Federal investigators are back in Virginia’s cold-bound mountain forests the murder of two young sisters which disappeared almost 50 years ago.

The FBI and US Marshals returned to Taylor’s Mountain in Bedford County to search for clues following “new evidence” in an unspecified cold case, The Washington Post reported.

The area, however, is infamously linked to his 1975 murder Katherine, aged 10, and Sheila Lyon, aged 12whose bodies were never found after a sex offender kidnapped them and allegedly burned one of their remains on the mountain.

Local, state and federal officials declined to comment on the ongoing investigation in the mountains.

Officials had already investigated the mountains twice in connection with the case, once in 2015 and again in 2017, when they were convicted. sex offender Lloyd Welch Jr. pleaded guilty to murdering the two girls.

In 2015, Welch admitted to helping his father and uncle kidnap the Lyon sisters while they were in Montgomery County, Maryland, to meet friends.

Welch, who insists he had no active role in the murders, told police he saw his father and uncle dismember one of the girls in a dungeon-like basement and gave him the remains to dispose of.

Two cousins ​​told police that Welch arrived at a Mount Taylor property owned by his family with a bag containing bloody clothing and burned the remains, according to court records.

Welch had become a person of interest in the case after a friend of the girls identified him as a man who was allegedly watching the sisters the day they disappeared.

The suspect has a long history of sexually assaulting children, with Welch having been convicted twice of molesting a 10-year-old girl in 1992 and 1997.

During his 2017 sentencing for his role in the Lyon sisters’ deaths, Welch also pleaded guilty to two unrelated counts of child sexual assault in Prince William County, Virginia.

Welch is nearing the end of his sentence for the 1997 attack. When it ends in 2025, he will begin his 48-year sentence for the Lyon sisters’ case.

Investigators were never able to gather enough evidence to charge anyone else.