Perjury indictment in 1975 missing Md. sisters case
BEDFORD, Va. -- A Maryland woman has been indicted on a perjury charge in Virginia stemming from an investigation into the disappearance of two sisters in 1975.
Media outlets report that a Bedford County grand jury indicted 65-year-old Patricia Jean Welch of Hyattsville, Maryland, on Tuesday. Welch is accused of lying to a grand jury investigating the case of 10-year-old Katherine Lyon and 12-year-old Sheila Lyon.
She was charged with perjury in December, and indicted on the charge Tuesday.
The girls disappeared after walking to a shopping mall in Wheaton, Maryland in March 1975.
Investigators believe the girls were subsequently brought to Bedford County, Va., a remote area between Roanoke and Lynchburg more than 230 miles southwest of where they vanished.
Authorities have named Patricia Welch's husband, Richard Allen Welch, Sr., and his nephew, Lloyd Welch, Jr., as "persons of interest" in the case. Police said Welch, Jr. was seen at the mall that day forty years ago, and Welch, Sr. was a security guard in the Wheaton area when the girls disappeared.
Witnesses placed Lloyd Welch at the mall and said he was playing close attention to the girls. In 1998, the 57-year-old pleaded guilty to unrelated sex offenses in Delaware, where he is serving time, reported the Washington Post. He has reportedly denied any involvement in the sisters' disappearance.
Neither man has been charged in the case.
Patricia Welch's perjury trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 13.