KETTERING, Ohio — Since direct-mail cards bearing Erica Baker's picture started showing up in mailboxes across America, 90 new leads have popped into a national hot line — almost doubling the number of tips received since the girl's unsolved 1999 abduction.

        The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's hot line, (800) THE-LOST, had received 104 leads on Erica's case from the time she disappeared on Feb. 7, 1999, while walking her dog, until June 1.

Mailing shows Erica Baker at 9 and what she might look like now. | ZOOM |

        But since the mailings began June 2, 97 new tips have been registered — all but seven resulting from mailings by ADVO Inc., said Oname Thompson, spokeswoman for the national center.

        Since 1985, ADVO's mailings, bearing missing kids' photos, the National Center's number and the question, “Have you seen me?” have led to the safe recovery of 116 children — some with intricate international connections, said ADVO spokesman Bob Croce.

        This week, ADVO is winding down its six-week cycle of distributing cards to 85 million households bearing two likenesses of Erica: one as she appeared shortly before she went missing at age 9, and an “age-progression” rendering that shows how she might have looked at age 12. (Her 13th birthday was last month.)

        The card should reach more than 4.5 million homes in Ohio alone, Mr. Croce said. Given that one in seven kids featured on the cards is found, Mr. Croce said the mailing “is a fairly powerful tool in the cause to find America's missing children.”

        Inspired by the 1981 disappearance and slaying of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, whose father, John, became host of TV's America's Most Wanted, ADVO joined with the National Center and the U.S. Postal Service in the “America's Looking for Its Missing Children” program.

        The National Center decides which cases to feature, aiming for a good mix of races, ages and types of cases, Ms. Thompson said.

        In Erica's case, no trace of her has surfaced despite a massive search, national publicity and a nonstop police investigation into Kettering's only child abduction by a stranger in more than 20 years.

        In one significant recent development, prosecutors are trying to compel the testimony of attorney Beth Lewis under an untested provision of Ohio law.

        The normally confidential nature of attorney-client conversations may be broken under certain conditions if the client dies. A judge ordered Ms. Lewis jailed for refusing to divulge what her client, Jan Marie Franks, 32, may have said about Erica's disappearance. Ms. Franks died of a drug overdose in December.

        A court has put the jail order on hold while considering Ms. Lewis' appeal.
       

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