Potential Suspects and Persons of Interest

Richard

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Over the past 30 plus years, many individuals were looked into as potential suspects in the disappearance of the Lyon sisters, Sheila and Katherine. Some have been mentioned or discussed in the origional thread, but I thought perhaps a separate section on some more memorable Individuals of Interest might help discussion of the topic.

The case has no "official" suspects. To call someone a suspect has various legal ramifications, so often a police press release will state that a person is "not considered a suspect at this time." I would caution against idle speculation about specific individuals in this forum as having a connection to this case, but feel that discussion of specific individuals might serve the case better if separated somewhat from discussion of the case on its merits and known evidence.

I will re-post and update some of my earlier posts for starters. Note that these "Individuals of Interest" are all convicted murderers or pedophiles (some now dead) so there shouldn't be too much concern about libel suits from any of them.
 
There have been a number of possible suspects in the case of the Missing Lyon Sisters. Some of these were actually investigated thoroughly, while others may have appeared briefly in the news but may have been eliminated as suspects for one reason or other.

-----------------------------------
Arthur Frederick "Freddie" GOODE III

Freddie was a homosexual pedophile who lived in Hyattsville, Maryland (Prince Georges County). He had been arrested on three separate occasions for indecent assults on minors when in March 1975 (Same month and year that the Lyon Sisters disappeared) he was arrested for five sexual assaults on a 9 year-old boy. The Goode Family raised $25,000 to bail him out and while on bail, he attacked an eleven year-old. After some plea bargaining, Freddie got five years probation on the condition that he voluntarily undergo treatment at a mental health hospital.

Because his treatment was "voluntary" the hospital had no right to hold him and after 15 weeks, Freddie walked out and traveled by bus to Florida. While there, on 5 March 1976 he met and strangled 9 year-old Jason VerDow. He was questioned by police in Florida, but they did not know of a Maryland warrant out for him, so he was not detained.

He then met a 10 year-old boy named Billy Arthe and traveled with him to Washington DC, where the two met Kenny Dawson, age 11. In Billy's presense, Freddie strangled Kenny. After a woman saw a photo of the missing Billy, she alerted Baltimore police to Freddie Goode's location. He was arrested, and Billy became a witness at Freddie's murder trial. The Maryland court sentenced him to life in prison and then extradited him to Florida where he was convicted of Jason VerDow's murder and sentenced to death.

Where was he on 25 March 1975? Freddie's victims were all in the age range of the Lyon Sisters, but his known victims were all boys. Also, Freddie traveled by bicycle and bus most of the time. These factors would tend to rule him out as the girls' abductor.
 
Ellwood Leroy LEUSCHNER

On 1 November 1977, a paroled California rapist was arrested in Salisbury, Maryland by Maryland State Police on the charges of kidnapping, raping, and murdering a 9 year old boy. The boy was abducted from his trailer park and buried on a farm ten miles away. The suspect, was one Ellwood Leroy LEUSCHNER, age 45. He was a tall, gaunt, white man who worked as a general laborer at the Campbell Soup Plant in Salisbury.

Leuschner had been first convicted of rape in 1953. He was sent to a California prison in 1960, released in the mid 60's and then convicted and sentenced again for a subsequent forgery and for the rape of a 12 year old girl. In that incident, he dressed in priest's clothing and asked the little girl to help him bring some packages into a church. When he got her in the church, he raped her.

He was paroled in 1974, and some time after that (exact date not known), he vilolated his parole and left California. He claimed to have lived in Salisbury for three years when captured in 1977. The Maryland State Police called California Corrections Office in 1977 to try to confirm this, but California officials stated that he had left California in March 1976 to avoid another rape charge there.

Leuschner was also suspected of the kidnap and murder of two other young boys, in separate incidents in July 1977. Police ruled him out as a suspect in one, but believed that he committed the other and he was charged with that murder as well.

Leuschner drove a blue or green Camaro (model year not known) in 1977, and it was that car which had been seen at the abduction sites, and at the burial sites that connected him with the abductions and murders. Just prior to his last murder, he had attempted another abduction, but the child escaped and gave a description of him and his car.

