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Nancy Grace

Cops Want Separate Interviews for Baby Lisa`s Parents

Aired October 25, 2011 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, GUEST HOST: Breaking news tonight out of America`s heartland in the search for 10-month-old baby Lisa, reported missing from her own crib in the dead of night. The father comes home from night shift to find baby Lisa gone, the last person to see her alive her own mother.

In a stunning new development, police insist it is vital to the investigation to question baby Lisa`s parents in separate interviews. Cops want to sit down one on one with Mommy, then Daddy, apart from each other, to ask them tough questions about the night baby Lisa disappeared. But so far, cops say that is not happening. And it`s all as detectives re- interview witnesses about a mystery man spotted with a baby resembling little Lisa the very night she vanishes.

Tonight, where is baby Lisa?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He advised that he didn`t witness anything and doesn`t know how long she`s been gone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are a lot of things that don`t add up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then a week later, she changed her story.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it true that you`re getting paid to avoid local reporters?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Surveillance video.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And says she put the baby to sleep at 6:30, before drinking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of a mystery man coming out of the woods.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The cadaver dog indicated a positive hit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My fear is that we`ve missed this critical time.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the scent of a deceased human.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then why won`t you talk to us?

DEBORAH BRADLEY, MOTHER: Because we`re grieving.

Because we`re grieving.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To find this baby.

BRADLEY: Just drop her off anywhere! We don`t care. Just somewhere safe!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at the nice baby. What are you doing?

NANCY GRACE, HOST: Mommy says she`s taken a polygraph.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you doing?

GRACE: And she`s afraid she failed.

BRADLEY: Call the tips hotline!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you doing?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know they`re looking for a body and not a baby.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let`s not castigate her. We know she made some mistakes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did things that we think are irresponsible, maybe immoral.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The courts have said we can use lying, trickery when it comes to interviewing suspects.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Good evening. I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell, in tonight for Nancy Grace. What happened to 10-month-old baby Lisa, reported missing from her own crib at her Kansas City, Missouri, home?

Straight out to CNN correspondent Sandra Endo, live on the scene. Sandra, what`s the latest in the search for baby Lisa and the investigation?

SANDRA ENDO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jane, new details learned by CNN this afternoon. We are understanding that 30 to 50 investigators are on this case when, you think about FBI and Kansas City police. They say this is definitely not a cold case. They want to talk to the parents separately. That is their main goal. They want to interview them, ask them tough questions, unrestricted of each other. But they say the parents are not willing to do that.

And in an intensive, extensive, rather, interview yesterday with the parents` lawyer, she said there`s an open door for investigators to talk to the parents. They`ve talked to the two young boys that were also in the home when baby Lisa disappeared. And they say the parents are cooperating. So two very different sides to this story, Jane.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter, Radaronline, the cops are saying, yes, they`re cooperating, but their cooperation has not been sufficient. I think we`re parsing words here. The bottom line is, cops want to interview these parents separately, but apparently, the parents have put up some resistance, saying that the detectives they`ve spoken to up until this point seem to have prejudged the mother, claiming that within an hour of her walking in to talk to them, they were accusing her of murder.

What do you know about this?

ALEXIS TERESZCUK, RADARONLINE.COM: Absolutely. The family is saying that they don`t want to be interviewed by investigators that have judged them to be guilty already. They feel that there are some police officers who are not looking for their baby and they`re just looking at them.

In fact, one of the things that may have triggered that was in the affidavit that was released, the mom apparently told police initially she didn`t want to look behind the house because she was afraid what she would find. So she wasn`t looking for her daughter back there. That triggered something with the police, and they`ve been focused on this family. They have not spoken to cops since October 6th unrestricted.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Wow.

