DC DC - Eileen Kelly, 18, Washington DC, 14 Dec 1974

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This December will mark 40 years since the abduction and murder of Eileen Kelly.

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Eileen Kelly, 18, Unsolved Murder December 1974, Washington DC

Eileen Kelly, 18 years old, disappeared on 14 December 1974. Nine days later, on 22 December 1974, her body was found in the 17 block of R Street Northeast, Washington DC.

The Coroner stated that she had been dead between 24 and 36 hours when she was found. This would mean that someone had held her captive for several days prior to her murder.

Eileen's killer has never been identified and the case is unsolved. The case is under investigation by the Metropolitan Police.

If you have any information concerning this case, please call:

Detective James Trainum: 202-727-5037

Or the Metropolitan Police Operations Center at 202-727-9099

or e-mail them at unsolved.murder@dc.gov


Source:
District of Columbia: Metropolitan Police Department

LINK:http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/frames.asp?...ved/pdf/1971_1990/kelly_eileen.pdf&group=1533

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Cold Case: Eileen Kelly

It has been 35 years since 18 year old Eileen Kelly disppeared. She was eventually found dead. Police can use your help in solving the case.The below link is to a News4 (NBC TV in Washington DC) story which aired on March 4, 2010.


LINK:

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Cold_Case__Eileen_Kelly_Washington_DC.html
 
Bumping for Eileen Kelly. It has been 40 years since her abduction, imprisonment, and murder.
 
What I also noticed is interesting is that this girl Eileen Kelly's body was found on December 22 and then the very next day December 23 was the day that the Fort Worth trio went missing, never to be found.
 
G&AMom said:
The 2010 report from Channel 4 still works (I'm just reposting it here):

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Cold_Case__Eileen_Kelly_Washington_DC.html

I notice the report says DNA was "recently" found. I'm surprised nothing came of that.

One thing that struck me: Eileen was reported to be heading for the bus. Just outside the DOJ building on 10th Street (between DOJ and the IRS) was a sort of hub for buses -- not much chance of somebody grabbing her there, I would think. Plus the Channel 4 report says the bus driver identified her as "being alive." Sounds like she got on the bus? I'm wondering if she kidnapped when she got off the bus in Hyattsville. I haven't seen anything about where exactly in Hyattsville she was going.

It's quite frustrating how little information there is out there. The article from the DeMatha alumni report says that Michael McQuillan became a private detective. We need to invite him here to see if he has any info he can give us!

ETA: This looks like him? http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mike-mcquillan/38/778/84b
Click to expand...

Not sure if this killer was in the area on the day she disappeared. But he was known for keeping his victims alive for several days. He would drain there blood to almost death and have sex with them. He did have ties to the DC area in the mid 70s. BUT, this article stated DNA??.......So I guess they compared with this killer and it came out as a non match??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brennan_Crutchley#Early_life_and_career

Hes suspected in possible 30 murders. Its a matter of time before we match an unslove case with this monster. Hes been on my radar for years. Hes dead now, died in prison in 02.
 
You're right, Mr. TT. We definitely shouldn't get fixated on Michael/Lloyd Jr. Welch as the only suspect. The whole thing about the DNA is frustrating. I'd love to know who's been eliminated, although I doubt if MCPD will tell us. I've been thinking a lot about Eileen this month. Here's to hoping her killer is caught SOON.
 
40 Years ago...

Monday 22 December 2014 marks forty years since Eileen Kelly's body was found. Her murder remains unsolved. Hopefully some information can be made public which will lead to the case being solved.

One has to wonder if it might be related to some of the other unsolved (or solved) cases from that era.

The case is still open and under investigation by the Washington DC Metropolitan Police.

If you have any information concerning this case, please call:

Detective James Trainum: 202-727-5037
 
Today, Monday 22 December 2014 marks 40 years since Eileen Kelly's body was found in Washington DC. She had been abducted and held captive for at least a week before her murder.
 
I had posted the info below in response to a post regarding Eileen Kelly and any possible connection in a Lyon Sisters thread. I'm reposting here in this thread for ease of reference.

...For some geographical perspective on this case and any potential proximal connections that could be involved, Eileen Kelly's parents Patrick F. and Eileen L. moved from Greenbelt, MD in 1962 to 5602 37th Avenue in Hyattsville where they lived in 1974 and until the 1990s. This is in general proximity to several Welch family households including those of LLW2 and RAW1, as well as other related families by their marriage to the Welch sisters of RAW. Probability would indicate that the Kelly's likely would have crossed paths at some point over time with members of the Welch families. The significance of that, if any, is undetermined.

