Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 31

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1994 THE DETROIT NEWS 3C Did Cam Lyman die -or just change her sex? iRiAT ADVENTURE, (iREATTHIIIllJ, CREATFUNf" -Jo StagA G000 'FULL SCALE AND FULL THROTTLE, THIS NON-STOP ACTION ADVENTURE ISA PERFECT CHOKE FORTHE -OMmi UnjIWd, THI MOVIE MINUTE MOMNC EPIC! A FIRST RATE FAMILY ADVENTURE!" "A ROBUST, ROUSING TONGUE-IN-CHEEK ROMANTIC ADVENTURE!" -Sob CAMPBELL, NEWHOUSE NEWS SEIVICE Swe A Place In Your Heart For The Best loved, best reviewed Movie Of the Season! "two enthusiastic thumbs up! this is one of the year's Best Pictures! A FIRST" CLASS EFFORT ALL AROUND, MARVELOUSLY ENTERTAINING, SURPRISINGLY SO." GENE SISKEL, SISKEL EBERT "Passionate! One Of the top 10 films Of The Year!" -TIME MAGAZINE "Exquisite! An Absolutely Perfect Cast! 'Little women' is timeless, the nicest holiday treat i can imagine." Leonard maltin. entertainment tonight "The Effect is Magical! OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS FORTHE LOVELIEST 'LITTLE WOMEN' EVE RON SCREEN." PICTURES prescnu i i i I By Elizabeth Mehren Los Angeles Times BOSTON They had words, an angry exchange about their mutual passion Clumber spaniels. And then, George O'Neil says, his friend Cam Lyman disappeared. Now, the two sisters of the eccentric multimillionaire dog breeder have taken steps to have Lyman declared dead, but O'Neil thinks his friend may have slipped off that summer day in 1987 to have a sex-change operation. "She'd been talking about it for years," O'Neil said Wednesday from his home in North Kingstown, R.I.

With her close-cropped hair, her mustache and her habit of dressing in men's clothes, Lyman "looked better as a guy than as a woman" anyway, O'Neil says. The family of the woman who had her name legally shortened from Camilla believes she was kidnapped and murdered, says the lawyer for Lyman's sisters. Barry Mills of Ellsworth, Maine, says a worldwide search has produced no trace of the missing millionaire. Mills also says he is disgusted with the prurient interest the case has generated. In the week after Christmas, he complains, the case was the buzz of New England.

"When I think of the (cases) that we have handled, where people have been injured or killed, and nobody gives a damn, it just makes me sick," Mills says. "Then someone says 'sex change and everyone gets excited. It's ridiculous." Even so, Mills confirms that Mary Margaret Goodale of Maine and Edith Kuhn of Northern California have petitioned the court to have their sister declared dead in Rhode, Island, where she maintained a 40-acre estate, and where she raised and cared for 58 show-quality Clumber spaniels and Field spaniels. Lyman's $2.1 million estate also includes an attache case filled with jewels that never left her side, even while she slept, O'Neil says. The case vanished with Lyman, who would now be in her late 50s, as did cash she kept squirreled around her house.

Some of Lyman's clothing also is missing, leading O'Neil to refute the notion that his friend was abducted. People who are being kidnapped, O'Neil dryly notes, normally do not "bring a change of clothes." But O'Neil's attorney, Rose- NEW YORK TIMES WflEWTAL CUIDAWCE SUCGESTED 4 (Is Qf mi mm ww mot it wmu cmiwiil Winona Ryd I HI Multimillionaire Cam Lyman, who was obsessed with dressing like a man, disappeared from her Rhode Island home in 1087. mary Healey of Providence, R.I., says that in his heart, even her client suspects Lyman died soon after her disappearance. Too much time has elapsed without contact or activity in Lyman's bank account or credit cards, Healey points out. Well-known investigators have been unable to solve the mystery, she adds.

