The Missoulian from Missoula, Montana • 17

AAissoulian, Thursday, December 23, 198217 Case of vanished girls remains unsolved By LAURA RICHARDSON to pick her up at her great-grandmother's Associated Pr In order to allow Missoulian employees tne opportunity to spend know where the children went, or where their bodies could be found. "We went around knocking on people's doors, asking them to let us look in their basements. We went out to a field in West Texas, we dug in ditches all over the place, and looked up and down creek beds' I have no idea how much money we spent," Wilson said. Finally police turned the case over to the homicide detectives. Major Case Investigator George Hudson has helped look for the girls for seven years.

He has a file almost two feet thick, full of leads that went nowhere. "Probably the only way we'll ever solve this thing is if somebody just comes forward and says what happened to them," Hudson said. Last year bits of human skeletons were discovered in a swamp near the southeast Texas town of Alvin. Hudson, a team of convicts from the state prison, and dozens of volunteers dug in the muck for two months, finally finding enough teeth in April 1981 to identify the bodies. They were two girls from Dickinson: Georgia Geer, 14, and Brooks Bracewell, 12.

They also had vanished in 1974. Wilson and her husband Richard have tried to go on. Three years ago they finally threw away Leslie's old clothes, gave her bedroom furniture to her cousin, and put the rest of her belongings in the attic with the Christmas gifts. "I'd be so grateful 1 just can't tell you how grateful if someone would tell me what happened," Wilson says. "I dream about her so often.

I just have to know." house at 4 p.m. "We were going to a Wilson said. "I know she intended to be there." Police never had many clues to the disappearance of Leslie and her friends Mary Rachel Tr-lica, 17, and Julie Mosely, 9. Investigators first assumed the girls had run away. A few days later after they vanished, a note mailed to Tommy Tr-lica.

Mary Rachel's husband of six months, seemed to support that theory. "I know I'm going to catch it, but we just had to get away," the penciled note said. "We're going to Houston. See you in about a week. The car is in Sears upper lot." Mary Rachel's name was misspelled, and FBI handwriting experts could not confirm if she had written the letter.

But the car was where the note said it would be. Inside were gifts the girls had bought, and a pair of blue jeans Leslie had gotten out of layaway. The car was not dusted for fingerprints because officers did not think they were dealing with a crime. "I could have told you that night that they hadn't run away," Wilson said. "Leslie wanted to go to that party.

And no 9-year-old is going to run off two days before Christmas. Everybody knows that." The families of the missing girls have sent 70,000 handbills with their daughters' photographs throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada. They sent the pictures to 45 newspapers. They hired a private investigator, and followed up every tip from seers and psychics who claimed to FORT WORTH, Texas Leslie Wilson's presents are still in the attic of the small white frame house. The new clothes are out of style, and She is too old for the toys.

Everything was bought for a 14-year-old girl who disappeared eight years ago while Christmas shopping. If she's still alive, Leslie is now 22. Her little brother has grown up, married, and become a fathef. Her great-grandmother, who took care of her while her mother worked, is dead. Her Pekingese grew old and sick and had to be destroyed four years ago.

But the gifts are still in the attic, and her mother, Judy Wilson, now 40, still hopes. ''Would you please assist in our search for our children?" Mrs. Wilson recently wrote to The Associated Press. "When I read in this morning's paper aD0Ut President Reagan's Missing Children's Act, it gave me a new hope." The bill signed by Reagan in October permits parents to ask the FBI if the name of their missing child is in its computer files. If local police decline to enter the name, the act permits parents to do so on their own.

''Oh, I dream about her quite often. I know that She hasn't changed," Wilson said, gazing at the last school picture of her daughter. "She'd be tall, and headstrong, spoiled, you know." Leslie Renee Wilson set out with two friends on afi afternoon of Christmas shopping at Seminary South shopping mall Dec. 23, 1974. She instructed her mother "in no uncertain terms" time with their families, we will be observing the following early deadlines: Display and Legal Advertising Date to Run I Deadline to Advertiser 1226 Sunday Feature 1221 Tuesday.

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Missoulian many things to many people Kawasaki disease worries officials IGRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) Federal health officials are studying the cases of seven children in the Grand Rapjds area who were hospitalized in the past month with Kawasaki disease, a rare and dangerous illness. iThe disease usually strikes children under age 9, according to Dr. Martha Rogers of the Centers for Disease Control at Atlanta. Its symptoms include high fever and a peeling rash.

a dangerous disease," Rogers said. She said its mortality rate is only about 1 percent or 2 percent but that heart problems develop in one out of five cases. It takes its name from Tomisaku Kawasaki, who described it in 1967 in the Japanese Journal of Allergy. Pat Allen of the Kent County Health Department said there had been seven reports of the disease at local Michael Firlik, spokesman for Blodgett Memorial Medical 'Center, said five cases had been treated there and that two children still were hospitalized Wednesday. "To my knowledge, none of the local cases are sen- ous," Allen said.

The names of the patients were not reJ lease Kawasaki disease is characterized by high fever lasting more than five days, redness and cracking skin around the lips, a red tongue, eye inflammation and a rash, primarily on the hands and feet. The cause of the disease is unknown. i'The fact that it does occur in clusters leads us to believe" that it's infectious," Rogers said. But because its victims' almost never have had contact with one another, "it's" been suggested that there's some kind of infectious agent or toxin that hits the community." State health officials are working with the CDC and the county health department to study the local outbreak. William Hall, disease surveillance director for the state Department Public Health, said he was aware of no other outbreaks in Michigan or previous cases in Kent County.

a Heart implant patient takes steps on his own "SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Barney Clark stood up unassisted and took a few shuffling steps Wednesday, his first since doctors implanted his artificial heart three weeks ago. also was learning how to speak audibly with tube" in his throat. "Meanwhile, a social worker said hospital officials hope to complete arrangements this week for a home in Salt Lake City where Clark could live rent-free once he his well enough to leave the hospital. stands and sort of shuffles around and sits down in the'rhair," said John Dwan, University of Utah Medical Center spokesman. "He's not striding down the hall." Doctors had said Clark was steadily regaining the strength he enjoyed in the days following the implant surgery Dec.

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