Sheila and Katherine Lyon-sisters missing since 1975 - #1

[mom-a-licious]

1) Were there ever any more reported incidents of a man trying to use the same tape-recorder tactics anywhere else *after* the Lyon sisters disappearance? Or only during the time-frame prior to their abduction?

If this tactic worked so well, and those who abduct will often try to do so again using the same methods, I wonder if any future reports of someone trying to use this same tactic thing ever came up.

2) If tape recorder man was the abductor, then was never seen doing his thing again, makes me wonder about men of that general age who may have been arrested and imprisoned, or died, or committed suicide in the near future after the girls went missing. This would of course prevent this man from ever using this approach again.

3) What purpose did using the tape-recorder approach at the mall serve for the man, if he was the one who abducted the girls? They weren't taken at the mall, they were seen walking home quite a bit later.

Perhaps the tactic was used to both choose the victim and also to establish a level of familiarity so that the abductor could more easily lure the girls later in another area away from the mall, with something such as "Hi, remember me? Something went wrong with that tape we made, so could you come here and talk into it again?"

4) Perhaps TR man didn't have anything to do with the abduction, was so frightened by seeing a sketch resembling him and his actions related in the media, that he hid out and then disappeared, never using his tactics again.

5) I still keep wondering why with as much exposure as this case has had, that even though the sketch was recognizable to so many people who had seen this man at the malls, not one person recognized it as someone they could even tenatively put a name to.

 

[Richard]

1) Were there ever any more reported incidents of a man trying to use the same tape-recorder tactics anywhere else *after* the Lyon sisters disappearance? Or only during the time-frame prior to their abduction?

If this tactic worked so well, and those who abduct will often try to do so again using the same methods, I wonder if any future reports of someone trying to use this same tactic thing ever came up.

2) If tape recorder man was the abductor, then was never seen doing his thing again, makes me wonder about men of that general age who may have been arrested and imprisoned, or died, or committed suicide in the near future after the girls went missing. This would of course prevent this man from ever using this approach again.

3) What purpose did using the tape-recorder approach at the mall serve for the man, if he was the one who abducted the girls? They weren't taken at the mall, they were seen walking home quite a bit later.

Perhaps the tactic was used to both choose the victim and also to establish a level of familiarity so that the abductor could more easily lure the girls later in another area away from the mall, with something such as "Hi, remember me? Something went wrong with that tape we made, so could you come here and talk into it again?"

4) Perhaps TR man didn't have anything to do with the abduction, was so frightened by seeing a sketch resembling him and his actions related in the media, that he hid out and then disappeared, never using his tactics again.

5) I still keep wondering why with as much exposure as this case has had, that even though the sketch was recognizable to so many people who had seen this man at the malls, not one person recognized it as someone they could even tenatively put a name to.

All excellent comments and observations. To answer your first point, Nobody was seen after the girls disappearance at any area malls with the tape recorder. I know that Iverson mall Security officers were specifically looking for anyone fitting the man's description and actions in the weeks following the 25 March incident.

This was front page news in the entire Washington DC metropolitan area, and people were all looking for this guy and any sign of the girls. Anybody attempting a Tape Recorder Man impression, for whatever reason would have been noticed immediately.

If anybody used such a tactic elsewhere, I have not heard of it, but that is not to say that a subsequent Tape Recorder Man might have appeared in another city. Although this was big news in the Washington area, it was before the kind of National coverage and attention that occurs today in abduction cases.

It is certainly possible that the guy with the Tape Recorder was just a harmless weirdo who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I find that difficult to accept. A middle aged man going to a mall and tape recording young girls is innappropriate no matter how you look at it.
And another thing, the girls disappearance was not in the papers until late the following day. But Tape Recorder Man had vanished at about the same time the Lyon Sisters did. I am sure that he got plenty scared in the days to follow with all the publicity and news that he had generated, but his exit from the scene at the same time as the girls disappearance is suspect.

