Judge: Prosecutors may seek death in missing sisters' deaths
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A Virginia judge has ruled that prosecutors may seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing two young Maryland sisters who disappeared more than 40 years ago.
News outlets report that Bedford County Circuit Judge James Updike Jr. denied a motion on Tuesday by Lloyd Lee Welch Jr.'s attorneys to rule out the death penalty ahead of Welch's first-degree murder trial in April.
The defense said Virginia didn't allow capital punishment when 12-year-old Sheila Lyon and 10-year-old Katherine Lyon disappeared in 1975, but the judge ruled that wasn't the case.
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Updike also found that Welch breached his 2013 immunity agreement with Maryland prosecutors by changing his story several times.
The sisters were last seen walking to a mall in Washington's Maryland suburbs. Their bodies have never been found.