BEDFORD COUNTY (WSLS 10) - Investigators believe Lloyd Welch tried to abduct another little girl in 1975, before the Lyon sisters. She'll tell jurors her story if they convict Welch of capital murder at his trial in April.
A court filing shows the Commonwealth plans to paint Welch as a serial child molester, who's gotten away with three decades worth of crimes.
The Commonwealth plans to call witnesses who'll testify about 14 incidents they say involve Lloyd Welch.
A woman will tell the jury Welch sexually assaulted her in Washington, D.C. in 1973, when she was 15.
Welch's half brother Danny Welch is expected to testify that he saw Lloyd rape Lloyd's girlfriend and force her into prostitution between 1974 and 1975.
In the spring of 1975, two women claim they entered Lloyd Welch's car near Wheaton Plaza, the place the Lyon sisters were last seen that same spring. Sensing danger, the women say they tried to get out of the car, but the door handles wouldn't work. They will testify to rolling down windows to escape.
A woman who was 12 years old that spring will say Welch approached her at Wheaton Plaza around the same time the sisters disappeared, claiming he was an undercover cop who saw her brother shoplift and told her to come out to the parking lot with him. She'll tell jurors when she yelled for her brothers, she turned around and Welch was gone.
In April 1975, the month the Lyon sisters vanished, a woman says Welch raped her at knife point in Takoma Park, Md., just five miles from Wheaton Plaza. She'll say Welch told her he wanted to assault an "inexperienced girl".
Other women will testify they were sexually molested by Welch as children in the 80s and 90s.
Prior to his Bedford County indictments, Welch was serving time in Delaware for raping a 10-year-old girl. If he's not convicted here, he'll be a free man in 9 years at age 69.
Because of a gag order, attorneys cannot tell us if this week's forensic dig on Taylor's Mountain will delay Welch's trial.