Ray Mileski's and Lloyd Welch's stories... Similarities
The Washington Post article about Lloyd Welch and his story of walking in on his uncle while in the act of molesting one of the Lyon sisters is disturbing in several ways.
As evil or as odd as it sounds (whether true or concocted), it is eeirily similar to a story related by an informant who provided information about Raymond Mileski and the Lyon sisters case about 14 years ago.
I have mentioned this in previous posts, but will restate it here. The information was received by a point-of-contact for a "missing persons" website which featured an early version of my case summary. The person who received the information spoke several times with the informant by phone. The information was relayed to me to verify and to pass on to Montgomery County Police. I was able to verify many details of what was said by the informant and I did formally pass it all on to MCP in writing.
The information was mostly second hand, but it mentioned how Raymond Mileski "walked in" on a person that he shared the rental of a building with, and caught him in the act of molesting one of the Lyon sisters. This allegedly took place somewhere in Prince Georges County, and the person named as the abductor of the Lyon Sisters did have connections to Hyattsville. I will not reveal the name of the alleged abductor, but it was not Welch. The person named had an extensive criminal background, but no previous or subsequent charges (that I could find) relating to crimes against children.
Mileski, himself, in two letters from prison stated that he knew who the abductor or the Lyon sisters was and that he had met him "in the pen" (penitentiary). He referred to this person as "C.D."
Mileski was convicted of the November 1977 murder of his son and wife inside his Suitland, Maryland home. Mileski had worked as a Kitchen Cabinet repair/renovation specialist and he had a white van to transport his cabinets and tools to and from private residences and his workshop. The informant described a separate place from Mileski's home as his workshop.
Mileski offered to provide MCP with information in return for a transfer from his Baltimore Prison to the Western Correctional facility. He was in poor health at the time and confined to a wheel chair. Whether or not MCP ever bothered to interview him, I do not know, but Mileski did get his transfer and died in the new prison a year later.
Mileski is the only potential suspect/person of interest - other than Lloyd Welch - who actually claimed to know something about the Lyon sisters and their disappearance. And there are several very close similarities.
Besides both Mileski and Welch being inmates in the Maryland prison system (Lloyd was in a Maryland prison years before his current stretch in Deleware), there is the fact that both were from Prince Georges County, MD.
Mileski had three sons, the oldest was about the same age as Lloyd Welch, Jr. Mileski was also in the habit of taking in other boys in their late teens to live in his house and to work for him in his Cabinet business. It was the last of these boys who was credited as relaying much of the information concerning Mileski and the Lyon sisters to the informant.
Another element in the Mileski story was that he allegedly helped bury the girls in a rural area in Maryland. MCP searched his former Suitland, MD house and dug up his back yard in an attempt to find evidence (just like they did on the Welch property in MD and VA).
Mileski, in his letters stated that the girls' bodies could be found in an area containing acerage, and a cabin, like a place where one might go to fish or hunt. Could he have been describing the Welch property? Or could he have been relaying something that Lloyd Welch or another inmate might have told him?
The essence of Lloyd Welch's stories seems to be one of him being in the know, but on the outside looking in at someone else who was the responsible perpetrator. He knows what happened, but had nothing whatsoever to do with it himself. At least that may be what he believes. This is almost exactly the same theme which I picked up in reading Mileski's letters. Is this all just coincidence or could there be a connection?
Clarification regarding the Mileski post...
My information regarding Mileski came from several sources.
First, I was aware of the April 1982 search of his Suitland, Maryland address from Washington Post newspaper reports. Those articles stated that Montgomery County Police (MCP) obtained information from penitentiary inmates which linked Mileski to the Lyon case. They obtained search warrants and dug small test holes in the back yard of a house at 5816 Suitland Road in Prince Georges County. MCP stated that they found only "bird bones" The articles stated that the home's former owner, Raymond R. Mileski (age 46 in 1982) was serving a 40 year sentence in the Maryland Penitentiary in Baltimore.
Further research turned up details of how, in November 1977, Mileski had shot and killed his oldest son and then his wife in the basement of their Suitland home.
