A month on, mystery of missing baby Lisa no closer to a solution

On Friday, a lawyer representing Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin – who first reported their daughter missing on 4 October – announced she was no longer working with the couple. No reason was given, but it coincided with the cancellation of a police interview with the baby girl’s two half-brothers.

It was the latest twist in a month-long saga which has developed into a stand-off between the parents and law officers trying to get to the bottom of the girl’s disappearance.

Baby Lisa went missing from her Kansas home on the evening of 3 October or early the next day. Her parents have said the child must have been kidnapped by an intruder as she slept. Police have followed up on hundreds of leads and tip-offs, including from three people who say they saw a man carrying a baby on that night. But to date no suspect has been named.

Moreover, questions have been raised over the actions of the baby’s parents in the weeks following her disappearance on the night itself.

Surveillance cameras in a grocery shop near where the family live show Ms Bradley buying a box of wine hours before the baby is said to have disappeared.

In subsequent media interviews the 25-year-old mother has admitted being drunk, but has denied that she could have harmed the child while under the influence of alcohol.

“If I thought there was a chance, I’d say it. I don’t think that alcohol changes a person enough to do something like that,” she told NBC News.

The mother has also spoken of her fears of being arrested in connection with her daughter’s disappearance.

“The main fear is that if they arrest me, people are going to stop looking, and I’ll never see her again, and I’ll never know what happened,” she said.

But the admission of being drunk, alongside a changed time line – Ms Bradley initially said she last saw her daughter at 10:30pm, but later revised that to 6:40pm – has led to suspicion falling on the mother.

Police have accused both Ms Bradley and Mr Irwin of not cooperating with the investigation at points during the search.

Attempts to interview Lisa’s five and eight-year-old half-brothers, who detectives think may have heard or seen something, have seemingly been blocked by the couple.

Having initially consented to a police interview with the boys, Ms Bradley and Mr Irwin postponed the appointment at the eleventh hour.

Meanwhile, the entire drama has played out in front of the TV cameras, indulging a public desire to latch on to real-life crime dramas. Both the police and the baby’s parents have used the media to attack each other.

Last week, Kansas City Police Captain Steve Young said detectives had a list of “tough questions” that they wanted Ms Bradley and Mr Irwin to answer.

A lawyer for the couple, Joe Tacopina, said they had “nothing to hide”.