Many police departments became interested in him after his capture, but when the California Corrections officials said that he had only been out of California since March 1976, he was "ruled out" of many open investigations. He may have been out of California sometime before he was reported missing and the March 1976 date might only be when the California parole violation warrant was issued.

It would be interesting to know where he went and what his time schedule was between his release from prison in California and his eventual capture in Maryland. That might allow investigators to look into other unsolved murders or abductions.

Leuschner's known victims were male and female children ages 9 to 12, his manner of approach and deception, and his way of burying the bodies in remote areas, the fact that he was a serial offender and had transportation - all would make him a prime suspect in some of the unsolved murders and missing child cases of 1974 thru 1977.

Leuschner was a serial rapist and murderer. It would seem that for him to have accellerated to the point of killing two boys in one month, he may well have killed others between 1974 and his November 1977 capture. In a very short time frame of five months from March to July 1975, and within a very close radius, two girls from Maryland (the Lyon Sisters), two boys from New Jersey and three girls from Pennsylvania all disappeared. One incident per month, each in a different police jurisdiction. All of those sites were within driving distance from Salisbury, Maryland.

Leuschner spent the rest of his life in the Maryland Prison system, evidently becoming a writer for a prison newsletter before his death.
 
Raymond Rudolph MILESKI, Sr.

Raymond Rudolph Mileski Sr. is a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in the Maryland Prison system. He is linked to the Lyon Sisters, because of claims that he has made on several occasions. Those stories have some varience to them, but basically Ray states that he knows who the abductor/murderer of the girls is.

A story about Montgomery County Police digging in the backyard of the Mileski home at 5816 Suitland Road was in the Washington Post in April 1982, but only briefly. It was only one of many momentary mentions of the Lyon Sisters in news stories over the years. At the time, nothing much came of it. The story told of police digging test holes for about three hours in response to tips from convicts, and that nothing was found. That story makes specific reference to the address and to it being in response to a tip from Maryland Prison Inmates, but it does not mention Mileski's name.

On 19 November 1977, following an ongoing family argument, Raymond Mileski Sr. shot his oldest son with a high power rifle in the basement of their home. When his wife, Dolores, ran down the stairs into the basement room, he shot her too. The bullet passed through her, through a wall and into the mouth of their 7 year old son, Peter, who was running down the stairs behind his mother. Mileski left his wife and older son for dead and transported Peter to Andrews Air Force Base for emergency treatment. Leaving him there, Mileski, drove to the home of a neighbor where his middle son Karl was visiting. He told Karl to stay where he was and then turned himself in to police.

Mileski, while in prison, had evidently told a story to other convicts that he knew who had abducted and killed the Lyon Sisters, these cons repeated the story to MCP investigators. Montgomery County Police dug test holes in the Mileski backyard for three hours and found nothing. End of story? Not quite.

In 2001, an anonymous tip to police named Mileski as having told others prior to his 1978 murder conviction, that he was in some way involved in the Lyon Sisters disappearance. Many elements of this tipster's story were checked out and found to be accurate.

Mileski, contacted in Prison in 2001, admitted in two letters that he did in fact know who the abductor of the Lyon Sisters was. He did not name anyone, but gave a general description of the area in which the girls were buried. Mileski made general statements, but clearly wanted to negotiate for a prison transfer before he would speak with investigators.

Mileski, in his second letter, referred to the girls' abductor as "C.D." and claimed to have met this individual "in the pen". The letter was a long and rambling one and it contained a demand that he be moved from his Baltimore area prison to the Western Correctional Facility in Cumberland, MD. These letters were forwarded to MCP detectives.

The most intriguing thing about a possible PG county connection is that the sketch of "Tape Recorder Man" was recognized by 15 mothers of young girls who had been approached by a man at Iverson Mall and at Marlow Heights Shopping Center on 22 March 1975, three days before the Lyon Sisters disappeared. The Washington Post reported that from one to three PG men were questioned, but that they were not considered suspects at the time. Those sightings place the primary suspect (Tape Recorder Man) right in the close proximity of Mileski, his home, and his alleged associates.

