall that day. So this feels like the closest they've come to...

something they also begin reaching out to other members of lloyd and dickie's family to see if they have statements to offer and they find a pretty explosive piece of testimony from lloyd's cousin lizzie parker's daughter who lived in that house back in 1975 her name is connie acres now it's october 2014 almost a year since chris discovered that case file on his desk that led to all of this

and they go meet up with Connie. Connie, who was a teenager back in 1975, says she doesn't remember Uncle Dicky or Teddy coming to the house that spring with any young girls.

But she does remember Lloyd coming with his pregnant girlfriend, Helen, and a massive green duffel bag, which stunk to high heavens. When they opened it, Connie noticed there were bloody clothes inside. But Lloyd tried to say that he had bought a bunch of hamburger meat to cook that night. And that's what was in the bag.

So that evening, Connie remembered that Lloyd had recruited the help of her brother to build a bonfire. And after that, they tossed the entire bag he brought up with them onto the flames, keeping the fire raging for the next several days, which is why all the neighbors knew about it. So you're saying that all day and all night, they just stayed there and... Kept this fire going. Kept the fire going. Which is why it stood out to all the neighbors. Just... Okay, got it. So...

Investigators follow Connie's lead to the exact spot where the bonfire happened. Now, imagine being Connie, and it's this long later, and the police show up at your family's property, or to you, and say, hey, back when you lived on your family's property, was there anything weird with your Uncle Dicky? She's like, not my Uncle Dicky, no, but...

My cousin, who brought you to all of this, he did show up with a bag that smelled really bad. And he said it was hamburger meat. And then they started a fire, threw the bag in the fire, and kept it going for days. Okay. That would just be so strange. So they follow her lead to the exact spot where the bonfire happened. They begin digging around the area, looking for any sign that the girls might have been there. And for the first time in the investigation, they actually find something. No way. Along with scissorhands.

With several human bone fragments, they discover a small piece of wire that appeared to be a match with the wire-framed glasses Sheila used to wear. Crazy. What a break in the case and also...

It's interesting what like a fresh pair of eyes will do, right? You just leave the case for a bit. Let's relook at it in X amount of years. It sucks that it couldn't have been solved before, obviously. Well, they did talk to him, but he said he lied. So they just said, okay, nevermind. It's bogus. Correct. I mean, he was so, how old was he? He was 18.

Yeah, he was a teenager. That's so young too, right? I think you're not thinking, oh, this 18-year-old kidnapped these two girls. Right. I mean, those witnesses did come forward saying that he was watching them. Yeah, that's true too. I think everyone was so focused on Ray. That's what I'm telling you. And I'm not, Ray's not innocent in this. He did go on to kill people. So it is. Oh, no, but not in this case. But not in this case. And that's what I was saying is sometimes they get so focused. I mean, I probably would do it too on the person that it's,

Usually somebody else, especially in cases like this. So they also discover a piece of a beaded bracelet that was just like the kind Kate was wearing the day she was taken. Unfortunately, though, they weren't able to extract any DNA from the bones to conclusively say whether they belonged to one of the sisters or not.

still detectives were certain they were making progress. So at this point, they had eliminated the then 11-year-old cousin, Teddy, primarily because they learned he had two giant casts on his arm during the time the Leon sisters were taken. And like, he's 11. And that certainly would have come up in some eyewitness testimony. Like, if you see these girls walking with...

a kid with two casts, you're going to notice it. They also sat down with the elderly Uncle Dickie who insisted he never played a role in the girls' kidnapping. So knowing all they know now, Chris and Dave full circle back to visit Lloyd again in May 2015. Which, how ironic, because Lloyd probably agreed to talk to them in the first place because he knew it would look good so he could come out on parole, right? Yeah. It would look good for him. But he's also...

incriminating and screwing himself over at the same time it's yeah I mean but he did it so that's a good thing right but it's super interesting that if he didn't talk he probably would never got caught yeah

Although they circle back to him and they're like, okay, we're pretty sure we know what happened. Like you've been leading us on this. Yeah, but it's back to you. I'm going to tell you how author Mark Bowden put it. He still acted like a fairytale troll guarding a treasure, one who would only respond to the detective's questions in long form riddles. So this is where we're at now with our prime suspect.

This was now the seventh time detectives had met with Lloyd. So you can imagine how frustrated they have grown with him, particularly with his eagerness to blame everyone else in his family for what was looking more and more like his wrongdoing. But this time he offers up a new name for the police. His father, Lee, still insisting Uncle Dickie was involved. Lloyd says that Dickie, who'd been holding the girls captive in his house, recruited the help of Lee to

to kill them. And then they left the remains under a bridge in the Anacostia River, just a block or so away from Dickie's property. So Dave, expecting this to be just another riddle, follows the tip, just in case.

He goes to Hyattsville to the area where the Anacostia River runs through, and he checks out the scene. But surprise, things are not adding up. The water is so shallow that a body would immediately surface. Plus, the space is wide open, so anyone dumping a body would certainly have been seen. So Dave leaves there feeling somewhat annoyed with himself for even wasting his own time. He's like, come on. This is until he realizes he's at the intersection of Baltimore Avenue.

And 4714 Baltimore Avenue was an address that he'd seen dozens of times on Lloyd Lee Welch's original police statement back in 1975, that one that showed up on his desk. 4714 was the house Lloyd grew up in. He and Lee were the ones who lived next to the river.

