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I found the comment that you're talking about. It sounds like this person heard about the story when they were a kid in 80s, maybe from a friend or something. I guess if that's the only source they had, they may have questioned whether it happened. Also, sometimes people sensationalize things when they retell it to the point of it sounding unreal. It's kind of silly really because clearly this person could have just looked it up online or something. But some people are just not interested in the news, or would prefer to think of something like that as a crazy rumor to make themselves feel safer.
I lived in Virginia when they went missing and I remember it well because child abductions weren't a usual occurence in the news, as they are now. But I remember this being on the news very clearly. There wasn't the media coverage back then that there is today. Sometimes I am curious if there are stats somewhere that would tell how much this type of crime is compared to the 60's, 70', 80', 90's....
abbie
Welcome to The Lyon Sisters featured case, Abbie.
You make a very good point concerning media coverage of this type of crime in 1975. Actually, the Lyon sisters case was quite well covered for weeks in the Washington Metropolitan area papers as well as on TV and radio. It was probably better covered than the end of the Vietnam war which was taking place at the same time.
That coverage, however, was not the norm for 1975. All you have to do is look for coverage on some of the other child disappearances of the same time frame to see how little news coverage and media attention was given them.
It is hard to say whether or not today there are more child abductions or if it is just covered more closely by the media and by Amber Alerts and such. Certainly public awareness of the problem is much higher today than it was in 1975.
found a neat picture of it before it was enclosed. i really wanted to see what it looked like as descriptions give me no idea where to even start imagining...
This time of year (Christmas Shopping season) is a super busy time for all shopping malls. I wonder if the abductor of the Lyon sisters frequented malls as a matter of habit, and if he was particularly active in December of 1974 - only three months before the girls went missing.
There has been a lot of discussion about the possible suspect/person of interest referred to in these threads as "The Tape Recorder Man" or "TRM". He was reportedly seen talking to Sheila and Kate shortly before they disappeared. Other witnesses reported seeing him - or someone who resembled the sketch of TRM - with a tape recorder at other shopping centers and malls in the Metropolitan DC area just prior to his reported appearance at Wheaton Plaza on 25 March 1975.
Could he have been doing similar activities at area malls during the Christmas Shopping season? I wonder if there was any information available which would indicate such activity, such as complaints of parents to Mall security personnel back then.
About the mall that day.........it was a Tuesday. What was going on at the mall the day before? They were taken on such a busy day. I'm just wondering if Monday was also busy? It's been reported that Tuesday was the first day of spring vacation for the kids...but then I saw it reported that it was the second day. Did the abductor have an entire week of busy days to choose from or was Tuesday it?