Desert connection to 40-year-old cold case arrest

News Channel 3 is learning more about the family of two sisters who disappeared in Maryland 40 years ago. Sheila and Katherine Lyon’s case is no longer cold: new information now has a suspect charged in their murder. However, there are still many unanswered questions after all these years.

A former colleague of the the Lyon girls’ father and Palm Desert resident spoke with News Channel 3 about the family that is now closer than ever before to finding out what happened to their loved ones.

Sheila, 12, and Katherine Lyon, 10, disappeared in 1975. They were last seen walking home from a nearby mall.

“It was OK back then to let your kids walk to a local shopping mall which was where they lived, basically across the street,” said Jon Hoffman. “You just could never imagine back in 1975; I don’t think anybody had any inkling of this ever happening,”

Hoffman later met the girls’ father, John Lyon, at WMAL, a radio station in Washington, D.C.

“He let me come in and sit in on his program if he was working on a Saturday, and I thought that was just terrific because my interest in radio got even bigger because of that,” said Hoffman.

Hoffman said they became friends and later colleagues.

“For those 10-15 years, I knew him. He was a real rock, no one ever asked him about this case,” said Hoffman.

As the years passed, from listening to Lyon’s radio personality, Hoffman said you would never know the loss his family was suffering.

“That’s the type of people they were, just average joes who kept us entertained. For his part, I guess that is why I call him a rock. He never would let it show in his work,” said Hoffman. “Maybe it was the humor for him, and maybe me sitting along side helped that little tiny bit not showing what was really deep inside.”

After radio, Lyon became a victim’s advocate. It was then the two talked about his daughters, whose fate still remained a mystery.

“I finally asked him about that, I didn’t have the guts to ask him about that before that,” said Hoffman. “It was really a bother to him at the moment, he was just glad to be working someplace that helped other children and it was his main push right then.”

Now 40 years later, a break in the case. Lloyd Lee Welch, an 18-year-old carnival worker at the time, is now a 58-year-old convicted sex offender charged with the girls’ murder.

But the mystery is not over yet; the girls’ bodies have not been found and the investigation into what happened is just getting started.

“Have this whole thing open up suddenly 40 years later again, it would be a blow to both of them I’m sure, but they have been rocks throughout all of this,” said Hoffman.

Hoffman said he hasn’t spoken to the Lyon family since the break in the case and the family has not spoken out publicly.