Oct 20
'11
New People Cover: What happened to Baby Lisa?

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The disappearance of 11 month-old Baby Lisa takes the cover of People this week. I’m assuming that Mariska Hargitay’s adorable babies might be front and center if there weren’t so much interest in this case. Mariska and her two new babies are on a side bar while the cover asks “What Happened to Baby Lisa? A Mother Under Fire.”

Earlier this week it came out that Lisa’s mom, Debbie Bradley, had fudged the time line in which she originally claimed to have checked on Lisa. Bradley told police at first that she last saw the baby at 10:30 PM. She then revised her story to admit that she had put Lisa to bed at 6:40, got drunk with her best friend, a female neighbor, and then didn’t see Lisa again before she went missing. I understand why Bradley may have been reluctant to admit she was drunk, but why didn’t she own up to this two weeks ago when Lisa first disappeared? Adding to the suspicion surrounding this case, Bradley and her husband have refused to let police re-interview her 8 and 5 year-old boys, who were there the night that Lisa went missing. Curiously, Bradley says that the boys heard noises that night but “I don’t know if that was before we went to sleep or after. I have not sat down and talked to them about it specifically to not to have to put them through anything else.” Are you kidding? If my baby went missing and my other kids heard something I would sit them down and ask them about it for a very long time.

The teaser story on People.com doesn’t reveal much we haven’t already heard. Bradley is quoted as saying “We have absolutely nothing to hide. Let them search all they want, but do not take the focus off finding my daughter.” Police executed a search warrant of the home and surrounding property yesterday. It’s worth noting that Bradley and her fiance (although she is still married to her estranged husband), Jeremy Irwin, have voluntarily let police search the home prior to this more official search.

Meanwhile Bradley and Irwin now have a top defense attorney representing them. They hired Joe Tacopina, who represented convicted murderer Joran van der Sloot in his Aruba trial. It wasn’t a great decision considering that it makes them look like they have something to hide. Maybe Tacopina offered his services free of charge, though, and they didn’t know who they were dealing with. They don’t seem like the savviest of people. As for why Bradley changed her story to admit that she was drinking that night, Tacopina says “She was willing to tell the truth about it, even if it didn’t make her look great. I think that goes to her credit. It’s her being truthful.” It took her long enough to be “truthful,” and in the mean time investigators may have missed key details about what happened to her baby. I’m hoping that Bradley and Irwin are totally innocent and that Baby Lisa is alive and well somewhere, but it’s not looking good.

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Oct 12
'11
Baby Lisa’s disappearance: do the parents have something to do with it?

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I haven’t been following all the details in the disappearance of 10 month old baby Lisa Irwin from her parents’ home in Kansas City last week. Ever since I saw the parents give a press conference asking for help finding their lost daughter though, I’ve wanted to read Eyes for Lies’ take on it . Eyes for Lies is a truth expert who holds seminars in spotting deception. Her ability is similar to the professionals shown on “Lie to Me,” and I find her take on cases fascinating. Personally, I found baby Lisa’s father sketchy in the press conference and in my no-way-informed opinion, he was acting suspicious. Eyes agrees with that, and she points out holes in the parents’ story about how Lisa allegedly went missing. Go here for her analysis.

Good Morning America and People have more on the latest developments in this case. Apparently Lisa’s mother failed a lie detector test, by her own admission, and at one point she and her husband were no longer cooperating with police. They’re in communication with police again now, though. Cops tried to recreate the way they claimed the kidnapper(s) entered their home to snatch the baby – through a window. It was loud and difficult, and the window was too high up for a person to have reached it without a step or an accomplice. Here’s part of People’s story on it and you can see a video of the re-enactment at ABC.com:

According to her parents, the night of Oct. 3 started out like any other at their Kansas City, Mo., home. While Lisa’s dad Jeremy Irwin was working the graveyard shift as an electrician, Lisa’s mom Deborah Bradley put the baby to bed in her crib.

But when Irwin returned home early the next morning, he found the front door unlocked, a window open, three cell phones missing – and Lisa’s crib empty.

Her parents say they are devastated and desperate to find Lisa – and have hired a private investigator to aid the search. In one of several public pleas, Bradley held up a Barney stuffed animal and sobbed: “We just want our baby back. Please, bring her home.”

But in a case reminiscent of the Caylee Anthony disappearance, as police begin a second week of searching for baby Lisa, questions are being raised about the parents’ story, and what really happened that Monday night.

Bradley has acknowledged that police accused her of doing something to Lisa. She says authorities also told her that she failed a polygraph test (police said they would not discuss any result). A relative says that Bradley is bracing to be arrested at any moment.

“From the start when they’ve questioned me, once I couldn’t fill in gaps, it turned into: ‘You did it, you did it,’” Bradley tells Good Morning America.

Irwin acknowledges the bizarre nature of the scene, telling GMA that, “The windows were open and lights were on and she was nowhere to be found. We’ve been going over everything in our minds. We just don’t have any idea.”

Still, both parents – who are engaged to be married and have two other children – have worked with police along the way, with the notable exception of one disputed point when investigators claimed the parents had ceased cooperating. The family say they were simply exhausted by incessant questioning, and soon after were back speaking with police.

Police Capt. Steve Young denies that the investigation is focusing primarily on family members.

“We’re spending our time looking at everything,” he tells the Today show. “We have detectives farmed in and out of it all day long, chasing leads as they come and getting a lot of help from local police departments and some federal agencies as well, so we’re spending our time everywhere.”

Police staged a recreation of a break-in into the home, and the outcome showed that entering through a window was awkward and noisy. On Tuesday, investigators spent several hours at a well at an abandoned house near Lisa’s home, but came up empty.

The front- and backyards of the family home have been searched with metal detectors. Local TV stations have been subpoenaed for footage of interviews with family, friends and neighbors. People have been interviewed about a homeless man seen recently in the neighborhood.

But with what appears to be a lack of solid leads in this baffling case, the family says they believe police are focusing on them to the exclusion of other possibilities.

[From People]

Something similar happened when Madeleine McCann went missing. People blamed her parents because it didn’t seem possible that a small child could be stolen like that. We just don’t want to believe that there are people out there who would do that to a child, particularly our child. That’s what parents inevitably think of when we hear these horrible stories about children who were kidnapped. What if it were my kid? It’s just easier to think that the parents are hiding something and were somehow complicit in it. I get that vibe from this case, though I can’t say whether it’s because I don’t want to imagine the hell these parents are going through if they’re telling the truth.

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