FBI Lab Can’t Say if Remains Are Those of Bradbury Girl

Experts at the FBI’s laboratory in Virginia have been unable to determine if a skull fragment found last month at Joshua Tree National Monument is that of Laura Bradbury, the Huntington Beach girl who has been missing since Oct. 18, 1984.

FBI experts “weren’t able to find anything in addition to what we already knew,” Capt. Dean Knadler of the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday.

Investigators earlier had estimated that the fragment, found by hikers less than two miles from where Laura was last seen, belonged to a child between the ages of 2 and 5 who had been dead for about 18 months. The FBI was unable to narrow the age range or determine the sex or blood type, Knadler said.

Laura was 3 when she vanished near the family’s Indian Cove campsite.

“Our feeling is that since no other bones or articles of clothing were found, it’s hard for us to believe that it’s Laura,” said Patty Bradbury, the child’s mother. “We were hoping something definitive could be determined, but that didn’t happen.”

Investigators, Knadler said, are “right where we were to begin with. We know we’ve got the remains of a child that are in the Indian Cove campground. The only child that fits into that category is Laura Bradbury. The time frame is consistent. We can’t say definitively that it’s her.”

The case is still being pursued as a missing person case and possible kidnaping, Knadler said.