TERESZCUK: They have spoken to them about tips and told them things like that, but they have not had a sit-down interview since then. The police want to talk to them. And they do want to split Deborah and her husband up. Actually, I`m sorry, they`re not husband and wife. They`re just engaged. So they`re not actually married. But they want to split them up. And the husband has said absolutely no, he wants to be in the room every time that Deborah is questioned.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, speaking of which, Bill Grady, reporter of news radio 980 KMBZ, apparently, the real husband, the estranged husband, who is in the military, has now been contacted and has spoken out on this case. What do you know?

BILL GRADY, KMBZ NEWS RADIO (via telephone): Well, he has said that he does not think that -- he -- Deborah was a good mother. His concern is that, you know, for his son, who he hasn`t seen in a couple of years. Pardon me. But he doesn`t have any indication of her being a bad mother, doesn`t think she would harm her child. And the reason they haven`t gotten divorced is just because they`ve been short of money.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, there`s another factor to this story that I think is absolutely fascinating, and I`m going to go back to Alexis Tereszcuk on this. There were people who saw a mystery man with a baby walking around the very night that this precious child disappeared.

Now, apparently, one of those people -- the man who saw the mystery man at the farthest point, about three miles away from the family home, holding a baby at 4:00 in the morning -- he said cops have approached him and actually showed him a half a dozen photos of people. And he actually claims that he picked one out of these photos and said, That`s the person I saw walking around with this mystery baby, a mystery man with a mystery baby.

What do you know, Alexis?

TERESZCUK: Yes, this is what he said. He apparently saw this man and a baby at 4:00 AM that night. He was on his motorcycle. And it was about 45 degrees out, So he said he wanted to offer them a ride, but being on his motorcycle, he couldn`t do that.

So the police have shown him a line-up, you know, quite a few pictures of different people. He found one. But apparently, he doesn`t know anything else, and the police are searching for everything, but this isn`t something that they`ve focused on. And they have not released this person as a suspect, a person of interest. They haven`t released a sketch of him or anything.

So the police are still doing their investigating, but he is definitely someone that they`ve been speaking with. And he was one of three eyewitnesses that night that saw a man carrying a baby that`s come forward.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, complicating this picture, we understand that another one of these witnesses, a woman who`s simply going by the name Lisa -- she was shown a photograph, purportedly, allegedly. And Andrew Scott, former police chief, Boca Raton, she says, That`s not the person I saw. So now it`s a big mish-mosh and a big confusion with different people identifying different individuals or disagreeing about who exactly they saw with a baby.

ANDREW J. SCOTT, FMR. CHIEF OF POLICE, BOCA RATON: You know, Jane, this is the nature of law enforcement and doing these types of investigations. And it`s not unusual to have one witness ID somebody and then another witness say, No, that`s not the individual. And it does create a complex type of investigation. It makes it a bit more confusing.

And then you add in the fact that you`ve got the parents that are kind of resistant to speaking with the police officers separately. And so you know, what you`ve got is a real mess. And I`m certain that the police are doing what they`re supposed to be doing to get this thing ironed out, but a bit more cooperation from the parents would probably benefit the case.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, I want to go to the attorneys, Alex Sanchez, Meg Strickler. Alex, I`ll begin with you. Now, it would appear that the man -- OK, the cops show about six photos to this guy who saw a mystery man holding a baby at about 4:00 in the morning. He picks somebody out. But then the other woman who saw a mystery man walking around with a baby earlier that evening says, Uh-uh, that`s not the person. But apparently, cops know this person. They`ve interviewed the man who was identified in one of the photographs numerous times.

So what that tells me is that cops know, Alex, a heck of a lot more than they`re admitting about this case.

ALEX SANCHEZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Yes, I`m sure they do know a lot more. But what`s important is that there are witnesses that are picking out somebody else with a baby. How many people are walking around with babies at 4:00 o`clock in the morning that are catching the attention of other individuals? How many people are walking out of the woods in the middle of the night?

These are important leads that the police need to follow. Of course, they`re not going to reveal all they need to know to the general public, but they need to track down these leads and answer those questions once and for all.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, and take a look at this. This is surveillance video. This is like -- almost like looking for Bigfoot, at this point. Now, I`m not trying to make light of it, but this is how confusing and sort of mysterious this case has become.