Not Dickie. Impressive that he's remembering all of this. Right. And that he's like somehow piecing it together. So Dave takes a walk to Lloyd's old house, knocks on the door and gets permission from the current owner to take a look around. And around the back of the house, he sees something Lloyd has described multiple times throughout his interrogations. Perhaps one of the few details that he even stayed consistent with. A basement. Accessible only down a flight of stairs around the back of the house.

The basement where the sisters were supposedly held captive. He's now found this place. A basement that didn't belong to Ray or Dickie, but clearly to Lloyd and Lee Welch. And when Dave steps into that cold concrete dungeon, he immediately senses this was definitely the place.

He knows he has to get a forensics team out here ASAP. Hours later, they're spraying the basement with a chemical that will illuminate if old blood stains have been cleaned there, and one particular room in the basement lights up like a Christmas tree. There's no doubt that someone had been brutally murdered there, which means detectives finally probably have the crime scene they've been searching for. It would still...

I mean, I guess it would all still be there. It doesn't just go away on its own. I think it's hard because he was alluding to this basement. He was like, no, it was my Uncle Dicky's. No, it was this. It was Ray's. When in reality, it was at his house where he lived with his father. So about a week later, Dave and Chris pay one more visit to Lloyd. This time, he's a sitting duck. No matter what way he tries to spin it, he's going to be facing charges for this 40-year-old crime. Yeah.

Knowing that he's been caught red-handed, Lloyd offers one final tale of how the events played out. And this might be the closest thing to the truth he'll ever offer, so here's what we have. He did lure the girls away from the mall that day, but he insists Uncle Dickie was still the getaway driver. The girls were then kept in his basement by Lee and Dickie, his father and uncle, and Lloyd said he kept quiet because he didn't want them to hurt him as well.

After they died, Lloyd said he took Dickie's station wagon to Virginia. So again, we're now getting back to the other witness's statement. To dispose of a body for his dad and uncle. But keyword here being a body. Not bodies. Lloyd says it was just the younger sister, Kate.

And that he didn't know whatever ended up happening to Sheila's remains. So take all this with a grain of salt, of course. There's no reason to believe Lloyd now. But particularly because he's still making himself out to be the victim in this scenario. Like, I did it for my dad and my uncle. And I kept him in the basement. And then I also dumped the bodies. Which, again, he's been lying the whole time. And also, he's literally in jail for molesting and sexually assaulting a girl. So...

This crime that happened is right up his alley, per se. Right. I don't think it makes much of a difference. And it doesn't, no. In September 2017, Lloyd Lee Welch pleaded guilty to two counts of felony murder. He likely only accepted the plea deal to avoid the death penalty. Still, Lloyd Lee Welch will now spend the rest of his days locked up in prison with no hope for release. It's kind of crazy. He went from getting out almost to...

to life in prison, which is good. While justice was served to one of the players in Sheila and Kate's murders, there's still so many questions left unanswered in this case. Who else was truly involved in the crime? Some of the Welch family members claimed Dickie often spoke about the Leon sisters and admitted behind closed doors that he had played a role in it. Mm-hmm.

Lee Welch, Lloyd's father, was already dead, so there was no getting his side of the story. Plus, the bloodstains found in his basement no longer contained any DNA, meaning there was no telling whether it did belong to Kate, Sheila, or someone else entirely. It seems like from the beginning you would just blame your dad and he probably would have gotten away with it if he stuck to that story the entire time. Well, if he just stuck to it, but because he ended up... Not that I wanted him to, but... And admitting that he dumped the bodies and he kidnapped the girls. He probably could have gotten away with it. Yeah.

Yeah. If he said it's my dad, cause it's the dad's dead. Yeah. Except for there was an eyewitness who saw him at the mall. True. So that does kind of place him there. Still, it turns out that Lloyd Lee Welch had been beaten at his own game. A situation that proves no cold case is ever worth putting to bed completely because the truth comes out with time. And that is the case of the Leon sisters. It's sad that it took so long. I'm glad that hopefully the family has some type of closure. Yeah.

If possible. If possible. Extremely sad. I'm glad they solved it, though. Or I'm glad that detective ended up solving it. Because there's so many cool cases out there. And I think, you know. Also, come on, dude. They're just in the mall enjoying themselves, having a good time. And then someone sexually assaults and kills them.

What is up with that? I heard people doing that, man. I mean, I know that question is never going to be answered, but it just sucks. I also think like so often we see with these cases, um,

We have the truth, kind of. Yeah. But it's like these murderers take these secrets to their grave even after they've been convicted. I know. You're in jail for the rest of your life, never getting out. Just tell the truth. Yeah. The secret to death. What does it matter? You're not getting out. You don't even have to tell it to me. Tell it to her family. Yeah. Tell it to the victim's family. Give them answers. Or at least on your deathbed, write a letter, like something. Yeah.

I'll just, I mean this. Okay. So if we want to go here. It doesn't surprise me though. I mean, they all have huge egos. They're all so manipulative. Like they're narcissists. Like there's so many different words we can describe them as. It doesn't surprise me that they die with these secrets. Yeah, that's true. All right, you guys, that was our case. And we will see you next week with a bonus episode. If you're a member of Patreon or Apple subscriptions or just another regular episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.