Name: Kimberly Leach, 12 years-old.
Disappeared: Feb 9, 1978 Lake City, Florida.
Found: Apr 7, 1978 Suwannee State Park, Florida.

The pretty, dark eyed, dark haired pre-teen was a small girl, 5 ft tall and 100 lbs. She was very excited the day she disappeared. She'd just been elected first runner up to the Valentine Queen at her junior high. Feb 9 was a rainy, windy day in Lake City. When she arrived at her PE class, she remembered leaving her purse in her homeroom class. Her teacher let her run off to get it. This meant dodging from one building to another. Kim's friend went with her, and as they started back to PE, her friend remembered something she herself had to retreive.

Kim kept going, and when her friend came back outside, she was alarmed to see the little girl going off with a man. Many witnesses that day remember seeing the little girl with an angry man, and he simply looked like a father who'd been called to school to take a naughty child home. They remembered the girl was crying. No one thought anything of it.The school called her home later that afternoon to routinely check on why she hadn't attended the rest of her classes. Her parents knew instantly that something was wrong--Kim didnt skip school, and she was very dependable.

She hadnt come home. They contacted the authorities, who went on the typical "run away" theory, but her parents knew she was too happy about the Valentine election, and she had absolutely no reason to be upset enough to run off. After 8 weeks of heavy searching, the bare bones of the girl who'd been thrilled to become runner up in the Valentine court, were found in a pigpen. There was evidence of sexual assault, but no head trauma. It appeared that she had been strangled, but the decomposition made it difficult to tell.