Missing Baby Lisa: Parents Talk to Police, Reward Fund Set Up
Irwins are preparing to offer a reward, in hopes of getting new information.
Oct. 9, 2011— -- A reward fund is being set up in hopes of generating new leads in the disppearance of 10-month-old Lisa Irwin while her parents are cooperating again with investigators, officials said.
Kansas City, Mo., police captain Steve Young announced Saturday that Lisa's parents Jeremy Irwin and Deborah Bradley, are now talking to police.
"They're talking with us and that is absolutely the best thing," Young said.
Young said the parents are important because no one knows more about the case.
"Something may jog their memory, you never know. They may think of another person or whatever. Their involvement in this investigation is critical," Young said.
On Thursday, Young said Irwin and Bradley no longer were cooperating with the investigation, though the parents said that they continued to cooperate and only were taking a break.
Lisa Irwin has been missing from her Kansas City home since Monday night. On Tuesday, Jeremy Irwin said he came home from working an overnight shift and found his daughter's crib empty, a window open and the family's three cell phones gone.
As Saturday's meeting was underway, police came back to the family's neighborhood and combed for any clue that might help solve the mysterious disappearance. They searched the family's front and rear yards with metal detectors.
"It is frustrating -- you know if it was a toddler, in the back of people's heads there would be the remote -- if crazy possibility than a child just walked away," Young said. "But since it's a 10-month-old, (there) was no doubt somebody did something.
Family spokesman Mike LeRette told the Kansas City Star that they hope the reward will bring in more tips and leads.
"It seems like they're running out of good leads, so why not give them more?" LeRette told the Star. "We're one phone call away. One person calls in and maybe she's in our arms later today."
Missing Baby Lisa: Leads -- but None Solid
Police said they have received more than 250 tips about Lisa Irwin's disappearance but so far none have panned out.
Though police said there were no solid leads in the case, they appeared to be pursuing a number of investigative avenues, many of which they would not comment upon directly this past weekend.
Police also continued to go door-to-door in the neighborhood looking for clues.
"We have a list of every residence in the neighborhood," Young said Saturday. "We don't just knock and move on. We track it. We log who we've spoken to. We log which houses haven't had an answer at the door."
On Friday, investigators questioned a teenage neighbor of Lisa's parents and forensic experts took a DNA sample, a source told ABC News. That neighbor apparently was at the home the day Lisa vanished and knew the access code to the family's garage.
Investigators are also looking into reports from the West Coast, where a couple was seen with a small child fitting Lisa's description, relative Mike Lerette told ABC affiliate KMBC-TV.
"They're pursuing surveillance tape on a couple with the baby in California," said Lerette.
Earlier on Friday, the FBI and police searched through a landfill for a second time, but found nothing.
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Parents Questioned in Lisa's Disappearance
On Friday, Lisa's mother, Deborah Bradley, said that police accused her of having done something to her child.
"From the start when they've questioned me, once I couldn't fill in gaps, it turned into 'You did it, you did it,'" Deborah Bradley told "Good Morning America." "They took a picture down from the table and said, 'Look at your baby! And do what's right for her!' I kept saying I don't know ... I just sat there. I didn't even ask to leave. I just let them keep asking questions."
Bradley also said police accused her of failing a polygraph test. Police said they could not comment on this claim, but said Bradley is "free to say whatever she wants."
ABC News' Dan Harris, Daria Albinger, Michael S. James and Leezel Tanglao contributed to this report.
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