This is surveillance footage of an individual seen walking down a street in the dead of night. And the owner of the gas station had said, Well, we don`t get many people walking by here, and that`s very weird. So initially, the media was sort of connecting the dots. Could this be the mystery man that other people saw walking around with a baby that same night, in the hopes, of course, of finding this precious child and finding that child in time.

But Leslie Seppinni, clinical psychologist, this is the very kind of situation where it`s sort of predesigned to let people`s imaginations run wild. And now we`ve got this mystery person running around with a baby. And it seems like maybe people are reading into things like surveillance videos that may have nothing to do with it.

LESLIE SEPPINNI, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: You know, I absolutely agree it may have absolutely nothing to do with it. Also, they never said they reported seeing him with a child, not that he couldn`t have had the child under his jacket.

But I think what`s really crucial in this case that I find striking from a psychological perspective is the word "grieving," that this mother keeps saying the word "grieving." Now, I don`t know if she`s being media- coached, but no mother who`s looking for their child uses the word "grieving" unless they know their child is dead. And that is very striking to me.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let`s listen to exactly what you`re talking about, this mother speaking, and she does use this word. It`s fascinating.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it true that you`re getting paid to avoid local reporters?

BRADLEY: Not at all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Then why won`t you talk to us?

BRADLEY: Because we`re grieving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: "Because we`re grieving." Meg Strickler, defense attorney, did you hear that? What do you make of it?

MEG STRICKLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: That`s a big ouch. And when she was just walking up to her house, caught unawares -- she may be coached by a media coach, but she was just walking up to her house and she says that rather flippantly. And so that is a very key thing she just said.

And all of her behavior throughout this entire three weeks has been strange and bizarre, and that`s why the detectives are looking at her and mainly her. They`re looking at the other leads. They`re following up. But everything she`s doing is continuously strange. Why can`t we interview both the common-law husband and wife separately? That`s strange, also. Lots going on here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: She said she had five glasses of wine and that she was basically knocked out drunk, that she may have even blacked out. If their main interest was finding the missing child, I`d just prop myself up at the police station and say, Fine, handcuff me. But what can I do to help find my baby?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Billboards around the Kansas City metro area are being used in the search for Lisa.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Baby Lisa`s parents` attorneys emphasize that the parents are cooperating with the investigation.

BRADLEY: We need her home! I can`t -- I can`t be without her!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police searching both inside and outside the house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About a 17-hour search.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where baby Lisa Irwin disappeared. They dug around the outside of the house and in the back yard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We`re still full steam ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Inside the home, they used X-ray equipment to look inside of walls, floorboards and pipes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The baby`s parents` local attorney, Cindy Short (ph), said that the massive search by police and the FBI was all for show.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All the time that they spent in this back yard - - and again, they`ve got to do that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A baffling case with still no sign that they`ll find baby Lisa.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think our detectives are doing what people would expect they were doing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But 17 days later?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My fear is that we`ve missed this critical time to find this baby.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jane Velez-Mitchell, in tonight for Nancy Grace. Where is this precious child, baby Lisa?

Some really stunning, bizarre, mysterious developments, this mystery man on the very night that this child vanishing walking around the same area, holding what witnesses say is a baby, but now we`ve got disagreement over who is this mystery man. Cops showing one witness photos. He picks one person out. Then the other witness disagrees, Uh-uh, that`s not the guy I saw. It`s a big, big mess, a lot of confusion.

We`re going to go to the phone lines now. Ladonna, Iowa. Your question or thought, Ladonna.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, I want to know, when...

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who was with the children while she was at the store with her brother getting the wine? Were they at the house?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right, yes. Let`s bring our viewers up to date. Here is the mother earlier in the evening on the night her child disappears, getting a box of wine, which she is picking up with her brother. She then heads home.

