I am posting the following information regarding the Lyon sisters' timeline. Note that all of this information was posted earlier on various threads in this forum, but I am trying to bring it together here for clarity and for the purpose of the ongoing discussion in this thread.
Timeline for the Lyon Girls
On Tuesday, 25 March 1975, Sheila M. LYON age 12, and her younger sister, Katherine M. (Kate) LYON age 10 left their home on Plyers Mill Road in Kensington, Maryland to walk to the Wheaton Plaza Shopping Center in Wheaton, located on the corner of University Boulevard and Veirs Mills Road, a distance of about half a mile from their home. The girls were on spring break from school and it was their intention to view Easter exhibits and to have lunch at The Orange Bowl Restaurant.
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Below is a timeline which I have constructed from various sources, mostly news articles and police briefings of the time. It should be considered somewhat rough.
Date 25 March 1975 (Tuesday)
About 10 a.m. The Lyon children were up and eating breakfast and trying to decide what to do that day. The trip to Wheaton Plaza was discussed and Mrs. Lyon thought it would be a good idea for the girls to be home about 3 p.m. The girls stated that they wanted to eat lunch at the Orange Bowl and mentioned that the price of a slice of pizza had just gone up five cents.
About 11 a.m. Katherine is called by her friend and neighbor, Melanie, who invites Katherine to her house to play. Katherine counters with an invitation to accompany Sheila and herself to Wheaton Plaza. Melanie declines, as she cannot obtain her mother's permission. Katherine tells Melanie that she plans to be home by 3 p.m. and for her to call her again at that time.
(Note: according to another source, the day before, a neighbor woman had invited Katherine over to see her new baby that Tuesday afternoon and Katherine had said that she would visit.)
It was 11:30 a.m. as the girls got ready to leave. (quote from a Washington Star article)
Their probable route would have been down Jennings Road, then on a path through a large wooded area, coming out on McComas Road, then to Drumm Ave, up a small dead-end street through some woods to the Wheaton Plaza parking lot.
It is a 15 minute stroll that took the two sisters beyond a series of red brick houses, past the brick home of Fred Sigmon, a retired federal employee, and his wife, who have lived there 16 years, past the home where Don Anderson, 18, an Einstein high school student lives with his parents, brother and puppy, and through a wooded area the size of two city blocks.
The wooded path brought them out to a clearing behind the white two-story house of Mrs. Mary Tolker, mother of four, and a former principal of Potomac Elementary School. But Mrs. Tolker wasn't out gardening in her backyard the day the Lyon girls walked to the plaza. She had a dentist appointment at 11 a.m.
The clearing near Mrs. Tolker's garden opens onto McComas Avenue where the Kensington Gardens Nursing Home sits on the right. The route to Wheaton Plaza continues across McComas, up Drumm Avenue to Faulkner and on top of that street looms Montgomery Ward's and Wheaton Plaza Shopping Center.
(Note: The persons mentioned above were interviewed by a newspaper reporter, but they did NOT state that they saw the girls that day enroute to or from Wheaton Plaza. I include mention of them for informationional purposes only.)
At Wheaton Plaza:
One of the first persons to see the girls there was Mrs. Sarah Biosca, a retired seamstress who noticed them at Beckers Leather Goods store, at about 11:45 a.m. ...
Five shops away, Brian McAbee, 18, a clerk at Up Against The Wall, a clothing store featuring jeans and shirts, said, "They were in here. They just came in and looked around. I saw them walk throught the arch."
Sheila's and Kate's oldest brother, Jay, a ninth grader at Montgomery Hills said he saw his sisters over by the big Easter bunny display in the center of the plaza at about 1 p.m. "I walked past them. They kind of looked like they were waiting there," he said. "I think they saw me but they didn't make any signs."
Moments later, another 13-year-old boy (not named in any accounts) saw the girls. Sheila, he said, was sitting on one of the Easter bunny's arms listening to the little children come up and tell the Easter bunny what they wanted for Easter.
Another 13-year-old boy also says he saw a 50 to 60 year-old man recording a conversation with Sheila and Kate at about 2 o'clock. He overheard the man asking one question: "Are any of you two involved in sports?" (Note: this was "Jimmy" mentioned many times before. His testimony was corroborated by another boy who was with him that day. "Jimmy" gave an interview to a Washington Star Reporter who quoted him as saying that he saw the girls and the Tape Recorder Man "between 1 and 2 p.m. - see below quote of the Star interview.)
And the youngster ("Jimmy") says he then saw the man walk away in one direction and the girls in the other. That was the last time they were seen at Wheaton plaza. Police have circulated a composite sketch of the man with the tape recorder, but he has not been located.
Between 2:30 PM and 3:30 PM:
- Another boy (referred to by police only as "Over 15") later reported seeing them walking west (toward home) on Drumm Avenue near Devon Street. Drumm Avenue, a residential street, was part of the most direct route from Wheaton Plaza to their home. He stated that he recognized Sheila from school. "Over 15" was in a car being driven by another boy who corroberated the story, although the boy driving said that he did not know the girls. Although these boys came forward to police by 28 March 1975, Police did not release this information to the press for two more weeks.
- In 2005 on the 30th anniversary of the girls disappearance, an 80 year old man named James Mann stated in an interview that he had seen the girls passing by his house on the corner of Drumm and Devon and that he had waved to them. They were headed west on Drumm in the direction of McComas Ave. Note, a James Mann does live at the address stated and was listed in 1975 as being at that address.
At 3:30 p.m., Mrs. Lyon arrived home from her bowling trip. The girls weren't there. ...
Back home, Mrs. Lyon recalled, "John went in and lay down. I changed my clothes and worked in the front yard for three hours. The boys had come home by then."