I also think that he must have been somewhat of an "unknown" to the area since many folks remembered seeing him, but nobody could put a name to him. My feeling is that he was fairly new to the area, and may have left soon after the girls abduction. Police checked out all known pediphiles and sex criminals at the time and for years afterward with no luck.

Your comment on his use of the tape recorder as a set up to a subsequent contact sounds very likely. If this was in fact the same guy seen the day before at Wheaton Plaza and three days before at both Iverson Mall and Marlow Heights Shopping Center (both are right next to each other and South of Washington), then it means that he was biding his time until the right opportunity presented itself. I don't think the girls were specific targets for abduction, (like for ransom) but rather victims of opportunity.

Regarding WHERE the girls were abducted - there is some room for debate and confusion - whether it was in the parking lot of Wheaton Plaza, or on the back streets to their house. Initially the police told the press that someone had seen the girls in the vicinity of the mall as late as 7:00 PM. This was later found to be incorrect, but it caused the boy who believed that he had seen the girls on Drumm Ave between 2:30 and 3:00 PM to remain silent for a few days before coming forward. This delay then caused the police to wonder if he might have seen them on a previous day and just thought he had seen them at that time on the 25th. Or if he might have been mistaken about the time that he saw them there.

The place on Drumm Ave that they were supposedly last seen is only about a block from Wheaton Plaza parking lot. It is not a driving entrance to the mall today, but may have been one back in 1975. So it would not have been far for the abductor to travel, and he may have positioned himself in a place that he could have observed anyone else in the vicinity and taken his chance if the coast looked clear. Nobody ever came forward to report having seen the girls taken.

 

[smile22]

since media coverage back then was spars and only the place were u were last seen and and like a few other towns or a neighboring state herd about the disaperances, was this ever nationaly covered like after, when media was like the big outlet for missing children and such.. someone out there knows something. what about hypnosis on the people who saw the tape man or the people to last see the girls. they might remember something

 

[Richard]

since media coverage back then was spars and only the place were u were last seen and and like a few other towns or a neighboring state herd about the disaperances, was this ever nationaly covered like after, when media was like the big outlet for missing children and such.. someone out there knows something. what about hypnosis on the people who saw the tape man or the people to last see the girls. they might remember something

As far as I know, there has never been any kind of National coverage of the Lyon Sisters' case by newspapers, radio, or television. It was not until the late 1990's that their pictures and a very short few sentences about them appeared in the NCMEC data base. I wrote the story a few posts back in this forum about 1999 and it was first published in 2000 by a website for missing persons, which is now defunct. The national and international coverage that this case now has is due to the proliferation of websites such as this one which have picked up their story and featured it. This is true of many other cases as well.

I agree with you that the best evidence and information available to the Montgomery County Police was the first hand accounts of those people who had seen and remembered Tape Recorder Man. Their names were never published and none were ever interviewed by the press. If a list of those primary witnesses could be made from MCP files, and as many as possible located and interviewed, perhaps more information could be made available - even at this late date. Who knows, maybe they saw the guy later and no one requestioned about him. Also, perhaps a photo gallery of past suspects could be shown to them for possible Identification.

 

[revlis]

Richard....I thought awhile back i heard something about a person who had murdered those little girls in Fredericksburg, Virginia in either late 1980's or early 90's being looked at as someone of interest in the lyons case.. Am i right or wrong? I'm sorry, but i don't remember the little ones names in Virginia, but i do remember one was on her front doorsteps doing homework when she disappeared...Does any of this ring a bell or am i having brain gas again??? thanks for all your updates on this case!!!

 

[Richard]

Richard....I thought awhile back i heard something about a person who had murdered those little girls in Fredericksburg, Virginia in either late 1980's or early 90's being looked at as someone of interest in the lyons case.. Am i right or wrong? I'm sorry, but i don't remember the little ones names in Virginia, but i do remember one was on her front doorsteps doing homework when she disappeared...Does any of this ring a bell or am i having brain gas again??? thanks for all your updates on this case!!!

The girls you are thinking of were Sofia Silva and Kristen and Kati Lisk. Their killer was caught after abducting another young girl who escaped. There were some references made to the Lyon Sisters during that time (mid 1990's) but I do not believe that the perpetrator was ever linked to them.