Police most likely spoke with Mileski. He was transferred to Cumberland after 2001, and he died there in December 2004.

It is hard to determine if Mileski actually knew anything about the Lyon case, or if he is just making it all up for his own advantage.

It is my opinion that Mileski was the likely source of the previous tip from other convicts, and that it may have been stories that he told prior to 1977 which surfaced in the 2001 website tip. He certainly claimed knowledge of it in his letters. But whether he actually had any first hand knowledge, or involvement in the girls' disappearance remains part of the mystery.
 
Fred Howard COFFEY, Jr.

Fred Howard Coffey, Jr. is currently serving a life term in NC for the 1979 murder of a 10 year NC girl. He may have been involved in the Lyon Sisters abduction, and possibly in the 24 July 1975 abduction/murder of 15 year-old Kathy Lynn Beatty, also of Montgomery County, Maryland.
Fred Howard Coffey, Jr. was born 03/20/45 in either Virginia or North Carolina. By his and his family's account, he was subjected to severe sexual abuse as a child by his father. An eighth-grade dropout, he attended some college courses later in life.

Coffey enlisted in the Navy at age 17 on May 19, 1962. He served aboard the USS Caloosahatchee AO98 (a fleet oiler), based in Norfolk, VA from 1963 to about 1966. He served his second tour of duty in VietNam, and San Diego, California. He served his third enlistment back in Norfolk, VA. Coffey served a total of 12 years in the US Navy and was honorably discharged as a First Class Petty Officer (E-6) on 12 Sept 1974. Some accounts state that Coffey was an Intelligence or Operations Specialist, while others state that he was trained in a Medical field.

Coffey had intended to re-enlist for a fourth term of service, but had civilian criminal charges pending in Virginia Beach, VA for the abduction and rape of a 13 year-old girl, who was the daughter of another Navy man. Coffey was denied re-enlistment by the Navy, and he was subsequently convicted of charges stemming from his rape of the girl.

It is quite possible and likely that Coffey had Navy contacts in the Washington/MD/VA area which helped him land a job with Vitro Laboratories.
Employment records from Vitro Laboratories (a Defense Contractor specializing in Navy weapon systems) in Silver Spring MD place him in the area between April and July 1975.

After leaving his job with Vitro Corp. on or after July 25, 1975, Coffey surfaced in Norfolk Virginia, in October of that year, when he was charged twice with contributing to the delinquency of a minor (a 15 year-old girl) Then it appears he eventually ended up in North Carolina sometime towards the end of '75.

Coffey joined the North Carolina National Guard sometime in 1975 (no exact date was given) as a Field Artillery Operations Specialist, serving 3 years until 1978, with a honorable discharge.

Based on what is known about the Amanda Ray and Neely Smith cases, Coffey was living in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC area between 1979-1981.

He was back in his hometown of Bristol, Virginia by 1986, where he is suspected in the homicide of an 8 year old boy, Travis Shane King.

He is considered a suspect in several other murders/abductions, including the murder of a 12 year-old girl in Charlotte, NC. He reportedly confessed to a psychologist as having molested approximately 100 children, and that information was admitted into evidence at his trial. He was fond of using gimmicks such as a fishing pole, metal detector, and possibly disguises to lure children.
By late 1986, he had been brought back to North Carolina, where he pleaded guilty to 9 counts of indecent liberties with a 12 and 13 year old brother and sister, and another girl (he was sentenced to 50 years in prison). These crimes were committed sometime prior to 1986.

Coffey's criminal record includes:

- Convicted on two counts of child molestation in Virginia Beach, 1974. Not known whether or not the Navy knew about this, but he was allowed to get out with an Honorable Discharge at the end of his third enlistment - perhaps before the civilian courts had concluded the case.

- Convicted in 1986 and sentenced to 50-years for nine counts of molesting three children in Caldwell County, N.C.