The Kelly's attended church at St. Jerome's located at 5207 42nd Place in Hyattsville. It has been stated that RAW1 lived at 5229 42nd Place (aka the Willoughby place) at the corner of 42nd Place and Jefferson Street, literally about 500 feet from St Jerome's. The significance of that, if any, is also undetermined. Is it possible that any members of the W families may have also attended the same church as the Kelly's?

I do not know what the bus route Eileen Kelly would have taken back in 1974 was (LE probably does know), however at this time there are 5 Metro bus stops on Jefferson Street, as Jefferson is a main connector between Rt.1 and Queens Chapel Road. For reference, both Queens Chapel Road (Michigan Ave from DC becomes Queens Chapel Rd. at the DC / MD line) and Rt. 1 are main arteries coming out of DC. Several of these bus stops on Jefferson are within clear eyesight of where RAW1 once lived at 5229 42nd Place and the corner of Jefferson Street.
 
Eileen Marie Kelly
Birth: Jul. 7, 1956 Death: Dec. 22, 1974

She disappeared after leaving her office on December 13, 1974, and her body was found in the District of Columbia on Decembe22, 1974. She had been strangled, and the coroner estimated she had been dead only 24-36 hours.

Her murder is a cold case, under investigation by the DC Metropolitan Police Dept.

Survived by her parents; four brothers; one sister; and aunts, uncles, and many friends.


Parents:

Eileen L O'Brien Kelly (1927 - 2010)

Burial:
Gate of Heaven Cemetery
Silver Spring
Montgomery County
Maryland, USA

There is a photo of Eileen at the link below.

Source: Eileen Marie Kelly (1956 - 1974) - Find A Grave Memorial

LINK:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=97820740
 
Eileen Marie Kelly disappeared after leaving her office on Friday, December 13, 1974. She was to ride a bus to a bus stop near her Hyattsville, Maryland home. Her father was to meet her and together they were going to look a new cars. She never made it.

A missing persons report was made and an investigation begun by Prince Georges County police.

Her body was found in the District of Columbia on December 22, 1974. She had been strangled, and the coroner estimated she had been dead only 24-36 hours.

The case was turned over to Washington Metropolitan Police as a homicide investigation. It remains unsolved and open.
 
There has been some discussion about Eileen Kelly on the Lyon Sisters topic recently regarding some similarities and possible connections between those cases, and possibly with the July 1975 abduction and murder of Kathy Lynn Beatty (age 14) in Aspen Hill, MD.

Here are some comments that I made recently in the Lyon Sisters topic:


Eileen Kelly went missing on Friday, 13 December 1974 after leaving work at the Department of Justice in Washington DC (as opposed to 14 December as stated in several places). She was supposed to meet her father at a bus stop near her Hyattsville, MD home and then go with him to look at new cars.


Eileen was petite, blonde haired and blue eyed (like the Lyon sisters) and only 18 years old. Also like the Lyon sisters, she was of the Roman Catholic faith.


Her body was found on 22 December 1974, 9 days after she went missing. It was determined that she had been kept alive somewhere and killed by strangulation only 24 to 36 hours before her body was found. The place where she was found was inside the Washington DC boundaries but not far from Hyattsville, Prince Georges County, MD. She was found near the Catholic Cemetery, Mt. Olivet.


It began as a missing person case in the jurisdiction of Prince Georges County, but when her body was found in DC, the case was transferred to Washington Metropolitan Police as a murder investigation. It has been an open and active case since.


Note that this occurred in the days prior to Christmas 1974. The Lyon Sisters went missing only five days before Easter 1975.


Note also that (Lyon case POI) Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr.'s 18th birthday also occurred in December of 1974. Since he and Eileen were the same age and from the same town, he might have known her from school, church, or community events.


Recent press comments by MCP investigators would possibly indicate the they Lyon sisters were abducted and kept alive for a time before being transferred and possibly murdered. Both currently named Persons of Interest resided in Hyattsville, MD at the time.


Note that Eileen Kelly's body was found very close to Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetery, Wash DC.


Kathy Lynn Beatty was found (barely alive but left for dead) in a trash strewn field across the road from Gate of Heaven Catholic Cemetery, Aspen Hill, MD - where Eileen Kelly was buried.


