Lyon Sisters
Encyclopedia
Katherine Mary Lyon and Sheila Mary Lyon (aged 12) were two sisters who disappeared without a trace
during a trip to a local mall in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
, in 1975. Known colloquially as The Lyon Sisters, their case resulted in one of the largest police investigations in the Washington, D.C., metro area’s history. The case remains unsolved.
The immense media attention given to this case at the time, its significance in the Washington area’s criminal history, and the fact that the mystery of their disappearance has never been explained, has led to the story being revisited on a regular basis, with the result that it has started to pass into the area’s folklore.
. They had an older brother, Jay, who later became a policeman. Their father was a well-known radio personality at WMAL, a local radio station then held by the owner of the ABC Television affiliate in Washington and the now-defunct Washington Star
; he later worked as a victims counselor. Coincidentally, immediately following the girls' disappearance, the U.S. was pulling out of Vietnam
. Regardless, they continued to be featured in high-profile stories on the media for some months.
Located a half mile away from their home was Wheaton Plaza shopping mall (now Westfield Wheaton
). On March 25, 1975, Katherine and Sheila Lyon were going to see the easter exhibts. It was their spring vacation and they planned to have lunch at the Orange Bowl Restaurant. They left home between 11:00 AM to noon. Their mother had instructed her daughters to return home by 4:00 PM; when they had not arrived by 7:00 PM, the police were called and an extensive search was conducted. Police felt comfortable enough with accuracy of this timeline to release it to the public.
Police investigating the case followed up on reports from several people who said they recognized the sketch of the unknown man with the briefcase. Press reports indicated that a man matching the sketch was seen a few weeks earlier at the Marlow Heights Shopping Center
and the Iverson Mall
, both in neighboring Prince George's County, Maryland
. These people reported that he had approached several young girls and asked them to read an answering machine message typed on an index card into his hand-held microphone. The police never publicly acknowledged a direct link between these reports and the Lyon sisters' disappearance.
As the weeks after the disappearance wore on, numerous volunteer groups combed vacant lots and stream beds for the sisters. The search continued and press interest reached such a fever pitch that on May 23, 1975, Maryland Lt. Gov. Blair Lee
summoned 122 National Guardsmen to participate in a search of a Montgomery County forest for the two missing Lyon sisters.
No trace of the girls was ever found from these searches.
, reported seeing two girls resembling Sheila and Katherine in the rear of a beige 1968 Ford station wagon. The witness stated that the girls were bound and gagged in the vehicle. The driver of the station wagon resembled the man in the publicly available sketch of the prime suspect (who had been seen questioning children at the Orange Bowl Restaurant the day the sisters vanished). The witness further claimed that when the driver spotted the witness tailing him, he ran a red light and sped west on Route 234 towards Interstate 66
in Virginia
. The station wagon had Maryland license plates with the possible combination "DMT-6**." The last two numbers are unknown due to the bending of the car's plate. The known combination was issued in Cumberland
, Hagerstown
, and Baltimore
, Maryland at the time. A search for matching plate numbers failed to produce any information. Although this witness's report was at first treated as credible, and a media firestorm erupted because of it, it was later deemed "questionable" by police. Despite this later finding, media and otherwise well-researched Internet reports continue to mention this report, more often than not treating it as an all but verified sighting of the girls.
Several phone calls from people claiming to have the girls and offering to exchange them for ransom money were made to the Lyon family in the immediate aftermath of the sisters' disappearances. The one that went the furthest and that had seemed most credible at first started when an anonymous male voice called the family on April 4, 1975, and demanded that John Lyon leave a briefcase with $10,000 inside an Annapolis, Maryland
, courthouse restroom. The money was left just as the instructions from the caller required, but the money was never claimed. This same anonymous person called John Lyon later and maintained that police had surrounded the courthouse and he could not retrieve the ransom. The man was told that he would have to show some evidence of having the Lyon sisters in his custody before another attempt would be made to leave him a ransom. Although the caller then said he would be in touch with the family, he never contacted them again.
, six days after the Lyon sisters vanished. Silver Spring is a short distance from Wheaton Plaza. Investigators have been unable to determine if Coffey is connected to the case and he has never been charged in their disappearances.
Raymond Rudolph Mileski Sr. was another possible suspect in the girls' disappearances named in press reports. Mileski resided in Suitland-Silver Hill, Maryland
, in 1975, not far from the malls in Prince George's County that had reported a man with a microphone approaching young girls. In a family disagreement, Mileski murdered his wife and teenage son and wounded another son inside their home in November 1977. He was convicted of the homicides and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Based on both prison informants tips and Mileski’s own claims to know something about the Lyon sisters case, which he offered to share more fully in exchange for more favorable prison conditions, authorities searched the yard of his former residence in April 1982, including extensive digging, but no evidence was discovered. Mileski died in prison in 2004.