- Coffey was considered a prime suspect in the August, 1986 death of an 8-year-old boy, Travis Shane King, in Bristol, Virginia. King was seen in the company of Coffey near Eastridge shortly before he disappeared, according to Bristol Virginia police detectives. Body found on shores of Boone Lake. He had been strangled.

- Coffey was married between 1978-1982. A friend of Coffey's wife testified that she called police in 1979, two months before Amanda Ray's death, after her 3-year-old described Coffey masturbating in front of her. Information indicates that Coffey was married three times.

- In 1987 was convicted of 1st degree murder for the 1979 Abduction/murder of a 10 year-old girl, Amanda Ray. Amanda was strangled and found near water, in a rural area. Coffey owned a dog (its hairs, found in his van and on Amanda Ray, helped convict him in the Ray killing). Two juries sentenced him to death, but through legal maneuverings, a third jury sentenced him to life in prison with all sentences to run concurrently. Eligible for parole since 1995.

- In 1987, he was investigated by MCP as a possible suspect in the 1975 sexual assault and slaying of 15-year-old Kathy Lynn Beatty of Aspen Hill, which occurred less than a mile from where Coffey once worked. Kathy was found badly beaten and left for dead in a Silver Spring ditch. She lived for two weeks before succumbing to her injuries on 5 August 1975. Coffey quit his job and left town on or about 25 July 1975, when newspaper accounts indicated that Kathy had survived her attack. Coffey later wrote to his employers at Vitro to explain that his wife and daughter had been injured in a Kentucky car accident and that he wished to have his last paycheck (to 31 July) mailed to him. Police had hoped to link Coffey to a set of keys found near the beaten body of Kathy Beatty.

- In 1987, he was considered one of the strongest suspects in the double abduction of the Lyon sisters in Wheaton, MD in March, 1975. Coffey was in the Maryland area around the time of the Lyons' disappearance. Coffey applied for a job at Vitro Corp. in Aspen Hill (then Vitro Laboratories in Silver Spring) as a computer data system employee and was interviewed on 1 April 1975. Records indicate that he worked for them from April 24, 1975, to July 31, 1975. MCP tried to pinpoint when Coffey first came to a Gaithersburg motel where he was known to have stayed. They also tried to get old motor vehicle records to verify reports that he had bought a car in Montgomery about the time of the Lyon girls' disappearance. Montgomery County Police looked at Coffey as a possible suspect in both the Lyon and Beatty cases in 1987, but could not conclusively place him at either scene.

- Police in NC are currently trying to connect Coffey to a 1981 murder of a 5 year-old girl, Neely Smith, from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area. Coffey lived in the same apartment complex as the girl. Neely's remains found near water, in a rural area. She had been raped and strangled.

- A 17 October 2004 Charlotte Observer story about the 1981 Neely Smith murder stated: "Amanda Ray's mother told her not to go fishing with the gray-haired stranger". This suggests that Coffey, 34 in 1979, was either prematurely gray, or he was altering his hair color. Eyewitnesses in the 1975 Lyon disappearances described a middle-aged suspect with salt and pepper hair. It would not be unreasonable to assume that his hair could have been salt and pepper gray in '75, and that he may have looked much older to the child witnesses.

Coffey currently resides in Pender Prison, NC. He comes up for Parole every year in July.
A current photo of Coffey can be seen on the North Carolina Prison System's On-Line Inmate Locator Service.

Link:

http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/app...imesin=1http://
 
Michael Edward PEARCH

Michael Edward Pearch, born 20 April 1945 was shot dead by Montgomery County Police in the streets of Wheaton, Maryland on 13 April 1975. His death ended a shooting spree which he began at Wheaton Plaza Shopping Center during which he murdered two people and wounded five others. Could he have been involved in the abduction of the Lyon sisters from that same mall 19 days earlier?