 

[Richard]

Richard Marc Evonitz was the abductor and murderer of Sofia Silvia and the Lisk Sisters, Kristen and Kati. He was not actually captured, but committed suicide when faced with imminent capture. He would have been only 12 years old when the Lyon Sisters disappeared, but as indicated in this article, he is being looked at as a possible suspect in other abductions and murders. Here is a link to a website with some pretty gruesome details about him:

Marc Evonitz was a classic sociopath, a man who appeared on the outside to be a normal guy; an intelligent, hard-working, white-collar husband. But underneath he was a man obsessed with bondage, *advertiser censored*, and young girls. A homicidal bomb just waiting to go off. ...

Evonitz was born in 1963 in Colombia, South Carolina. ...

On September 9, 1996, Sofia Silva disappeared from her rural Spotsylvania home. There were not signs of struggle. It appeared as if Silva had been doing her homework on her front porch when she simply disappeared. No sign of Silva could be found and family and friends hoped she might possibly be returned safely. Five weeks later her body was found in a shallow pond twenty miles from her home.

It appears that an appearance in bankruptcy court is what triggered his next two killings. After a morning court date on May 1, 1997, Evonitz arrived at the Lisk family home, like the Silva house, in a rural area of Spotsylvania County. Also like the Silva abduction, he had carefully scouted the after school habits of the Lisk daughters, fifteen-year-old Kristin and twelve-year-old Kati, and abducted them without a fight before the two girls had even made in into the house after being dropped off by their respective school buses. Kristin's book bag laying in the front yard was the only sign that anything was amiss. Despite a massive search, the Lisk sisters were found dead five days later and forty miles away in the South Anna River.

The similarities in the two cases were unmistakable. Three dark-haired, pretty, slender young girls, missing immediately after returning home from school and later found dead in water long distances from their homes. All three were drowned but not at the their places of discovery. ...

Authorities are still attempting to link Evonitz to several rapes and murders, so far without success.

Link
http://www.geocities.com/verbal_plainfield/a-h/evonitz.html

 

[marylandmissing]

The brother of Katherine and Sheila is a Montgomery County detective...The father works at the Stephanie Roper Foundation. Family rarely gives interviews or talks about the case anymore. Last one was a couple years ago on Fox News DC about the Doe Network.

I turned over an email I got about the case to Montgomery and state police, but nothing ever came of it that I know of.

 

[Richard]

"Tape Recorder Man" Suspect Sketch now on Doe Network

The first suspect in the case of the Missing Lyon sisters was an unidentified man seen by a 13 year-old boy talking with Sheila and Katherine at Wheaton Plaza Shopping Center. The boy described the man as middle aged, "about 50" with Salt and Pepper hair, standing about 6 feet tall. He was well dressed in a brown suit, carrying a brown briefcase which held a cassette tape recorder. In one hand he held a microphone, into which the girls were seen speaking.
On 28 March 1975, three days after the girls disappeared, Montgomery County Police officer D. Morton made a sketch of the unidentified man and it was shown to employees of several stores at Wheaton Plaza, but no one knew who it was. On 1 April 1975, the origional sketch was released to the news media where it appeared in papers and on television. The release of the sketch generated over 300 phone tips the first day. Although the suspect was never identified by name, several people called to say that the same man had been seen at Wheaton Plaza the day prior to the girls disappearance, and 15 mothers of young girls in neighboring Prince George's County called to say that a man fitting the description and sketch had been seen in two adjacent shopping centers on 22 March 1975 bothering their daughters with requests to speak into his microphone.
"Tape Recorder Man" was last seen at aproximately the same time that the Lyon Sisters disappeared on 25 March 1975. The first sketch appeared twice in the Washington Post. Based on statements by some of the other witnesses, the origional sketch was slightly altered by Officer Morton and reissued to the media. The second sketch showed a slightly smaller chin on the suspect, but all other information remained the same. These sketches have not been published by any newspaper or magazine since mid April 1975, but the Doe Network has just included them both on their website, along with a more comprehensive case summary.