I included mention of Mileski in my case summary about Sheila and Kate Lyon for a new missing person website in 1999. When that short-lived website closed, the owner transferred all his case summaries to another website which is now called Maryland Missing. The first website owner mentioned was included as the Point of Contact (POC) for the Lyon case on the Maryland Missing website.
The second source of information regarding Mileski was a confidential informant who saw the case summary on the site and contacted the POC in January 2001, with a rather long story about Mileski, much of which was second hand information. This is where the story about Mileski's "walking in" on the alleged abductor/molester came from. That alleged abductor/molester was named by the informant. It was stated by the informant that Mileski became involved with the case at the point of this alleged "walking in", and that he assisted in burying the girls in an open gravel pit area near his Suitland home (but not in his yard).
The POC was not as knowledgable of the case as I was, and so he related to me all of the information to determine if any of it could be verified before it was turned over to MCP. I was able to verify many points in the story and could tell that it was from a source different than the 1982 prison inmates. I felt that much of the information was credible and that the informant was sincere. By that I mean that the informant was honestly relaying the story as he/she heard it, and that the story contained the names of real persons and events which I could verify.
What I could NOT verify was how the origional eyewitness/source had obtained the information (connecting Mileski and the Abductor) or whether it was first hand or (farther removed) rumor/hearsay. The story about Mileski and the Lyon sisters came TO the informant on different occasions from someone close to Mileski who related at least some of the story about December 1977 (immediately after the Mileski family murders) and some of it possibly after 1982 (the property search).
I passed on all I had to the (then) MCP case officer in writing.
When the MCP case officer did not acknowledge the information or call either of us back, The website POC assumed (correctly or not) that MCP was not interested in pursuing the matter, and he took it upon himself (without informing me or MCP) to write directly to Raymond Mileski in prison.
It was from this contact that Mileski, himself, responded in writing in February of 2001.. After an initial exchange of short introductory letters, Mileski responded to detailed questions with a 15 page letter covering his version of things. It was in this long letter that he claimed to have met the abductor/murderer, whom he called "C.D." in prison. Mileski did not admit to having participated in anything, but he did claim intimate knowledge which he offered to give in return for a prison transfer. He offered vague information regarding where one might find the girls' bodies.
The MCP case officer learned of the correspondence from the prison warden and he then DID contact the POC to threaten him with charges of interferrence in an on-going investigation. It is not known if he ever collected the long Mileski letter or if he ever interviewed Mileski.
Mileski did receive the prison transfer that he wanted, but I do not know if it was as a result of any kind of testimony agreement or just a matter of course. He was in failing health and confined to a wheelchair at the time. He was actively engaged in a number of law suits in which he sued the state for a variety of things. He died in prison in 2002.
My information about Mileski is somewhat disjointed because it did not all come from the same sources. I cannot connect the name "C.D." with any other potential suspects. I have been unable to connect the person named by the confidential informant with any other potential suspects either.
The similarities that I noted in my earlier post, however, are quite disturbing. Hopefully MCP investigators did interview Mileski and if so, will review the information he might have given them.
Prison inmates are probably the worst witnesses and biggest liars available. The question will always come up regarding their reliability and motives - as well it should. I have my personal doubts about the truth of any of it (both in regard to Mileski and Welch). But when two stories, separated by so much time and distance contain so many similarities, one has to wonder.
Time and again, clues have come from Prince Georges County, Maryland and each time they were given cursory attention by MCP or explained away quickly and then ignored. This was the case with Lloyd Welch. Now, after almost 40 years, all of their efforts are focussed on Hyattsville, Maryland in Prince Georges County.
It cannot all be coincidence.
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I apologize for quoting my own two very long posts here, but I did so because the thread is very long and wanted to discuss them without a reader having to look long and hard to find them. I wrote them four years ago, but I believe that they may still be pertinent to the case today.
Lloyd Welch has been convicted of the abduction, murder, and disposal of the Lyon sisters and is serving life terms in a Virginia prison. But many questions remain unanswered, and the girls' bodies have yet to be recovered and identified.
Most accounts and statements would indicate that more persons were involved in these crimes than just Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr. who was 18 years old in March of 1975.