Case Summary

At approximately 7:30 PM on Sunday, 13 April 1975, Michael Edward Pearch, age 29, left the home of his mother at 2506 Dennis Ave in the same neighborhood where the Lyon family lived, and drove a mile to the Wheaton Plaza Shopping Center where he parked his green 1965 Volkswagon. He was wearing his Army field jacket and carried a hunting knife taped under his armpit. He carried a Model 1911 .45 Colt Automatic Pistol and a knapsack containing loaded magazines and loose extra rounds.

Pearch shot three people in the Wheaton Plaza parking lot, and walked east into the downtown area of Wheaton - the "triangle area" bounded by University Ave, Georgia Ave, and Viers Mill Road where he shot four more people. He seemed to be targeting black people, as he bypassed potential white victims and shot only at blacks.

Police responded to calls for assistance and he was stopped only when a police officer shot him four times with a 12 Gauge shotgun, killing him in the middle of Viers Mill Road. He carried no identification. A later autopsy found a tumor on his pituitary gland, although it was not concluded that the tumor caused his homicidal behavior.

Pearch was very intelligent. A 1963 graduate of High Point High School, he had attended two and a half years at the University of Maryland (1963-1965) before entering the Army, where he served for three years as a counter intelligence agent in West Germany. He was reported to have used a false passport and operated undercover in that assignment.

Pearch loved history and was a Revolutionaly War re-enactor, a hobby in which he dressed in authentic historical costumes and participated in "living history" presentations. He was an avid reader of books, especially books on military history.

Pearch spoke fluent German. He returned to Germany for a year (1971-1972) to study art. His German girl friend, Cornelia Rathje, was supposedly killed in an auto accident and he became depressed over it.

Following the shootings and the death of Pearch, friends and family told police and news reporters that he had been behaving in an increasingly strange manner over the previous year. He had paranoid tendencies, carried a weapon at all times, slept with a loaded shotgun, and was at times withdrawn and depressed. Since February 1974, he had been living alone and rent free at a 400 acre farm, owned by Mr. Robert Combs Sr. The farm was located about three miles from Friendsville in Garrett County, Maryland - not far from the West Virginia state line. He lived off the land, gardening and hunting.

Between January and April 1975, Pearch made numerous trips between the farm and his mother's house at 2506 Dennis Ave. He was known to frequent a gun store near Wheaton Plaza and was reported to have amassed a large collection of weapons.

Pearch's father had visited him at the Garrett County farm in early April 1975 and was impressed at what he called "an arsenal" of guns, ammunition, and knives. In contrast to this, Montgomery County Police visited the farm on Tuesday, 15 April 1975, and stated that they had found "few personal effects" and that "There was nothing in the cabin to indicate any militant, radical, or racial views."

Pearch's body was cremated and his ashes spread on the farm in Garrett County. His victims were buried and the case was considered closed. There are, however, a number of coincidences and connections between Pearch and the Lyon sisters.

Comparisons and Coincidences

Pearch was a very disturbed individual who lived in the same neighborhood as the Lyon girls. His mother's house was only eight tenths of a mile from the Lyon house and only three blocks from Oakland Terrace Middle School where Katherine Lyon and her younger brother attended. It is possible, in fact likely, that Pearch had seen the girls on previous occasions. Pearch was unemployed. He came and went as he pleased, commuting between the Garrett County farm and his mother's house in Kensington.

The last credible sighting of the Lyon sisters on 25 March 1975 was between 2:30 and 3:30 PM on Drumm Avenue, a back road leading toward their house. This residential area adjacent to Wheaton Plaza is a maze of dead end roads and narrow streets that loop around closely spaced houses.

An abductor would need to be familiar with those streets, and Pearch had traveled them often. He was a loner, was always armed, had a vehicle, had plenty of free time, and had a remote location to take the girls.

Michael Pearch had told his mother and sister that he had been formally trained by the US Army in counter intelligence techniques, including kidnapping and the use of false identification.

Prior to his killing spree that Sunday evening, Pearch had no criminal record. He was not known to be connected with any criminal organizations and he was not known to have committed any offenses against children.