As she was gardening throughout the afternoon, Mrs. Lyon wondered about the girls. "I hadn't told them absolutely they had to be home at 3. So I thought that maybe they had stopped off at a movie or a friend's house."
The Lyons customarily do tell their children to be home at 6 o'clock for dinner, although the food usually isn't served until 45 minutes later.
Six o'clock came and went, however, with no sign of the girls. "As we sat down to eat fried chicken," Mrs. Lyon was more angry than worried, so much so that "I even thought I wouldn't give them any chicken when they got home."
By 7 o'clock, however, the anger had given way to anficty. "I said to John, 'I don't understand this," Mrs. Lyon said, so she and her husband drove in their Ford station wagon down Jennings and up Drumm to Faulkner to see if they could spot their daughters walking home.
"Back home," said the mother, "I got out my little phone book and started calling their freinds." "John left and went to the Plaza to look some more. He got home at 8 p.m."
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Still quoting the Star article:
... At 7:30 that night, David Reed, 12, a seventh grader at Sheila's school, said he saw the two sisters walking in the opposite direction of their home near the intersection of Drumm and Faulkner headed toward the plaza. "I was coming from a friend's house from playing basketball," said David, "I passed them (on the sidewalk) and then I looked back. Why? They're girls." David said he had seen both girls before up at the community swimming pool and had seen Sheila at school.
Note: This account was interpreted by police and press to mean that David saw the girls at 7:30 p.m. and that they were going toward the mall at that time. By 28 March, a police spokesman said in a press briefing that they were inclined to disregard David's statement because his time did not fit with the known facts of the case. I would point out however, that his statement may have been misquoted or misinterpreted.
Could it be that he GAVE his story to police at 7:30 p.m.? Or could he have meant that he saw them heading toward the mall at 11:30 a.m.? That would be pretty accurate if so.
Or perhaps he actually did not know where the girls lived and thought their house was closer to the mall. Seeing them in the afternoon walking away from the mall, he may have thought that they were walking away from their house.
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Note: Here is what my earlier time line stated regarding the TRM sighting by "Jimmy":
Some time between 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM
- They were seen outside the Orange Bowl by a 13-year-old boy "Jimmy" who knew them. He described seeing them talking to a middle aged man in a brown suit who had a cassette tape recorder and a tan briefcase. They were speaking into a microphone that he held. Immediately after talking to the girls, the "Tape Recorder Man" walked away toward Montgomery Ward. The girls walked in the opposite direction toward the fountain in the mall, where they were seen talking to the Easter Bunny by their brother Jay.
Note: I am not certain who saw the girls first - whether it was "Jimmy" or Jay. It is entirely possible that the girls walked to the fountain at mall center and back to the Orange Bowl and then back again. By all accounts the Orange Bowl was very busy that day at lunch time and it is possible that the girls did not want to stand in a long line with other things to do and see.
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Here is "Jimmy's" story as quoted from the Washington Star...
"It was about 1 or 2 o'clock." Jimmy related. "I was out with a friend. We were down near ... um ... Peoples (Drug Store) and the Orange Bowl (pizza carryout) and we saw the two girls talking to a man with a tape recorder."
"I heard the man ask one question: ' Are any of you two involved in sports?'"
"And then ... um ... 30 seconds later I looked back. He was walking away toward Wards (Montgomery Ward) and the girls were walking the other way toward the fountain."
Jimmy stopped talking. Up to then, the words had tumbled out. He sat there and crossed his hands over his maroon lettered football jersey.
His parents didn't say anything.
His mother sat on the sofa with an untouched glass of red wine on the next table while her husband sat across the room with the newspaper opened across his folded legs. Jimmy was asked to give more details about what he had seen.
He smiled when he told how he and his friend had joked about going over to the man and asking him to interview them so they could get on television.
"I said to my friend, 'Hey, look over there. I wonder what's going on. It looks like a reporter.' We thought he was some kind of a reporter," Jimmy explained. "We were joking around that maybe we should go over there and get him to interview us."
"The man was holding a microphone in his hand between the girls, and asking questions. He had a tan briefcase on the ground. It was one of those hard ones that sat up." the boy said, adding that the tape recorder was sitting next to the man, out of the briefcase.
The man was sitting on the ledge next to an island of (illegible word - bushes?) in the middle of the plaza, Jimmy said. People sit on the ledge to rest during their shopping sprees or to eat a snack or pizza from the carryout.
Jimmy said he had never seen the man before or since. He said the man was well dressed in a brown suit.
Jimmy, who lives several blocks from the Lyons said he and his friend rode their bikes up to the plaza that day "to see friends. We just went up there to ride around. We had nothing else to do so we decided to go up there and look around."
Jimmy's mother said that right after the news came out that the Lyon girls were missing, her son told her he had seen them at the plaza. But it wasn't until Friday that he mentioned anything about the man with a tape recorder, she said.
"On Friday, he said that the girls were talking to a reporter. I said, 'How do you know he was a reporter?' He said because he had a microphone. I told him that could have been anybody and notified police."
At the police station on Friday, Jimmy said, the police "had me look through two files of mug shots."
(The beginning of the next sentence seems to have been left out of the printed article)
... in a while, a police officer would ask me if everything was all right (with the sketch). I'd tell them what was right and what was wrong." Jimmy said he thought the sketch was a good likeness. His mother said he was at the police station 2 1/2 hours that day.
Jimmy's friend who was with him the day the Lyon girls were seen with the man at the plaza verified virtually everything Jimmy said except that he said he did not hear any of the conversation between the man and the girls.
"I hope they find them." Jimmy said.
