Laura Bradbury Hunt Ends; Tests Indicate Child Is Dead

The six-year search for Laura Bradbury, one of the nation’s most widely reported missing-child cases, has ended because of new evidence the Huntington Beach child is dead, authorities said late Friday.

A San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said the hunt for the 3-year-old who disappeared from a Joshua Tree National Monument campsite is being concluded on the basis of scientific tests of skull fragments found in the area.

DNA tests on the remains, which were found in 1986, and other information offer “proof beyond a reasonable scientific certainty” that the remains are those of Laura Bradbury, Capt. Mike Cardwell said in a prepared statement released by the Sheriff’s Department.

“Investigators will no longer pursue reports of current live sightings of Laura Bradbury,” Cardwell said, although an investigation of the child’s death will remain open.

Laura’s father, Mike Bradbury, had long maintained his daughter was still alive. However, last year he acknowledged his daughter might be dead after a first round of DNA tests on the remains indicated they were Laura’s.

Bradbury and other family members could not be reached for comment.

After Laura’s disappearance, an extensive search was conducted near the campsite, but failed to turn up the girl’s body. In 1986, a skullcap and other bone fragments of a young child were found about a mile from the family’s campsite.

The latest tests, in effect, compared blood residue in the skull fragments with blood samples of the parents. The results showed there was a greater than 99% chance that the remains were of a child of Laura’s parents.