The public is perplexed and asked Friday why missing Missouri baby Lisa Irwin’s parents are refusing to meet with police and why they won’t allow their two sons, ages 5 and 8, each from prior relationships, to be re-interviewed by professionals in a safe and non-threatening environment.
Baby Lisa’s brothers were there the night she went missing, their mother says they heard noises, and police say they are potential witnesses to a potential crime. They were interviewed the day the baby was reported missing, and police have for weeks asked, and been denied, that they be re-interviewed. Scroll down to read ‘Much has changed’ for an explanation of why police feel a need to re-interview the children.
http://liarcatchers.com/missing_persons_investigations.html
The parents allege an intruder entered their home and kidnapped their baby daughter. What if one or both of the boys were awake at the time an intruder entered the home? What if they saw the person, and what if the person is someone they know?
Jill Hazell, a forensic interviewer for Synergy Services, said Sunday that children are very capable of giving factual and detailed information and that in many cases children have given officers the right information to crack a case open.
She said at Synergy, they provide a child-friendly environment so it can be comfortable for the child to tell what he or she might have experienced.
Four weeks have passed, and with the gentle approach of trained professionals in a child-friendly, non-threatening environment, the children may be able to reveal details of the night their sister went missing that could help solve this case and bring their baby sister home.
Imagine a child who saw or heard something that they can’t share, something that they think might help bring their sister home?
The clock is ticking. Baby Lisa is still missing. The only opportunity the parents have given police to have her half-brothers interviewed was the day Baby Lisa vanished.
According to a child forensic specialist, information these boys have could help crack this case open, could help bring Baby Lisa home. What are they waiting for?
The boys were scheduled to be interviewed Friday, police confirmed the interviews were canceled by their parent’s high-profile New York defense attorney, Joe Tacopina. He claims he’ll rescheduled the interviews next week. For weeks the children’s parents, Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin, have refused police requests to have the boys re-interviewed even though police say it could help them move their investigation forward.
Much has changed
The first time Lisa’s half-brothers were questioned was the day Baby Lisa went missing. The children were exhausted after being awakened very early that morning. The questioning of one child lasted 30 minutes, and the questioning of the other child lasted 50 minutes.
Much has changed over the past four weeks, including a four-hour timeline change of the last time their mother saw Baby Lisa. Deborah initially reported the last time she saw her baby was at 10:30 p.m. Her story changed two weeks after Lisa vanished when she announced that the last time she remembers seeing her baby was 6:40 p.m., that she was drunk that night, and that she may have even blacked out.
Deborah didn’t say what time she may have blacked out. What if the boys were still awake? If she doesn’t remember seeing her baby after 6:40 p.m., then there’s a chance she doesn’t remember what the boys were doing after that time, or if they were asleep or awake when baby Lisa was abducted, as her parents allege.
None of this information was available to police or to the specialist who interviewed the children the day Baby Lisa was reported missing.
There is a chance that the parents are concerned further questioning could traumatize their boys. Have they asked themselves how much more traumatized the boys would be if they had information that they were never able to share because they were not provided the proper platform, information that might have lead to the recovery of their baby sister?
Kansas City Police spokesman Steve Young confirmed in an email Friday that Lisa’s parents’ attorney, Joe Tacopina, contacted police Thursday evening to cancel the children’s interviews with specialists that had been scheduled for Friday. Tacopina reportedly said he would still allow DNA samples taken from the boys’ cheeks on Friday. However, Young said it was not confirmed whether the cheek tests were still on the table.
Will the interviews be rescheduled? Tacopina said he would reschedule the interviews, but Cynthia Short, who until Friday was representing the family, said if she had it her way the children would never be interviewed, Kansas City Star reports.
The public is asking, what are these attorneys, what are the parents waiting for? Studies show that every moment, hour, and day that passes lessens the chance that Lisa will be brought home safely.
There is growing concern that others, not the parents, are calling all the shots, and that their actions are making the parents look more guilty and are taking away from the most important thing at hand – finding Baby Lisa. Is it time, some have asked, for the parents to begin making some of their own decisions? It is, after all, their baby who is missing.
Baby Lisa was reported missing Oct. 4. Her parents say she was abducted from her crib between 6:40 p.m. Oct. 3 and 4 a.m. Oct. 4.