Although extremely intelligent, Pearch was obviously mentally disturbed. In the end, he proved to be a cold blooded killer with a personal death wish. Could the same mental problems which caused him to murder and wound seven strangers have caused him to abduct the Lyon sisters earlier? He certainly must have heard of their disappearance. Had knowledge of that event caused him to begin his shooting spree as a way of committing "suicide by police"?
 
Hadden Clark

Hadden Clark, born in April 1951, was approaching his 24th birthday when the Lyon sisters disappeared. A cross dressing, psychotic, serial killer and cannibal, he led a truly bizzare life until finally convicted and sentenced to life terms for the murders of Laura Houghteling and Michelle Dorr, both of Montgomery County.

Clark had family ties in Massachucetts, New Jersey, and Maryland. He had a troubled childhood and moved around a lot. By 1974, he was attending a culinary school in New York. He has admitted killing many other women and girls since that time, and possibly earlier. Clark held 14 different jobs between 1974 and 1982, at which time he entered the Navy. The Navy discharged him for medical/psychiatric reasons in 1985, and he returned to Montgomery County, Maryland to live with his younger brother and his brother's family.

It is not known where Hadden Clark was at the time of the Lyon Sisters' disappearance on 25 March 1975. It is known that he was by then a serial killer.

There is a link of sorts between Hadden Clark and the Lyon case. In 1986, Clark abducted and murdered little 6-year-old Michelle Dorr in a town very near Wheaton and then buried her in a secret place in White Oak, Maryland. 12 years would go by before he was successfully prosecuted for her murder - a landmark case of a conviction without a body. After he was convicted, Clark led investigators to her grave. On hand to offer support to Michelle's father was John Lyon, father of Sheila and Katherine.

The link below contains information about Clark and his family which is rather disturbing, to say the least. It does not connect him to the Lyon Sisters, but his subsequent activities in Montgomery County are detailed. Even the possibility of this truly evil entity being in the area in March of 1975 is food for thought.


Link
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_...rk/index_1.html
 
Was the farm in Garrett County ever searched by police for traces of the Lyon sisters?
 
BigDaddy said:
Was the farm in Garrett County ever searched by police for traces of the Lyon sisters?
No, it wasn'tn - not specifically for the Lyon sisters. The murder spree of Michael Edward Pearch was considered an "open and shut case" - ie he cracked and started killing people until he was killed by police. Tragic, but over and done with. His MO was not connected with the Lyon Sisters. His victims were black adults, not white female children.

According to Washington Post news reports, Montgomery County Police did send detectives to that farm to search it, but they were specifically looking for possessions of Pearch and for answers to the reasons behind his shootings. They concluded that he did not have many personal possessions at the farm. Strangly, no mention was made concerning whether or not they found any evidence of Pearch's "arsenal" - so described by his father.

News reports indicate that besides the .45 Automatic pistol which Pearch was using when shot, and the hunting knife taped under his arm, police took only two firearms from his mother's house. At least one was a shotgun which had always been kept at her house, because Pearch had bought it for her for protection. Pearch's father stated that he had an extensive collection or "arsenal" of weapons (firearms and knives) at the farm when he visited a few months earlier, yet only three total firearms and one knife are accounted for in police press releases.

Where did that arsenal go? That question was apparently never asked, but the answer might have been significant - certainly to the shooting spree case, and possibly to the Lyon case. If Pearch had given away his arsenal, or if he had buried his weapons somewhere, then it may well have meant that he left Friendsville with something in mind. He may have been planning his shooting spree in advance, rather than suddenly cracking. And it might mean that there was much more to his actions than were believed by police at the time.

It might also mean that if the weapon cache is still buried on the farm, perhaps the Lyon sisters might be buried near them.
 
dragonfly said:
I do not know if Relden was ever considered by Montgomery County Police as a possible suspect in the Lyon Case. Reading the link, one would certainly think that he was capable of it and a likely candidate, since it says he specialized in double abductions.

However, I notice that he was never charged or convicted of the murders that the story leads off with, and in fact later contradicts itself by saying that he was in prison until Paroled in May 1975. This would seem to eliminate him as a suspect in some of the NJ cases and in the Lyon case which occurred in March 1975. It is possible that the write-up is incorrect and might have some critical typos in it, I suppose.
 
