Hi, Park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Dilya DeAmbra. And the story I'm going to talk about today is when many of you might recognize.

It's the tale of a missing girl who was snatched from a busy California campground in the middle of the day, never to be seen alive again.

When three-year-old Laura Bradbury vanished from Indian Cove campground inside of Joshua Tree National Park in October 1984, her case was widely publicized throughout the 80s and 90s.

There are what seemed like endless news reports and articles about her and law enforcement's decades-long search to find her.

Unfortunately, Laura's name became as nationally recognized as that of Adam Walsh, Jacob Wetterling and Amber Hagerman.

The only difference between Laura's case and those others is that her disappearance and the investigation that ensued took place almost entirely within the rugged, rocky and sweltering environment of a desert landscape.

Joshua Tree gets its name from the iconic trees that grow there. According to the National Park Service, settlers with Mormon beliefs who first saw the tree while traveling on foot into the American West looked at the way its branches stretched out, almost pointing like a guide into the desert.

And they believed, like God had been for the biblical hero Joshua, that the trees were divine compasses for their journey.

No one knows for sure if that's how the tree really got its name, but it makes for kind of a cool story. Researchers believe the average lifespan of one Joshua Tree is 150 years, but there are some trees in the park that have been noted as being even older than that.

Its biology allows it to survive in such an unforgiving environment. And just like the Joshua Tree, more time and more resilience were all authorities back in 1984 needed to find Laura Bradbury.

But they didn't have the luxury of either of those things. And similar to the murky truth behind how the tree got its name, so too is the shroud of mysteries still surrounding the identity of the person responsible for what happened to Laura.

This is Park Predators.

On 4.30pm on Thursday, October 18, 1984, eight-year-old Travis Bradbury kicked around some dirt at his family's campsite inside of Joshua Tree National Park.

Less than a half hour earlier, his father and mother, Mike and Patty, his younger sister Laura and his baby sister Emily had all arrived in the family's VW van and started setting up their tent and sleeping bags.

The drive from where they lived in Huntington Beach, California to their favorite campsite at Indian Cove Campground, site number 17, had taken about 3 hours.

So, not long after pulling into the dusty resort and standing around for a little bit, Travis had to do what most kids have to do, which was use the restroom.

Thankfully, Indian Cove was a designated campground with some roads, a park ranger station, as well as several portable toilets.

Around 4.30pm, Travis asked his dad, Mike, if he could walk to the toilet depot, which was only about 100 feet away from the family's campsite, literally within walking distance.

When Travis asked to go, the sun was already starting to set, and Mike didn't want to lose any precious daylight having to walk his son to and from the toilets.

So, he told Travis that he could go on his own, and within a minute or two, Travis had taken off towards the restrooms, with his three-year-old sister Laura totalling along behind him.

Ataddy, their mother was preoccupied nursing five-month-old baby Emily inside the family's tent, while Mike had been busy unloading the van and setting up.

No one was concerned in the slightest that Laura had followed her older brother to the toilets. The siblings always stuck together, and the area where they were walking to was smack dab in the middle of dozens of other campers setting up for the weekend.

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