Huntington Beach : Girl Only a Look-Alike for Laura Bradbury

After searching fruitlessly for their daughter, Laura, since October, 1984, Mike and Patty Bradbury of Huntington Beach again had their hopes raised--and then dashed--this week by a look-alike.

“We went out yesterday (Wednesday) and, although we didn’t see the child, we saw quite a few photographs and knew it wasn’t Laura,” said a disappointed Patty Bradbury.

The Bradburys were told Wednesday by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department that a 5-year-old girl matching Laura’s general description was being adopted by a Chino Hills couple.

Although the girl’s blood type was not identical to Laura’s Type O Positive, Patty Bradbury said she and her husband made the trip to San Bernardino “to make sure.”

The look-alike girl was left with a San Bernardino woman by a man who said he was her father, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office said.

The man, described as a transient, told the woman that he and the girl had been living in a pickup truck with a camper shell and that he wanted to put her up for adoption so she would have a better home, the spokeswoman said.

Laura, then 3, disappeared Oct. 18, 1984, during a family camping trip to Joshua Tree National Monument.

The Bradburys maintain that their daughter is still alive and that she may have been stolen and sold by a black-market adoption ring.

They have discounted skeletal fragments found less than two miles from the site on March 22, 1986. Forensic experts said the fragments belonged to a child between the ages of 2 and 5 who died within the last two years.

Patty Bradbury said the couple’s search will continue: “I still have hope. It’s always there.”