Leads Pour In, Spur the Search for Laura

Family and friends of Laura Bradbury were busy Wednesday making the most of a flurry of activity in Northern California surrounding the investigation of the Huntington Beach 3-year-old’s abduction last October from Joshua Tree National Monument.

Police in Santa Rosa, 50 miles north of San Francisco, held a press conference to describe a man who may have been in the campground about the time the girl vanished and to distribute flyers about him, in the belief that he lived in the Santa Rosa area.

Initial reports Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning raised hopes that there might be a significant development in the case. But by early Wednesday morning, Lt. Dean Knadler, a member of the task force investigating the disappearance, said that the man being sought--described as being in his early 60s, about 5 feet, 9 inches tall, weighing between 160 and 170 pounds and owning a dog named Sam--was only “a potential witness,” and that the Santa Rosa press conference did not represent “a major breakthrough.” Somehow, Knadler said, the story snowballed.

Between the periodic peaks of excitement and media attention provoked by announcements of leads in the case, the Bradbury family and its core of volunteers have continued their effort to keep Laura’s name and picture before the public and to bring to national attention the plight of abducted children.

Patty Bradbury, Laura’s mother, is scheduled to be interviewed on the syndicated “Hour Magazine” show April 22. On April 29, a re-creation of Laura’s disappearance will air nationally on NBC as part of a one-hour documentary on abducted children. The documentary, titled “Missing,” will air after a rerun of the docudrama “Adam,” which told the story of a 6-year-old Florida boy, Adam Walsh, who was abducted from a department store and found murdered.

“It’s been real hectic,” said Mike Bradbury, Laura’s father, volunteering that the couple had slept only two hours Tuesday night after hearing of the Santa Rosa press conference. “But it’s real positive, another piece of the puzzle.” The police, he said, “are literally leaving no stone unturned, and keeping us informed.”

Patty Bradbury said that she had been alternately confused and devastated during the previous 18 hours. “It’s a real emotional drain, for one thing,” she said, especially when the first reports came in late Tuesday night. “Immediately your hopes tend to soar. Then they downplay it. You try not to get too up (when) it seems like something is happening.”

The couple--trailed by four television crews--began the day Wednesday by granting interviews and putting on a presentation about child abduction to a class at Dwyer Intermediate School in Huntington Beach. At home, Mike Bradbury delayed responding to the 25 telephone messages on his answering machine in order to call his father, Jack Bradbury, who lives in Santa Rosa, arranging for him to attend the press conference and urging him to emphasize the $25,000 reward being offered for Laura’s safe return. While he spoke, he pored over a map of the Santa Rosa area.

Phone Calls Fielded

Patty Bradbury’s mother, Virginia Winters, was busy at the Laura Center, a nearby storefront, fielding more than 50 phone calls, many of them sparked by the previous night’s news reports. Dana Winters, Patty’s father, spent the morning working in Mike’s furniture refinishing shop, keeping the store open, repairing furniture and re-caning chairs. In the afternoon, as usual, he came to the center to pick up mailings of flyers on the abduction, which Security Pacific Bank sends to its branches around the state for distribution. Shortly after he left, Patty Bradbury arrived at the center.

Not everyone aiding in the effort is a family member. Most of the labor comes from volunteers and many of the resources are donated, including a six-month lease on the Laura Center office in Huntington Beach.

Erna Rowland, a former neighbor of the Bradburys now living in Fountain Valley, answers the phone, takes order for bracelets that bear the child’s name, stuffs envelopes and takes care of Laura’s older brother Travis, who is the same age as Rowland’s oldest son. A single mother who attends college full time and works part time, Rowland said she “would like to do more” to help the Bradburys. “I love them,” she said.

500,000 More Flyers

In the past several months, an additional 500,000 flyers with Laura’s picture have been distributed. Thousands of identification bracelets with Laura’s name and the date of her disappearance--Oct. 18, 1984--have been sold. Laura’s picture has appeared on milk cartons produced by two Southern California dairies as well as on shopping bags of a supermarket chain, and the photo is in line to appear on milk cartons and shopping bags produced by other companies around the state and the nation. Talks are scheduled with Los Angeles’ Rapid Transit District to place the photo on buses, and production has begun on T-shirts featuring Laura’s face.

On the national level, the Bradburys are in the midst of a mass media blitz. In addition to the documentary, the couple two weeks ago appeared on the Rev. Robert Schuller’s “Hour of Power,” a syndicated religious program originating in Garden Grove that airs in 42 states, Canada and Australia, reaching an estimated 3 million viewers. The morning following their appearance, Mike Bradbury said, the center received 150 calls.

Child actor Ricky Schroeder, a distant cousin of Patty Bradbury who helped publicize the bracelets, has been making public service announcements asking people to help find Laura. An episode of Schroeder’s comedy series, “Silver Spoons,” devoted to the theme of child abduction, will air April 7. The Bradburys went to Los Angeles to be on the set while the segment was taped.

Disappearance Reenacted

In order to assist the producers of “Missing,” the Bradburys and their son traveled to Joshua Tree and re-enacted the disappearance. At first, Patty Bradbury said, the reenactment was “not so hard, because it didn’t seem real.” But she said of wandering through the Indian Cove campsite, calling Laura’s name, “That was really hard, really difficult.”

Despite the fact that Wednesday’s news was not what she had hoped, Patty Bradbury took some comfort from the heightened interest in her daughter’s abduction. “Every time something like this happens, Laura’s picture goes out where people will see her.”