MCP has been searching for the Lyon sisters in and around a cemetery in Thaxton, VA.

LINK:

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?35049-Possible-Connections/page15
 
It has also been noted that the two named Persons of Interest in the Lyon case, Richard "Dick" Welch and his nephew, Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr. both lived in Hyattsville, MD in 1974 and 75, as did several of their relatives. It is quite possible that Eileen Kelly was known by at least some person in the Welch family, since her family lived in Hyattsville and attended church there at St. Jerome's Catholic Church.
 
Probably a long shot, but I wonder if there might have been any connection between the Murder of South Trimble in Washington DC on 31 December 1974 and the murder of Eileen Kelly. Both occurred in Washington DC in December of 1974.

Certainly there are differences in these cases, but also some similarities or coincidences.

South Trimble was an attorney for the Commerce Department and Eileen Kelly was a new employee of the Justice Department. Both were of the Catholic faith and active in their churches. South Trimble was shot to death shortly after arriving home from New Year's eve Mass.

---------------------


... On a night usually marked for beginnings, South Trimble Jr. met an unlikely end on the way home from a New Year's Eve service at a Catholic church on Dec. 31, 1974.

The 78-year-old dropped off his wife at the front of their Northwest apartment before parking the car in the basement garage. The couple lived on the 3000 block of Tilden Street NW. As soon as Trimble left the car, he was fatally shot once in the chest in what police say was an apartment robbery attempt. ...


DC DC - Unsolved murder of South Trimble Jr., 78, Washington DC, December 1974

LINK:

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...uth-Trimble-Jr-78-Washington-DC-December-1974
 
Richard said:
There has been some discussion about Eileen Kelly on the Lyon Sisters topic recently regarding some similarities and possible connections between those cases, and possibly with the July 1975 abduction and murder of Kathy Lynn Beatty (age 14) in Aspen Hill, MD.

Here are some comments that I made recently in the Lyon Sisters topic:


Eileen Kelly went missing on Friday, 13 December 1974 after leaving work at the Department of Justice in Washington DC (as opposed to 14 December as stated in several places). She was supposed to meet her father at a bus stop near her Hyattsville, MD home and then go with him to look at new cars.


Eileen was petite, blonde haired and blue eyed (like the Lyon sisters) and only 18 years old. Also like the Lyon sisters, she was of the Roman Catholic faith.


Her body was found on 22 December 1974, 9 days after she went missing. It was determined that she had been kept alive somewhere and killed by strangulation only 24 to 36 hours before her body was found. The place where she was found was inside the Washington DC boundaries but not far from Hyattsville, Prince Georges County, MD. She was found near the Catholic Cemetery, Mt. Olivet.


It began as a missing person case in the jurisdiction of Prince Georges County, but when her body was found in DC, the case was transferred to Washington Metropolitan Police as a murder investigation. It has been an open and active case since.


Note that this occurred in the days prior to Christmas 1974. The Lyon Sisters went missing only five days before Easter 1975.


Note also that (Lyon case POI) Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr.'s 18th birthday also occurred in December of 1974. Since he and Eileen were the same age and from the same town, he might have known her from school, church, or community events.


Recent press comments by MCP investigators would possibly indicate the they Lyon sisters were abducted and kept alive for a time before being transferred and possibly murdered. Both currently named Persons of Interest resided in Hyattsville, MD at the time.


Note that Eileen Kelly's body was found very close to Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetery, Wash DC.


Kathy Lynn Beatty was found (barely alive but left for dead) in a trash strewn field across the road from Gate of Heaven Catholic Cemetery, Aspen Hill, MD - where Eileen Kelly was buried.


MCP has been searching for the Lyon sisters in and around a cemetery in Thaxton, VA.

LINK:

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?35049-Possible-Connections/page15
Click to expand...

Richard, I too, am seriously wondering if there is a connection between the abduction and murder of 18 yr old Eileen Kelly in December 1974 and the abduction and murder (disappearance) of the two Lyon sisters in March 1975. I just realized yesterday, that Eileen Kelly was travelling by bus to Hyattsville, Maryland where she was to meet her father the afternoon she disappeared. Not sure if her father was suppose to meet her at the bus stop or somewhere else. Eileen was described as white with blonde hair and also, petite, which means she could have appeared younger than her actual age of 18.

