Thanks to Bradley Ingels, a Coffey researcher in NC and supporter of The Edward Coffey Project (ECP) through his welcomed Coffey related obituaries from his area of NC, we now know who the real murderer was of sisters, Sheila and Katherine Lyon in Maryland in March 1975.
Bradley wrote: "My father, Rodney T. Ingels, was the lead investigator on this case for over 10 years while serving with the Montgomery County Police Department. It was the only case he was ever assigned that he did not solve prior to retirement."
Read about it here in this Washington Post article of Sep. 2017:
The headline reads "Man pleads guilty - 42 years after young Maryland sisters vanished - in case that stunned the Washington area"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/suspect-in-1975-lyon-sisters-murders-set-to-plead-guilty/2017/09/12/06d968d0-8d93-11e7-8df5-c2e5cf46c1e2_story.html
Bradley also submitted additional info on Fred Howard Coffey:
Fred was born Mar 20, 1945 in Bristol, VA. On Aug. 1, 1972 he married Paula Elaine Clemons in Virginia Beach. It was his second marriage. His parents were Fred H. Sr. and Pauline McGlamary Coffey. The parents were married on Nov. 7, 1940 and divorced Jul. 3, 1956 in Bristol, VA.
Fred Jr. and wife Paula were divorced on Jul. 8, 1975.
Then, on Feb. 17, 1978, Fred, Jr. married Edith Margaret Denlea of Mecklenburg Co., NC, in Charlotte, NC. David Lee Coffey, a younger brother was a witness to this marriage.
The following are supporting documents provided by Bradley:
Corrections and additions are always welcomed. If any reader can provide more info on Fred, Jr., please feel free to contact me.
Fred Howard Coffey, Jr. was convicted for first degree murder and sentenced to life without parole in Pender Correctional Institute at Burgaw, Pender Co., NC.
Fred Howard Coffey, Jr. was convicted on several counts of "indecent liberty with child" on this date. Date of offenses were given as Feb. 21 and Aug., 24, 1984; Feb. 24, 1985, Feb. 2, 1986; Jun. 1 and Aug. 21, 1985; Jan. 13, 1985 and Mar. 1, 1986; and Jun. 1, 1983. These convictions and sentences were to run consecutively.
In 1987 he was convicted of murder in the first degree for a crime that he committed in 1979. He had abducted and raped a 13 yr-old girl, the daughter of another Navy man. Since that time he has been convicted of and remains the suspect in several rapes and homicides involving children. Fred is currently serving a life sentence with the North Carolina Department of Corrections.
He is said to have been born in Granite Falls but there is no record of his birth in Caldwell Co., NC. I believe him to have been born in 1945 in North Carolina. If so, he would be about 75 years old now. His release date is "death."
-----
Paraphrasing: On Monday, Mar 23, 1987 a news item appeared on page 2B in the Washington Times, Washington, DC entitled "Center flooded with calls about sisters, byline Cheryl Wetzstein. It related hundreds calls had been received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children related to the disappearance of Sheila and Katherine Lyon, the 12- and 10-year-old sisters who vanished from the Wheaton, Plaza in Maryland on March 25, 1975.
It was thought that Fred Howard Coffey, Jr., who lived and worked in the area at the time of their disappearance might have been involved.
-----
"Condemned killer of N.C. girl gets third hearing
"Associated Press
"RALEIGH - A man who has twice been sentenced to death for the murder of a 10-year-old Mecklenburg County girl will get alother sentencing hearing, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.
"Fred Howard Coffey Jr. was sentenced to death in 1987 for the July 1979 murder of Amanda Ray, who body was found in a wooded area near a lake.
"The state Supreme Court later ordered a new sentencing hearing, and a jury came back with the same sentence.
"On Friday, the Supreme Court ordered a third sentencing hearing.
"The court said the judge who tried the case should not have allowed the jury to consider as aggravating circumstances sexual abuse crimes that Coffey was convicted of before he was charged and tried for the Ray murder.
"The court said evidence of a 'history of prior criminal activity' must be relevant to some issue in the current case.
"It concluded that Coffey's other convictions were not relevant, partly because some of them occurred after the murder so that cannot be classified as 'prior.'
"Justices Burley Mitchell and Louis Meyer filed a dissent, saying Coffey's sexual abuse convictions were Relevant to the case."
No comments:
Post a Comment