Richard said:
Fred Howard COFFEY, Jr. ...
Coffey currently resides in Pender Prison, NC. He comes up for Parole every year in July.

A current photo of Coffey can be seen on the North Carolina Prison System's On-Line Inmate Locator Service.

Link:

http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/app...imesin=1http://
Just a reminder that Fred Howard Coffey, Jr. comes up for parole again in July.

Be sure to drop the North Carolina Parole Board a message stating your position on the idea.
 
Any news on how his parole hearing went yet ?? I hope they don't let somebody like that out.

Richard, is there any possibility that the guy that was seen talking to those people with the tape recorder had no involvement. I found an article about this guy from Maryland that was arrested in I think late 1974, that was 21, that had sexually attacked these two teen girls. If you think it might be relevant I'll post some of it. I think they were killed. I saved it on my email just in case, I'll just have to pull it up again.
 
Hollow said:
Any news on how his parole hearing went yet ?? I hope they don't let somebody like that out.

Richard, is there any possibility that the guy that was seen talking to those people with the tape recorder had no involvement. I found an article about this guy from Maryland that was arrested in I think late 1974, that was 21, that had sexually attacked these two teen girls. If you think it might be relevant I'll post some of it. I think they were killed. I saved it on my email just in case, I'll just have to pull it up again.
It is rather doubtful that Fred Coffey will be released from prison, but stranger things have happened. He seems to have had luck on his side many times.

I would be interested to read what you have regarding this killer you mention. The big question would be whether or not he was free in March of 1975, or if he was in jail at the time.
 
This guy was a real creep, can't believe they let him out in the first place.

The Capital
Thursday, April 15, 1976
Annapolis, Maryland

PAROLEE ADMITS RAPE TRY

A man arrested while on parole for murder pleaded guilty last week for attempting to rape a 14-year-old Annapolis girl attacked while she walked home from a shopping trip.

Thomas W. Myers, 29, of Meads Drive, Annapolis pleaded guilty to assault with intent to rape and perverted sex acts.........

Myers was arrested for two misdemeanor assaults last year while he was on parole for a 1966 slaying. He had served six years of the 15-year murder sentence before being released in 1972.

While he was awaiting charges on the assaults , police identified him as the attacker of a young junior high school girl on December 13, 1974.

According to the girl's statement to police, she was walking home from an afternoon shopping trip on West Street, and was confronted by a man as she crossed the grounds of the football stadium on Taylor Avenue.

She told police that the man asked her to go with him and she refused. He pushed her to the ground, threatened to slit her throat, and forced her to perform sexual acts......

The attacker then forced the girl into his car, drove to a dirt road near Admiral Heights, and repeated the crime......

In return for Myers guilty plea to attempted rape, charges of rape were dropped.....

Myers was sentenced to life once before. He was first convicted in January, 1967, of shooting to death a middle-aged Severna Park woman he had met in a Ritchie Highway bar and leaving her body half buried along an isolated road.

That conviction was overturned by the landmark Supreme Court "Miranda" decision which required police to advise suspects of their constitutional rights......

When the case was re-tried Myers pleaded guilty to second-degree murder....

He had been on parole for about three years when police arrested him for assaulting two teenaged Annapolis girls in seperate incidents February 25, 1975...
 
Hollow said:
Any news on how his parole hearing went yet ?? I hope they don't let somebody like that out.

Richard, is there any possibility that the guy that was seen talking to those people with the tape recorder had no involvement. I found an article about this guy from Maryland that was arrested in I think late 1974, that was 21, that had sexually attacked these two teen girls. If you think it might be relevant I'll post some of it. I think they were killed. I saved it on my email just in case, I'll just have to pull it up again.
And sorry my summary of the above posted article was so inaccurate, I had only skimmed it and found it of interest since Wheaton is so close to this idiot's stomping ground.
 