My posts (quoted above) suggested a possible link between Lloyd Welch, Jr. and Raymond Mileski, a convicted murderer who died in prison years ago. I pointed out then, and again today, that information linking Mileski to the Lyon Sisters sometimes came from less than accurate sources, but that much of it was confirmed or repeated by separate sources.
All of my information was written up and given to Montgomery County Police Investigators and Cold Case Officers. They, in turn, checked it out. I do not know to what extent they looked into the information, or what further information they were able to glean from it.
I do know that it was their comparison of the Mileski information with information in their files on Lloyd Lee Welch, Jr. that led them to begin conversations with him in Delaware where he was imprisoned.
A strong enough case against Welch was made to convict him (he plead guilty) of kidnapping and murder. But even he has claimed at various times that OTHERS were involved. Who were they? He named (at various times) other members of his family. But was there a more extensive network of offenders at work? If so, who were they? Where are they today? Can connections be made and proven?
Note that from recent news accounts, reference is made to Welch keeping a girl or girls prisoner in the basement of his house on Baltimore Ave (Route 1) in Hyattsville, MD. And to it being the site of a murder and the dismembering of a body. Only Kate (Katherine Mary Lyon) is referred to by name. Was it possible that the girls were separated after their abduction and taken to different locations?
A witness who has never been discredited or proven false claims to have seen a girl that he believed to be Sheila Lyon bound in the back of a Station Wagon in Manassas, Virginia. It is possible that there were two separate sightings of a girl in a station wagon at that same time in early April 1975.
The Mileski story, as related by an informant in January 2001 (see above quoted posts) stated that an 18 year old boy learned from Mileski that Mileski had walked in on a partner (not named in previous posts) in the act of raping one of the Lyon girls, and that Mileski "joined him", and then later assisted in the disposal of the girl's body. And that this was one of the Lyon sisters. The informant was afraid of reprisal by the partner/alleged perpetrator and did not want to be named publicly. LE, however was given the informant's name and contact was made to gather and confirm information.
I mentioned in earlier posts that the alleged perpetrator/rapist was known to have an extensive criminal record. His name was given to LE, but I refrained from posting it publicly. I have subsequently learned that he died in the 1990's.
That person was one Marvin Pierce Peele II, born 17 March 1945. His criminal record includes such offenses as kidnapping, rape, assault, and battery, resisting arrest, drunk and disorderly, reckless driving, etc. He lived at various addresses in Prince George's County, Maryland, but he was originally from Hyattsville, Maryland (also in PG County).
He was living with a woman whose teenaged son was murdered in an unsolved case. Whether or not Peele was involved in that murder is unknown.
According to the 2001 informant, Mileski and Peele had a rented house or building in the Suitland, Maryland area where this girl was allegedly kept. It is known that Mileski had a rented workshop or warehouse just west of Route 5 which he used for his cabinet business. This location is just a mile south of two shopping centers where a "Tape Recorder Man" was seen by numerous witnesses interviewing young girls a week prior to the Lyon sisters' disappearance.
The informant stated that the body or bodies were buried in a place called "Andrew Jackson Pits" off of Suitland Road - close to Mileski's house. Today that area is extensively developed with high rise housing. There is also a school nearby called Andrew Jackson Middle School.
In 1982, Montgomery County investigators searched the backyard of Mileski's Suitland Road address for any signs of burials, but found only "bird bones". This was done following an earlier lead coming from Maryland prison inmates. As best I could ascertain at the time (2001), the two leads regarding Mileski's involvement in disposing of bodies were entirely separate accounts - but mutually supportive in certain aspects.
Mileski was convicted of the November 1977 murder of his own son (age 18) - following an argument. Mileski claimed "self defense" but shot the boy in their basement with a high power rifle. When Mileski's wife and youngest son ran down the stairs to see what had happened, Mileski turned the gun on them, killing his wife and wounding the little boy.
It was reported at the time that there had been an on-going argument in the Mileski household concerning an 18 year old "boarder" who was living in their home. That "boarder" was the source of the 2001 informant's information regarding Mileski's alleged involvement in the Lyon case.