Now, the reports are her brother dropped her off, because she doesn`t have a driver`s license, and proceeds to go on his way, and that this mother, Lisa`s mother, ends up drinking wine, more than five glasses of wine she admits she probably drank -- and there`s also reports she was also on antidepressants -- as she sits there with a neighbor.

She claims she put the child to sleep at 6:40. And there was discrepancy because she had at one point said she saw the child or put her to sleep at 10:30 PM. But she`s drinking wine with the neighbor, and then the neighbor goes away at 10:30 PM.

So Sandra Endo, what do we know about who may have been in the house? For example, I know the cops tested the wine box to see how much of the wine was consumed. How much can two women drink? Can they drink an entire box of wine, or was there somebody else, a man, drinking with them? What do we know, Sandra?

ENDO: Well, what we know so far, Jane, is that, you`re absolutely right, investigators did go into the home after the disappearance of baby Lisa, measured how much wine there was left in there. But clearly, by her own admission, Deborah Bradley says she drank about five glasses at least that night, up to ten. So that`s what we know she said to the point when she could have been drunk, and that`s according to an interview by ABC -- excuse me, NBC`s "Today" show.

So clearly, she was not feeling well and she went inside. And the neighbor says that the lights were on in the house the last she looked. But according to Deborah Bradley, she says aid the lights were off when she went to sleep.

Now, according to reports, we do not know yet who was inside the house watching her kids when she went to the grocery store. And I think that`s what the caller was essentially trying to get at, Jane. We just don`t know that level of detail yet. We have constantly asked investigators and police to identify who was in the house watching the kids, but we just don`t know as of right now.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. I think that is the crux of the entire mystery because the mother is claiming that there was a window open, the lights had been turned on, that there was a screen kicked in where the window was open, that the door was unlocked. And of course, she doesn`t remember whether she did any of that because she passed out after drinking all this booze and doesn`t have a clear recollection of events.

But the other key piece of the puzzle is that cadaver dogs, or at least a cadaver dog, went into the home and hit, hit on the scent of death, allegedly, in the mother`s bedroom where she had passed out. What does it all mean?

On the other side of the break, we`re taking your calls and we`re going to analyze, try to put it all together, try to paint a picture from all these different pieces that we have to this mystery puzzle.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This video, taken from a gas station near the home where baby Lisa was last seen, shows an unidentified person walking along the road around 2:15 AM October 4th.

BRADLEY: Just take her somewhere safe (INAUDIBLE) let her come home to her family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, if you`ve got a cadaver dog hitting on human decomposition.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mother has given, according to police, some conflicting statements.

BRADLEY: I didn`t even check around the house. I didn`t think to...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would indicate that there was a dead child in the room.

BRADLEY: I didn`t care about any of that. I still don`t.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: T-shirts with baby Lisa`s picture that read "Kidnapped."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not somebody coming in, snatching a child and taking it somewhere else.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who is this mystery man?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Near the home where baby Lisa was last seen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things just don`t add up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jane Velez-Mitchell, in for Nancy Grace. Where is this angelic, helpless child? We are trying to find her. We have to stress that police are not calling the parents suspects or persons of interests. At this point, there are no suspects or persons of interest. We do know that police say a cadaver hit on the bedroom where the mother was reportedly passed out after drinking approximately five glasses of wine.

Pat Brown, criminal profiler, the dad left for work at 5:20 PM. That`s another piece of the puzzle. What do you make of all of it?

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER: Well, when we look at those pieces you want to put together to determine if the child is likely dead or the child`s likely alive, I come up with four pieces. One is the cadaver dog. Regardless of what those lawyers say about the 10 things they can hit on -- bull. That`s not really true. And it certainly isn`t dirty diapers, or there should be -- that baby should be hitting all over the house unless you pin that child to the floor for 10 months in that one spot. So that`s the -- the cadaver dog is probably doing what a cadaver dog does right. That would be a sign of death.