What about Bar Jonah? Although his true preference was little boys there was a ton of child *advertiser censored* in his possesion when he was aphrehended. Just a thought but probably not a match in any way...however, he was very prolific and that makes me wonder...
 
I have a question for Richard. First of all, thanks very much Richard for providing so much information on the case. To me, the entire case hinges on one question: How confident was the witness who placed the Lyon sisters in their neighborhood and headed home from Wheaton Plaza? Here's why I think this is such an important question. If the girls made it back into their neighborhood, than it would seem to me that TRM was not their abductor. Since no one in the area recognized TRM, it would make sense that whoever he was, he was not from the area. And if he wasn't from the area, then he wouldn't have been sufficiently familiar with local neighborhoods to have been able to trail the girls. It would be even trickier given the confusing layout of Kensington. If the girls did make it back into their neighborhood, then to my mind, its more likely that their abductor was someone familiar with the neighborhood, perhaps even from the neighborhood. That's what makes the entry about Michael Pearch so interesting.

So how confident was the witness (I believe it was a boy who lived in their neighborhood) when he claimed to have seen the girls in the neighborhood and walking home that day? Did he say something along the lines of "Oh, I think I saw them that day, but I might be confused, it could have been another day."? Or was his recollection more like "I know I saw them that day because I can describe the clothes they were wearing."?

Richard, do you have any idea about the confidence level of the witness who said that he saw the girls in their neighborhood and walking home the day they were abducted?
 
Upcounty said:
... To me, the entire case hinges on one question: How confident was the witness who placed the Lyon sisters in their neighborhood and headed home from Wheaton Plaza? Here's why I think this is such an important question. If the girls made it back into their neighborhood, than it would seem to me that TRM was not their abductor. Since no one in the area recognized TRM, it would make sense that whoever he was, he was not from the area.
... do you have any idea about the confidence level of the witness who said that he saw the girls in their neighborhood and walking home the day they were abducted?
Your point is a good one. The Kensington neighborhood is somewhat of a maze of twisting roads which are not laid out like so many other residential areas. The roads bend around and make a lot of turns, so if you don't know the roads, it is very easy to end up heading in a direction different from what you intend.

A very significant feature of the girls' probable route is that they probably cut through woodlots at two places, and Drumm Ave is blocked off in the middle for about a block allowing only pedestrian traffic and not cars through. Therefor, the best time and place to make an abduction (using a motor vehicle) would have been BEFORE the girls got to the barriers on Drum Ave - and this is only about a block from Where Devon and Drumm Ave meet.

The accuracy of the witness is, then, of great importance because it would mean that the girls would have been abducted immediately after he saw them.

I have never interviewed that eyewitness personally, and because he was a minor at the time, the news reports do not identify him by name. MCP has his name and his statement, but I do not know how closely they have looked into it, or if they have ever re-interviewed him.

The boy evidently knew the girls by sight and he was pretty certain that he had seen them headed west on Drumm near Devon. The problem with his information was that it came about two weeks after the girls disappeared. He stated that he remembered seeing the girls at that place and time when he first heard about their disappearance, but that he did not mention it because it was initially reported that someone else had seen them around 7PM at the Mall. The boy and his parents decided not to bother police with information about the 2:30-3PM sighting.

When the "7 PM sighting" was later determined to be incorrect and reported as such, the boy came forward with his story. Police now had to determine if the boy might have been mistaken, perhaps having seen the girls closer to 11AM that day, or perhaps having seen them returning home on a previous day around the time estimated in his statement.

The Drumm/Devon sighting report is one of those bits of information that was just never fully resolved. But if true, and accurate, then it would tend to indicate that the abduction actually took place within minutes of the boy seeing them, and in the residential area.

I agree with you to the extent that IF the abduction took place in the residential area, the abductor would have made himself familiar with the roads - at least in the immediate vicinity of the Wheaton Plaza parking lot. It is possible that TRM was that person, and that he placed himself in his vehicle after talking to the girls and learning of their planned departure time and route. He may have driven a short way into the Kensington housing area on Drumm, turned around, and met the girls after they passed by Devon.
 

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