Links:
Sheila Lyon - The Doe Network: Case File 64DFMD
http://www.doenetwork.us/cases/64dfmd.html

Katherine Lyon - The Doe Network: Case File 65DFMD
http://www.doenetwork.us/cases/65dfmd.html

 

[Richard]

The brother of Katherine and Sheila is a Montgomery County detective...The father works at the Stephanie Roper Foundation. Family rarely gives interviews or talks about the case anymore. Last one was a couple years ago on Fox News DC about the Doe Network.

I turned over an email I got about the case to Montgomery and state police, but nothing ever came of it that I know of.

With the 30th anniversary of this case coming up in March, there may be more media interest and coverage. It is certainly understandable that the family would decline to talk about their loss, when there has been no solid evidence since the day their daughters went missing.
It is my personal belief and hope that this case may still be solved.

Montgomery County Police have many boxes of witness statements, investigative reports, phone tips, and other information which they have collected and filed over the years. Some answers may be found in those files, but first the right questions have to be asked. I say this as a general statement, not as any criticism of the police. If this case is to be solved, it will ultimately be the Montgomery County Police who will officially solve it. But I also believe that the media (including on-line sites) and members of the public will play a major part in the solution.

When closely following an open investigation such as this case, and submitting possible witness information, it would be nice to have some feedback regarding whether or not they intend to follow up on those tips. Even a note to say that they got the information would be appropriate.

Shows like America's Most Wanted have proven time and again that tips from the public solve crimes. However, all too often police departments hold back information which, if released to the public, could lead to the right informant tip.

A perfect example of this is the FBI and their 17 year search for the Unibomber. The FBI advised the Washington Post and New York Times NOT to publish Unibom's "manifesto", and then the FBI proceeded to release bits and pieces of that document to other media outlets. Finally both newspapers ignored the FBI and published the Manifesto in its entirety. This led directly to Ted Kaczinski's brother contacting the FBI and saying that he could identify the Unibomber and tell them where he was. He asked for no reward, and only requested that the FBI let him remain anonymous. The FBI caught Ted, and immediately began to grandstand "their" success. One of the first things they did was to release the identity of their informant and to ridicule in the national news media some of the many tips which had come in to them.

 

[smile22]

do u think that they have info that they have witheald from the public stuff they thought was only for le and wouldnt mean a thing to the public? what if they took a risk and gave out some info not alot but some of the sealed stuff maybe someone might know something

 

[Fronkensteen]

The brother of Katherine and Sheila is a Montgomery County detective...The father works at the Stephanie Roper Foundation. Family rarely gives interviews or talks about the case anymore. Last one was a couple years ago on Fox News DC about the Doe Network.

I turned over an email I got about the case to Montgomery and state police, but nothing ever came of it that I know of.

NPR had an interview with John Lyon in 2002. You can find it here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1149289

 

[Richard]

do u think that they have info that they have witheald from the public stuff they thought was only for le and wouldnt mean a thing to the public? what if they took a risk and gave out some info not alot but some of the sealed stuff maybe someone might know something

In this particular case, I do not think that they have much - if any - first hand evidence regarding the girls disappearance. They were quick to release all pertinent information regarding the girls' descriptions, clothing, etc.

That said, the best piece of evidence they seem to have is the sketch of "Tape Recorder Man" which they have not released to any news media since April 1975. Except for listing the girls in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the late 1990's, the Montgomery County Police have made little or no effort to publicize this case. Most of the information on the various websites today can be found in old newspaper archives.

There is a lot of information in the police files concerning various people that MCP investigated in connection with the case. For instance, any time an individual of interest came to their attention, MCP would check the guy's record, and question him on his whereabouts on 25 March 1975, question others about him, and then decide that he was not a suspect - or maybe they just could not connect him with the crime scene. For quite a number of reasons, the police would not include specific information on such persons in any press releases.


I think that there are times (not necessarily in this case) that some information is intentionally withheld that (if released to the public) could have stopped a criminal sooner.

