WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- A search warrant in the Lyon sisters case reveals police methodically building evidence against Richard Welch, who so far has only been named as a "person of interest" in the girls' disappearance.
The warrant says a relative of Richard Welch says Welch confided to him that he and other family members raped, murdered and disposed of the bodies of Sheila and Katherine Lyon, who were just 12 and 10 when they disappeared from Wheaton Plaza 40 years ago.
The relative says Welch told him he and other family members sexually assaulted the girls on pool tables in Welch's home in Hyattsville, and that they disposed of their bodies on Taylors Mountain in Bedford County, Virginia. The relative also allegedly told cold case detectives that a family vehicle was used to take the girls from Hyattsville to Bedford.
Thomas Welch, Jr., another relative of Richard Welch, told investigators he saw two blonde girls in Welch's pool room on Easter in 1975. Welch is not commenting now, but detectives say he told them that he believes the girls were the Lyon sisters.
Investigators searched the Hyattsville house last year and the warrant says they seized several knives and a hatchet.
Detectives provided the details to get the warrant to search the Anne Arundel County home of Richard Welch's granddaughter Amy. The warrant says Amy has been privately messaging and using Facebook to communicate with family members about the case. Sources tell WUSA9 that police seized a computer and phone after searching her home last week.
Other relatives have allegedly told police that Amy Welch has engaged in almost daily conversations with suspects in the case, and that she immediately deletes the conversations from her phone.
Amy Welch's mother, Patricia Ann, has repeatedly insisted that neither her daughter nor her parents know anything about the deaths of Sheila and Katherine Lyon.
The warrant also says that shortly after police and prosecutors held a news conference naming Richard Welch's nephew Lloyd as a person of interest in the girls' murder, an inmate went to officials at a prison in Delaware where Lloyd is doing time for assaulting another girl. That inmate allegedly told prison officials that Lloyd Welch had talked to him about kidnapping the girls and burying them in Virginia. The inmate recanted several days later, saying Lloyd Welch "had only told him about his family property in Virginia and the prisoner surmised that it would be a good place to bury him if Lloyd Welch had been involved."
Grand jurors indicted Lloyd Welch last month, accusing him of first-degree murder and abduction with intent to defile.
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