Missing Baby Lisa: Interviews with Brothers Canceled, Attorney Dismissed
Lisa Irwin's parents deny investigators access to sons.
Oct. 28, 2011 — -- An overnight shake-up in the search for missing Missouri 11-month-old Lisa Irwin canceled interviews with her two half-brothers and forced one of the family's attorneys off the case.
Baby Lisa's 5 and 8-year-old brothers had been scheduled to sit down with child specialists today for interviews about the night Lisa disappeared and to have DNA samples collected, but those interviews were abruptly called off Thursday night by the Irwin family's attorney Joe Tacopina.
Tacopina said he would call police next week and reschedule the interview, according to ABC News' Kansas City affiliate KMBC. Attorneys will reportedly still allow DNA samples to be taken from the boys' cheeks.
Parents Deborah Bradley, 25, and Jeremy Irwin, 29, had denied investigators access to the boys in recent weeks. Child specialists spoke to the boys on Oct. 4, the day after Lisa's disappearance, but investigators have not had access to the boys since then.
Investigators hoped to "bring them back to see if they remember anything that might be able to help find their younger sister," Kansas City Police Department spokesman Darin Snapp told ABCNews.com.
The boys were reportedly sleeping with Bradley in her bed the night that Lisa disappeared and may have heard noises in the house.
ABC News also learned that the family's Kansas City attorney Cyndy Short was forced off of the legal team overnight, for unknown reasons. Short did not respond to ABCNews.com's request for comment, but her office said she is preparing a statement.
On Thursday Short canceled a scheduled media tour of the Irwin home and a news conference hours before the events.
"That last few weeks have been exhausting to everyone working on behalf of the Irwin family. It has exhausted Lisa's parents and her friends and family," Short said in a statement. "Therefore, the consensus is we all need a rest until next week."
Baby Lisa has been missing since the night of Oct. 3 and her parents maintain that she was kidnapped from her crib. Police have investigated nearly 1,000 tips and leads, but have not named any suspects.
Shortly after Lisa vanished, Bradley said that three of the family's cell phones that had been sitting on the kitchen counter were taken along with her daughter. Police have been mum about the phones, but a Kansas City woman told "Good Morning America" today that she received a phone call from one of those phones on the night Lisa disappeared.
"I received a phone call, well my phone did, the night that baby Lisa went missing," Megan Wright said. "It was apparently a 50 second phone call. I don't know who answered it or what was said or who was on the other end of the phone."
Wright said investigators tracked her down and have questioned her four times.
"I told them that I'd been through the neighborhood with my ex-boyfriend," Wright said. "I didn't know the family, didn't recognize the pictures, had never seen baby Lisa until I saw her picture on the news."
Wright is the latest person to come forward as some sort of witness to the mysterious night. Three other people have said they saw a man carrying a baby dressed only in a diaper the night Lisa disappeared. While police have investigated these leads, no suspects have been named and countless searches have led to dead ends.
On Thursday, investigators searched a pond at Chaumiere Park with searchers on a raft with scent dogs. The search lasted about an hour and investigators said they found nothing significant.
Kansas City Police spokesman Darin Snapp said it was not a tip that led them to search the pond, according to KMBC. Snapp said investigators looked at a map and decided to expand the search.
An anonymous benefactor is offering a $100,000 reward for her safe return or the conviction of whoever took the little girl.
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