RANDALL CHASE
Associated Press

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Delaware’s Board of Pardons has a denied a commutation request from a child molester who also has been named a person of interest in the 1975 disappearance of two sisters in Maryland.

Fifty-seven-year-old Lloyd Lee Welch was sentenced in 1998 to life in prison, suspended after 33 years behind bars, for unlawful intercourse, unlawful sexual penetration and unlawful sexual contact. Board members agreed to reject his commutation application without a hearing in advance of Thursday’s monthly meeting.

Maryland authorities said earlier this year that Welch was a person of interest in the disappearance of sisters Sheila and Katherine Lyon from a Montgomery County shopping mall nearly 40 years ago.

Authorities described Welch as a former carnival ride operator and drifter with arrests in several states for sexually assaulting young girls.

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