Missing person
A missing person is a person who has disappeared for usually unknown reasons.Missing persons' photographs may be posted on bulletin boards, milk cartons, postcards, and websites, along with a phone number to be contacted if a sighting has been made....
during a trip to a local mall in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, in 1975. Known colloquially as The Lyon Sisters, their case resulted in one of the largest police investigations in the Washington, D.C., metro area’s history. The case remains unsolved.
The immense media attention given to this case at the time, its significance in the Washington area’s criminal history, and the fact that the mystery of their disappearance has never been explained, has led to the story being revisited on a regular basis, with the result that it has started to pass into the area’s folklore.
Background to the sisters' disappearance
The two sisters were born to John and Mary Lyon in Kensington, MarylandKensington, Maryland
Kensington is a town in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. The population was 1,873 at the 2000 census. Greater Kensington encompasses the entire 20895 zip code and its population is an order of magnitude larger than that of the town at its center....
. They had an older brother, Jay, who later became a policeman. Their father was a well-known radio personality at WMAL, a local radio station then held by the owner of the ABC Television affiliate in Washington and the now-defunct Washington Star
Washington Star
The Washington Star, previously known as the Washington Star-News and the Washington Evening Star, was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C. between 1852 and 1981. For most of that time, it was the city's newspaper of record, and the longtime home to columnist Mary McGrory and...
; he later worked as a victims counselor. Coincidentally, immediately following the girls' disappearance, the U.S. was pulling out of Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. Regardless, they continued to be featured in high-profile stories on the media for some months.
Located a half mile away from their home was Wheaton Plaza shopping mall (now Westfield Wheaton
Westfield Wheaton
Westfield Wheaton is a two-level enclosed shopping mall in Wheaton, Maryland. It is owned by The Westfield Group.-History:...
). On March 25, 1975, Katherine and Sheila Lyon were going to see the easter exhibts. It was their spring vacation and they planned to have lunch at the Orange Bowl Restaurant. They left home between 11:00 AM to noon. Their mother had instructed her daughters to return home by 4:00 PM; when they had not arrived by 7:00 PM, the police were called and an extensive search was conducted. Police felt comfortable enough with accuracy of this timeline to release it to the public.
- 11:00 AM to noon: The girls leave home.
- 1:00 PM: A neighborhood child tells investigators that he saw both of the girls together outside the Orange Bowl Restaurant. He also told the investigators that the sisters were speaking to an unidentified man.
- 2:00 PM: The girls' older brother saw them inside the Orange Bowl Restaurant eating pizza together.
- 2:30 to 3:00 PM: A friend sees the girls walking westward down a street near the Mall which would have been one of the most direct routes from the Mall to their home. This is the final sighting of the sisters that is absolutely confirmed by the police.
- 4:00 PM: This curfew set by their mother passes. The girls are expected home and do not arrive.
- 7:00 PM: Police are called. The investigation and an active search by professionals begins.
Police investigation
At approximately 1 PM, police were told that the sisters were in the Wheaton Plaza mall. A neighborhood boy, who knew the sisters, reported that he saw them together outside the Orange Bowl Restaurant speaking with an unidentified man, about 6 feet tall, 50 to 60 years old, and wearing a brown suit. The man was carrying a briefcase with a tape recorder inside; there were also other children around who were speaking into a microphone he was holding. The witness's description of the man led authorities to view the unknown person as a prime suspect in the Lyon sisters' case and two composite sketches of the man were created.Police investigating the case followed up on reports from several people who said they recognized the sketch of the unknown man with the briefcase. Press reports indicated that a man matching the sketch was seen a few weeks earlier at the Marlow Heights Shopping Center
Marlow Heights, Maryland
Marlow Heights is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The population was 6,059 at the 2000 census...
and the Iverson Mall
Iverson Mall
The Iverson Mall is a shopping mall located at the intersection of Branch Avenue and Iverson Street , in Hillcrest Heights, Maryland, just north of the Marlow Heights Shopping Center. It was the first shopping mall in the Washington D.C...
, both in neighboring Prince George's County, Maryland
Prince George's County, Maryland
Prince George's County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland, immediately north, east, and south of Washington, DC. As of 2010, it has a population of 863,420 and is the wealthiest African-American majority county in the nation....
. These people reported that he had approached several young girls and asked them to read an answering machine message typed on an index card into his hand-held microphone. The police never publicly acknowledged a direct link between these reports and the Lyon sisters' disappearance.
As the weeks after the disappearance wore on, numerous volunteer groups combed vacant lots and stream beds for the sisters. The search continued and press interest reached such a fever pitch that on May 23, 1975, Maryland Lt. Gov. Blair Lee
Blair Lee III
Blair Lee III was an American Democratic politician. He served as the Secretary of State of Maryland from 1969 to 1971...
summoned 122 National Guardsmen to participate in a search of a Montgomery County forest for the two missing Lyon sisters.
No trace of the girls was ever found from these searches.
False leads
On April 7, 1975, about two weeks after their disappearance, a witness in Manassas, VirginiaManassas, Virginia
The City of Manassas is an independent city surrounded by Prince William County and the independent city of Manassas Park in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Its population was 37,821 as of 2010. Manassas also surrounds the county seat for Prince William County but that county...