"Maybe George hates to think of her as dead," Healey says, and would like to think that Lyman went off for "that other purpose" meaning the sex-change procedure. But "in all likelihood, given the fact that there is no paper trail," Lyman is probably dead, she says. While holding out the possibility that Lyman may have left home voluntarily, only to have met some untoward fate thereafter, Healey says the fact that she left her dogs behind particularly her champion Clumber spaniel, Raycroft Sheriff makes her death a virtual certainty. "Even if you don't care much about money, you don't leave your dogs behind," Healey says. In her will, Lyman left most of her assets to the Dog Museum of St.

Louis. She also stipulated that O'Neil charter an airplane and sprinkle her ashes over New York's Madison Square Garden during the annual Westminster Dog Show there. "That was her desire, yes," Healey says. "Unfortunately (without a body), it has not been able to be carried out." NO PASSES OR WHEN IN FtORDIA VISIT COUPONS ACCEPTED iniiftiSKioiiuiMiuiiHiiiiniiir "MSiaraMI "fflliB NOW SHOWINGH TIM ALLEN 20 3 30 5 50 8 00 10 20 12 15 2:45 5:45 8 15 10:30 12 10 2 30 5 00 7 30 10 00 1 45 5:00 7:20 9:40 1 1 1 1 I I ilTi'l ililiMVJI 1 30 3 45 6 00 20 10 45 12 30 2 45 5. 7 15 9 30 2 00 5 40 00 10 20 1:20 5:10 7:40 9 50 11:30 2, 4 30 7:10 9 40 11 55 11 30 1 55 4 20 7 20 1000 1220 11:15 1:50 950 12:15 12:15 245 5:15 7:45 10:10 12 35 11 30 2, 4 30 7 35 1005 12 25 11 20 2 00 4 30 7 30 10 00 11:30 2 05 4 30 7 00 9 35 11 45 3 20 6 45 9 30 12:00 2:35 5:10 7:30 9:50 12:00 2:25 4:55 7:20 9 55 1:30 4 45 7 05 9 45 1 Sort Oow "ffl Ifao "One Of The Best Pictures Of The -Davio Shuhan, CBS-TV Genetic defect is identified in infants' fatal spinal disease fell HSy "HAUNTING" "Nell' Cuts A Haunting Path To The heart.

Foster's portrayal Is Deeply affecting." 0 Pl'K HlB.MllM,SIlM (feWIWjP PICTURES Pi "BRILLIANT' "Jodie Foster Is Brilliant! A Sensitive, Beautiful Long Remember." WW IMWS. SNMK PREVIEWS 0 ABC WORID NIWS NOW Tearless ")odie Foster Gives A Fearless, Fierce, Beautifully Attuned Performance." esents BREATHTAKING" PURE AND BREATHTAKING. A Beautiful Film." THE Santa Clause "TWO ENTHUSIASTIC THUMBS UP!" PCI GUIIMNCE SUGGiSTtD LIAM NEESON JODIE FOSTER M.MVl;IA'g;lin7TJ.ia:irTVJXTJpiw:i3iiiii By Thomas H. Maugh II Los Angeles Times University of California, Irvine, researchers report they have identified a genetic abnormality they believe causes spinal muscular atrophy, the most common genetic defect resulting in infants' deaths. "This is a long-anticipated finding that should quickly improve accuracy in diagnosis of the forms of SMA," says Donald S.

Wood, director of science technology for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. "Most important, it will accelerate our continuing search for a form of treatment for SMA." No treatment for the disease exists. The disorder, which in its most severe form is uniformly fatal before age 2, affects an estimated 20,000 Americans, making it the second-most-common lethal genetic disorder after cystic fibrosis. Although the disease affects only one in every 10,000 newborns, it is estimated that one in every 40 adults carries the defective gene. The identification of the gene is it lEmaMszamnn: World.

22g5K An Extraordinary Motion Picture About The Power Of Innocence. iiwMiiirai mr miiitii'i llUi mnmmmmm mil hkuiuihihi ftHI 1101 tslll lllllllt II Stti 11 J7iVA iiSaWL3tliaaai ROMANTIC flOMFiW!" taJUMia4Mla reported by a team led by UCI IMC VAPL rtMC STRLIHG CTR. flMC MURL PdRK David Sheehan, CBS-TV is childhood. Types III and IV strike later in life. Although they are crippling, they do not affect lifespan.

