MAN, 60, PLEADS GUILTY IN 1975 SLAYING OF 2 SISTERS

A convicted sex offender was sentenced to 48 years in prison Tuesday after pleading guilty in the deaths of two young sisters who vanished in 1975.

Lloyd Lee Welch Jr. pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree felony murder in the slayings of 10-year-old Katherine and 12-year-old Sheila Lyon. The 48year sentence is part of a plea agreement that calls for him to receive a 12-year concurrent sentence for two unrelated sexual assaults in Northern Virginia.

The Lyon sisters disappeared on March 25, 1975, after walking from their home in Kensington, Md., to a nearby shopping center.

Welch, 60, was charged in the girls’ killings in 2015 after members of his extended family said they saw him carrying two large duffel bags on family property in Bedford County, Va. The girls’ remains were never found.