, reported seeing two girls resembling Sheila and Katherine in the rear of a beige 1968 Ford station wagon. The witness stated that the girls were bound and gagged in the vehicle. The driver of the station wagon resembled the man in the publicly available sketch of the prime suspect (who had been seen questioning children at the Orange Bowl Restaurant the day the sisters vanished). The witness further claimed that when the driver spotted the witness tailing him, he ran a red light and sped west on Route 234 towards Interstate 66
Interstate 66
Interstate 66 is an Interstate Highway in the eastern United States. As indicated by its even route number, it runs in an east–west direction. Its western terminus is at Middletown, Virginia, at an intersection with Interstate 81; its eastern terminus is in Washington, D.C., at an...
in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
. The station wagon had Maryland license plates with the possible combination "DMT-6**." The last two numbers are unknown due to the bending of the car's plate. The known combination was issued in Cumberland
Cumberland, Maryland
Cumberland is a city in the far western, Appalachian portion of Maryland, United States. It is the county seat of Allegany County, and the primary city of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2010 census, the city had a population of 20,859, and the metropolitan area had a...
, Hagerstown
Hagerstown, Maryland
Hagerstown is a city in northwestern Maryland, United States. It is the county seat of Washington County, and, by many definitions, the largest city in a region known as Western Maryland. The population of Hagerstown city proper at the 2010 census was 39,662, and the population of the...
, and Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Maryland at the time. A search for matching plate numbers failed to produce any information. Although this witness's report was at first treated as credible, and a media firestorm erupted because of it, it was later deemed "questionable" by police. Despite this later finding, media and otherwise well-researched Internet reports continue to mention this report, more often than not treating it as an all but verified sighting of the girls.
Several phone calls from people claiming to have the girls and offering to exchange them for ransom money were made to the Lyon family in the immediate aftermath of the sisters' disappearances. The one that went the furthest and that had seemed most credible at first started when an anonymous male voice called the family on April 4, 1975, and demanded that John Lyon leave a briefcase with $10,000 inside an Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis, Maryland
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It had a population of 38,394 at the 2010 census and is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east of Washington, D.C. Annapolis is...
, courthouse restroom. The money was left just as the instructions from the caller required, but the money was never claimed. This same anonymous person called John Lyon later and maintained that police had surrounded the courthouse and he could not retrieve the ransom. The man was told that he would have to show some evidence of having the Lyon sisters in his custody before another attempt would be made to leave him a ransom. Although the caller then said he would be in touch with the family, he never contacted them again.
Suspects
Fred Howard Coffey Jr. was later viewed as a possible suspect in the sisters' cases. Coffey was convicted in 1987 for the 1979 beating, strangulation murder and child molestation of a 10-year-old girl in North Carolina and is serving a life sentence (after an earlier death sentence was overturned) in a North Carolina prison. Authorities learned that he interviewed for a job (and was subsequently employed) in Silver Spring, MarylandSilver Spring, Maryland
Silver Spring is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It had a population of 71,452 at the 2010 census, making it the fourth most populous place in Maryland, after Baltimore, Columbia, and Germantown.The urbanized, oldest, and...
, six days after the Lyon sisters vanished. Silver Spring is a short distance from Wheaton Plaza. Investigators have been unable to determine if Coffey is connected to the case and he has never been charged in their disappearances.
Raymond Rudolph Mileski Sr. was another possible suspect in the girls' disappearances named in press reports. Mileski resided in Suitland-Silver Hill, Maryland
Suitland-Silver Hill, Maryland
Suitland-Silver Hill is a census-designated place in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The census area include separate unincorporated communities of Silver Hill and Suitland, and other smaller communities. The population was 33,515 at the 2000 census...
, in 1975, not far from the malls in Prince George's County that had reported a man with a microphone approaching young girls. In a family disagreement, Mileski murdered his wife and teenage son and wounded another son inside their home in November 1977. He was convicted of the homicides and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Based on both prison informants tips and Mileski’s own claims to know something about the Lyon sisters case, which he offered to share more fully in exchange for more favorable prison conditions, authorities searched the yard of his former residence in April 1982, including extensive digging, but no evidence was discovered. Mileski died in prison in 2004.
See also
- CrimeCrimeCrime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
- Cold case
- List of people who disappeared mysteriously
- John Brennan CrutchleyJohn Brennan CrutchleyJohn Brennan Crutchley was a convicted kidnapper and rapist who was suspected of murdering more than 30 women, but was never tried nor convicted of those crimes...
, a deceased rapist and possible serial killerSerial killerA serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
suspected of linkages to as many as 20 or so disappearances of teenaged girls and young women in and around the Washington, DC area.
External links
- WUSA (Washington, DC, TV station) permanent page devoted to the disappearance
- Websleuth forum on Lyon Sisters (opinion forums but many newspaper articles and links are reprinted partially or in their entirety)
- Montgomery County Gazette Newspaper Article on the 30th Anniversary on impact on the community
- Missing person's profile of Sheila Lyon
- Missing person's profile of Katherine Lyon