Both Eileen Kelly and the Lyon sisters disappeared on weekdays (Friday and Tuesday) in the afternoon hours. The two POI's in the Lyon sisters case, LLoyd Welch Jr (aka Michael Welch) and his uncle, Richard Welch ("Dick") resided in Hyattsville, Md. I read that LE had some DNA in the Kelly case. Is there anyway to compare this DNA to that of either POI in the Lyon case to see if there is a match?
 
Historydetective63 said:
Richard, I too, am seriously wondering if there is a connection ...
... Both Eileen Kelly and the Lyon sisters disappeared on weekdays (Friday and Tuesday) in the afternoon hours. The two POI's in the Lyon sisters case, LLoyd Welch Jr (aka Michael Welch) and his uncle, Richard Welch ("Dick") resided in Hyattsville, Md. I read that LE had some DNA in the Kelly case. Is there anyway to compare this DNA to that of either POI in the Lyon case to see if there is a match?
Click to expand...

LE has this information for consideration. There are a lot of similarities between these cases.
 
RichardLewis said:
The Kelly's attended church at St. Jerome's located at 5207 42nd Place in Hyattsville. It has been stated that RAW1 lived at 5229 42nd Place (aka the Willoughby place) at the corner of 42nd Place and Jefferson Street, literally about 500 feet from St Jerome's. The significance of that, if any, is also undetermined. Is it possible that any members of the W families may have also attended the same church as the Kelly's?
Click to expand...

None of the Welches attended St. Jerome's. Many Appalachian families in Hyattsville attended First Baptist Church, but they were not members there, either. According to a relative I spoke with, none of the extended family were churchgoers except the stepmother of Lloyd Lee Welch Jr., who was for a short time a Seventh Day Adventist.

In Hyattsville during the second half of the 20th Century, there were a lot of blue-collar Irish Catholic families who migrated there in the '40s and '50s from N.E. D.C., and they overlapped with a wave of blue-collar Appalachian families who arrived mostly in the '60s and '70s. However, the two groups didn't necessarily mingle much socially. The Irish-Americans went to St. Jerome School and then DeMatha (boys) or Seton (girls) Catholic high schools, while the Appalachians attended the public schools. And, of course, they also went to different churches, since almost none of the Appalachians were Catholic.

Still, the similarities between the two cases (Kelly and Lyon sisters) are notable ...
 
Who comes to mind for me is James Mitchell "Mike" Debardeleben. I need to brush up a bit on the long confusing "fact sheet" on him (my memory is crappy these days)...but pretty sure he had strong ties to the DC/Maryland area. And it is thought he held some of his victims, I believe.

WS thread on Debardeleben in Serial Killers:
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?224445-TX-DeBARDELEBEN-James-Mitchell-quot-Mike-quot

Link to prologue of Stephen Michaud's book about him: http://www.stephenmichaud.com/lethalshadow.htm
 
This is an older (2006) article, but I haven't seen it linked in the thread (although I could have simply missed it -- and, if so, my apologies for repeating) and it has some pretty detailed information. This is from back at the time they were working to obtain DNA evidence:

DNA evidence could break unsolved 1974 homicide


...On Dec. 22, 1974, her partially clad body was found in an alley behind 42 R St. NW. She had been raped and strangled, and a section of her panty hose had been wrapped around her neck. ...

...FBI special agent Bradley Garrett has also been assigned to the case.
"These crimes are psychologically driven," Garrett said. "It’s driven by the sexual fantasy of the offender."
Given that, it’s likely that whoever killed Kelly has raped — and perhaps killed — other women, so authorities are poring over reports of other unsolved rapes, homicides and disappearances that are similar to Kelly’s slaying, Garrett said. ...

...Kelly was a bright, pretty girl who wore bracelets for American prisoners of war in Vietnam and was active in St. Jerome’s church in Hyattsville. ...
Click to expand...

more at: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/dna-evidence-could-break-unsolved-1974-homicide/article/78154
 
Does anyone know what school Eileen attended? Her local public school would probably have been Northwestern HS on Adelphi Road. The nearest Catholic School would have been Seaton?

I get the feeling from the various summaries that she had already graduated from High School. If so, what year?
 
It would be interesting to know what bus route Eileen normally took, or which one she planned to take that day, and where all the stops were.

Since she was leaving a known place and her destination stop was known, there would have been a finite number of stops in between. Were any of them near the area where she was found? Were any of them near potential places of imprisonment?
 
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