Thirty-five years ago, Sheila Lyon, 12, and her 10-year-old sister, Katherine, walked to a Wheaton shopping center to get some pizza. They haven’t been seen since.
Their disappearance was the top story for months in the D.C. media, and led to one of the largest police investigations in the area’s history.
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The girls were the daughters of John Lyon, a well-known radio personality on WMAL. On March 25, 1975, the sisters were on spring break from school and wanted to go to Wheaton Plaza and have lunch at the Orange Bowl Restaurant, about a half-mile from their Kensington home.
With $4 in their pockets, the girls left at 11 a.m. promised to be home by 4 p.m. When they do not come home, the family contacted the Montgomery County police.
Witnesses said the sisters were seen speaking to a gray-haired man carrying a briefcase and tape recorder. There were other children around and he was letting the children speak into the microphone.
Police released a sketch of the man and began receiving reports that he had been seen around other shopping centers approaching young girls and asking them to read an answering machine message typed on an index card into his hand-held microphone.
The governor summoned the Maryland National Guard to join in the search. On the advice of a Dutch psychic, more than 100 guardsman walked shoulder to shoulder through the thick brush of Rock Creek Park without any luck.
The search expanded into a nationwide effort, and the National Enquirer offered a reward.
Police chased down hundreds of leads, including one from a witness in Manassas who reported seeing the girls bound in a station wagon. The witness followed the car until it ran a red light and sped off.
Several callers claimed to be holding the girls and demanded ransoms. One man demanded that John Lyon leave $10,000 inside a courthouse restroom, but the ransom was never claimed.
The girls have never been found and their case remains unsolved.
Anyone with information on the case should call the Montgomery County Police Cold Case Squad at 240-773-5070.