 

[marylandmissing]

Also - police "footwork" was just that back then. No real computers to link criminals. NCIC just started that year, and would take hours to pull up anything. Mostly they got information on convicted offenders by callers, or people calling individual police stations up and down the coast.

 

[Richard]

The Lyon Sisters' Case has been an open police investigation since 1975 when the girls went missing from Wheaton Plaza Shopping Center. From the start, police checked out all known perverts, pedeophiles, and rapists, but none were developed as "suspects" in the case.

The fact that Sheila and Kate disappeared so quickly and never turned up again left police with little to go on in the way of physical evidence. There had not been any other recent cases of abduction (which this undoubtedly was) in the Maryland area, and the fact that it was an abduction of more than one at the same time, made it very rare, indeed. For a serial killer to abduct TWO girls in broad daylight from a crowded mall, he had to have been either well practiced and sure of himself, or just plain crazy and lucky. Perhaps a combination of the two.

With no previous similar crimes to connect to, it has been the subsequent crimes which have been of interest to investigators. There have been many individuals considered as potential suspects, but none have ever been declared by police to actually BE Suspects. My next post will discuss some of the "Individuals of Interest" who have appeared over the years.

 

[cat-girl]

Wow - it's amazing to think it's been almost 30 years and the Lyons girls were never found. I just read "The Lovely Bones" and it got me thinking/googling about those girls. I was 13 in 1975 and lived a block away from them (across the street from Tommy, the boy who saw them talking to the man at the plaza). I knew Sheila by sight because we waited at the same stop for the junior high school bus. I remember talking to friends about how to treat her when she came back -- that we would be nicer if the girls had been kidnapped than if they had run away. Sheila seemed a bit nerdy and wore glasses, like me. I didn't think she had it in her to run off with hippies, one theory at the time... but I would have been a little thrilled if that was what happened. It didn't occur to us that they had truly disappeared.

Just to give perspective, it was totally normal to walk to Wheaton Plaza the back way, something most kids in the area did without a second thought. Parents considered it safe because none of the streets were busy -- you simply turned at a vacant lot and walked along a short path that climbed up to the back of the parking lot. Later, that path was seen as the scariest place, and the one where most of us assumed the abduction took place. In retrospect though, it wouldn't have seemed out of the ordinary for a car to pull over in the residential neighborhood and a couple kids to hop in for a ride.

I hope the media do something on the story for the 30th anniversary. As far as I can remember, that was the first big story of a horror that later became depressingly common. I live on the west coast, but still think about the family when I visit Kensington and pass their old house.

 

[joellegirl]

Catgirl, That is so interesting that you kind of knew them and lived just a block away. Thanks for sharing your memories, it gives us a whole new perspective. I wish more people who knew (or at least sort of knew) the victims we all discuss here would post. Do you remember anything else about the sisters? I remember a while back a poster, saying she was Janice Pockett's cousin(another girl sadly still missing), remembered that Janice always had Tic Tacs with her. It's small stuff like that that I find interesting. I really don't know why, I guess it's just when you think of these missing people it is interesting to know more about them, not just their vital statisitcs, like height etc.

The Lyon sister's case has stayed with me ever since I read about it a few years back. Such a tragic story.

Thanks again for posting. Share more if you remember any other tidbits.

 

[marylandmissing]

I'm sure all the local papers will revisit this case in March. I plan to contact all of them to remind them, nevertheless.

 

[Richard]

I'm sure all the local papers will revisit this case in March. I plan to contact all of them to remind them, nevertheless.

Hopefully this will get the case some more attention. On the 25th anniversary, the Washington Post and Washington Times had nothing about it. The only paper that carried anything (that I saw) was the Baltimore Sun, which had a full page spread on the case.

WUSA TV4 does a weekly special with Joe Krebbs called Cold Case Files. I contacted them and provided them with a lot of information. One of their producers called me in December to state that they do intend to feature the case of the Missing Lyon Sisters in March.

 

[marylandmissing]

Kewl. I know Joe Krebs personally. Hopefully, he will. He's the nicest reporter I've ever met.