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The alley in Dickinson abreast area the girls went missing in 1974.
The alley in Dickinson abreast area the girls went missing in 1974.
In 1974, two Dickinson girls went missing. Why didn't badge investigate?
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Back in the 1970s, I was a little babe who rambled through the dupe and played adumbrate and seek in the aphotic with added adjacency kids.
The aforementioned affectionate of acutely safe association existed forth Oak Drive in Dickinson aback aback Georgia Geer and Brooks Bracewell lived there in 1974.
They were best friends. Brooks, still abandoned 85 pounds at 12, kept her any albino beard cut into a admirable shag. Georgia, adjustable and tall, had already accomplished 5'8" at 14. They both wore alarm cheers and crop tops, and their boyish faces gave hints of the admirable women they would accept become.
A abbreviate aisle through alpine pines affiliated the two girls houses forth Dickinson Bayou. They consistently absolved calm to the bus stop. They generally visited the UtoteM abundance for canned pop or accoutrements of chips. Sometimes, they absolved about a mile to a German restaurant abreast area I-45 was beneath construction.
Even that constitutional seemed safe.
Then on the Sept. 6, 1974, they disappeared.
Dickinson was too baby afresh to accept its own badge department. The Galveston Canton Sheriff's Agent who chock-full by the abode to booty a address that black didn't decay abundant time on a brace of "runaways."
His allegation were abbreviated in a distinct paragraph. Georgia, he concluded, apparently talked her adolescent acquaintance into "running away."
Police conducted no chase at all. Instead, their families afraid bootleg flyers labeled "Missing From Home" in bounded food and restaurants.
Neither babe had taken added clothes or money or larboard notes. Georgia was aftermost apparent in an orange outfit. Brooks, cutting checkerboard highrise pants and a gold V-neck sweater, was "believed to accept beneath than $1."
In their pictures, both girls are smiling.
Georgia, left, and Brooks.
Georgia, left, and Brooks.
Police letters I apprehend added than 40 years afterwards acknowledge that the Galveston Canton agent didn't chase up until December 13 — added than two months afterwards the two girls vanished. At that point, the administrator interviewed Brooks's mother about what he afresh declared as "her delinquent daughter."
What: Watch "The Eleven" to acquisition out added about Brooks and Georgia's case
When: Thurs., Oct. 26, on A&E at 8 p.m. CST
Click actuality for added information
A distinct band in his additional address shows that addition investigator — from Harris County — requested dental annal in case they angry up dead.
Yet in the 1970s, a cord of accomplished boyish girls had been murdered in Harris, Galveston and Brazoria Counties. Two added pairs of girls were killed. About all those murders remained unsolved. These cases are the focus of an analysis that retired Galveston detective Fred Paige and I conducted as allotment of an A&E alternation alleged The Eleven.
But the murders of Brooks and Georgia generated by far the atomic absorption from authorities in the aboriginal acute canicule and months.
They were asleep in 1974. But their case was not formed as a assassination until 1981 — a adjournment during which important assemblage larboard boondocks or disappeared. Some key assemblage were interviewed for the aboriginal time for the series. I'm apparitional by the abstraction that, if the brace had vanished today, would the analysis accept been better?
Technology has improved. Teenagers accept corpuscle phones. National databases advice admiral clue abiding missing being letters and the anonymous dead. Those accoutrement advance the adeptness of authorities and families to accompany clues beyond canton and accompaniment lines.
But Texas agencies still accept abounding missing being letters — and not all get worked. Harris Canton abandoned still has added than 200 anonymous anatomy cases dating aback to the 1950s. Abounding added counties accept no medical examiner's office.
And the accompaniment of Texas dedicates few assets to anecdotic missing bodies or tracking abeyant consecutive killers. Human traffickers, murderers, rapists and pedophiles still booty advantage of the holes in the system.
Before Brooks disappeared, her huge barn-like home captivated a ample attenuated ancestors — her mother, stepfather, sister, stepsister, brother and stepbrother. The ancestors had formed a bond. But in their affliction and anger, her mother and stepfather anon divorced. Brooks' earlier sister ran away, her half-sister confused out.
The ancestors Brooks had accepted fell apart.
Brooks' stepbrother, Gary, had acclaimed his 12th altogether the day afore Brooks disappeared. He remembers the allowance Brooks gave him as a moment of beatitude in a agitated childhood. For years after, he was larboard to admiration if he'd abandoned dreamed of that absent sister. He believed for years that Brooks had to be about still alive.
Today, he started a nonprofit to advice abused and exploited accouchement — he knows aloof how accessible missing Texas adolescence are to predators.
Some of his sister's basic were recovered in a canal abreast Alvin in May 1976 — beneath than two years afterwards Brooks and Georgia disappeared. Incredibly, no investigator anticipation of them — admitting Alvin is abandoned 10 afar west of Dickinson, it's in Brazoria County, not Galveston County.
It was in 1981 — aback Gary was abroad at academy — that Brazoria Canton agent Matt Wingo affiliated the anonymous basic case from 1976. He searched the Alvin canal afresh and activate added remains, as able-bodied as the bits of a gold sweater and checkerboard pants. Brooks and Georgia had been activate at last.
And their annihilation analysis could assuredly begin.
Bookmark Gray Matters. It's believed to accept beneath than $1.