The researchers speculate that the severity of the disease is controlled by the amount of DNA missing from the gene. In other health news, scientists used microscopic bubbles of fat to implant genes in the noses of cystic fibrosis patients, an advance that raises hopes of treating the disease through gene therapy. Researchers had previously used viruses to deliver genes, but some scientists say bubbles may prove to work better. In cystic fibrosis, the lungs are clogged by a sticky mucus that leads to fatal infections. The disease is caused by a faulty gene.

Gene therapy is aimed at delivering a working copy of this gene to the lungs, but scientists use nasal tissue for initial experiments because it is more accessible. In the new work, working copies of the gene were attached to the bubbles and sprayed repeatedly into the noses of nine patients. The gene was successfully implanted in at least seven patients and found to be active in five. Researchers found that the procedure partially corrected an abnormality in electrical charge that is seen in tissue from cystic fibrosis patients, but the effect disappeared within a week. The researchers, mostly from London and Edinburgh, report the work in the January issue of the journal Nature Medicine.

They say the procedure probably needs improvement before it could be useful as a treatment. The work represents the first time the gene has been delivered to the nasal passages without using a virus, and "I think that's a very important milestone," says Robert Beall, president of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in Bethesda, Md. The bubbles, called liposomes, may provoke less of an immune system response than viruses, he says. Scientists are also trying to create viruses that avoid this problem, he adds. The concern is that the immune system may attack the virus or the cells that take up the gene, interring with the tierapy.

12:20 2:45 5:15 7:45 10:20 12, 2:45 5:15 8, 10 30 12:30 3:15 5:45 8:10 10:30 SHOWGISePOr1TWC1-5 SHOWCISeMURriHius IMC WOODS 11:30 1:65 4 20 7, 9:35 11:60 11:16 1:50 4:15 7 20 9 60 12 05 1:00 5:00 7:20 10:00 STrfR CMTlOT SHOWOISe wcstuimp SHOWG)SsTeRutiCHCTS. pure magic! Paul Wuneer, WBAI RADIO "THE BEST romantic comedy Of The Year!" Bill Dlehl, ABC RADIO NETWORK 11:15 1:40 4:15 7:25 9 55 12:15 11:45 2:15 4 40 7:10 9 50 11:45 2:16 4:45 7:25 9:50 12:15 STIR TMOR Sm ROCHSTR STIR JOHfl RAIT 14 1:15 3:35 5 45 8:30 10:45 12:30 3 00 5:35 8:05 10:36 12:00 2:30 5:00 7:30 10:00 urconsTS WST RNR umeo artists MIRMf1 umeD nsts 1 2 OdKS raichael KEATON geena DAVIS 1:15 4:30 7:20 9:55 12:20 2:55 5:25 7:55 10:25 12. 2:30 5:05 7:35 10:05 SPEECHLESS molecular biologist John J. Was-muth in the January issue of Nature Genetics, released Friday. Wasmuth's team believes that the disorder is caused by the loss of segments of a gene called XS2G3 on chromosome 5, one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up the human genetic blueprint.

They studied DNA from 29 patients with the most severe form of the disease, called Type I SMA, and compared it with DNA from 235 healthy people. They found that 17 of the 29 patients were missing fragments of XS2G3 in both copies of the gene (one from each parent). In contrast, only two of the 235 healthy people both of them known carriers of the disorder were missing fragments of the gene, and only in one copy. There are four distinct forms of SMA, varying in severity. Type also known as Werdnig-Hoffman disease, is characterized by generalized muscle weakness, trouble swallowing and sucking, breathing distress and paralysis of legs and arms within 3 months after birth.

It is usually fatal by age 2. Type II strikes in the first 6 months to 3 years ancfb usually fatal during 1 rt.