The second thing, the mother says she`s "grieving." That`s a sign of death. Her own lawyer now says that they`ve missed the window of opportunity, the police have missed the window of opportunity and it may end up badly. Now, wait a minute. Why would anybody steal a baby this age? The only reason is because somebody wants a baby. And usually, that means the baby`s alive someplace. Somebody`s taking care of the baby and making it their own.

So there`d be no more reason the baby should be dead today than the baby`d be dead three weeks ago. This is not a sexual crime. So why would this lawyer be saying that, except she`s indicating there`s going to be a bad end for some reason.

And the fourth thing is, if that man seen running around with a baby in a diaper is really a correct sighting, it makes no sense that a kidnapper would unclothe a baby to remove her from the house or wouldn`t put the baby in some kind of bag or something to take it out. That would sound more like a totally distraught -- maybe somebody in shock carrying a baby away, not doing what they`re doing, but the baby would not be alive.

So that`s four reasons. And I haven`t one found yet that says the baby is likely to be alive. And it`s terribly, terribly sad.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, you raise excellent points. But once again, cops are not calling this mother a suspect. In fact, it`s only from the mother`s own lips that we are hearing that she fears that she is going to be arrested, that she fears that the cops have really put on blinders and are only looking at her.

More analysis in a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: FBI cadaver dog made a positive hit.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A hit means the dog got the scent of a deceased human.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In an area of the floor of Bradley`s bedroom near the bed.

BRADLEY: You know, maybe somebody wanted a baby and she -- I hope that`s what it is!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEBORAH BRADLEY, MOTHER OF MISSING 10-MONTH-OLD LISA: We went around the house. We were screaming for her.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The window just on the edge of the house there they had found open.

BRADLEY: She was nowhere.

JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HLN HOST: Snatched from her own crib.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A search warrant was issued.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Agents in hazmat suits going with x-ray machines to check out the walls, to check out the floors.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What are they looking for?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: The man walking down the street around the same time holding a baby that`s naked mostly in 45-degree temperatures.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Very dark in this neighborhood. The streetlights don`t create a really bright environment.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: This BP gas station, the clerk tell me it`s rare to see people walking out of those woods because there is so much heavy brush.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Difficult terrain, dense woods.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Where is the baby?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Good evening. Jane Velez-Mitchell in tonight for Nancy Grace.

Where is this adorable child? Now it was October 3rd the dead of night that her dad comes home from work in the overnight shift as an electrician and notices everything is in disarray in the house. The lights are on, there`s a window open. There`s -- some kind of thing pushed in on the window. OK?

And he`s wondering, what`s going on? Where is everyone? He goes into the bedroom, he sees his wife passed out. He wakes her up, says what the hell is going on here. And she jumps out of bed, they run into the baby`s room. The baby is missing.

Where is baby Lisa? It`s a very complicated timeline.

Straight out to Sandra Endo, CNN correspondent.

Just lay it out for us. Give us the entire timeline.

SANDRA ENDO, CNN CORRESPONDENT, ON THE SCENE OUTSIDE BABY LISA`S HOME, COVERING STORY: A complicated timeline, Jane, because of the fact that 12 hours earlier around 5:00 p.m. we see surveillance video of Deborah Bradley going grocery shopping in Festival Foods which is very nearby here, buying a box of wine and other items.

Then she says she was dropped off by her brother. She goes back inside her home. She puts the kids to sleep, then she sits on a stoop and drinks wine with a neighbor.

She says initially to investigators, Jane, that she put baby Lisa to sleep, or the last time she saw her baby was around 10:30 that night. Then a week later she changes her story, says that she actually put baby Lisa to sleep at 6:40, and that is why investigators are really wanting to hone in on that timeline.

And of course since then there`s been extensive searches here inside the home and also the surrounding area.

The parents right now, Jane, are living just a short drive from here at relatives` homes. And clearly there are still a lot of questions to be answered.

We`re also hearing from at least three eyewitnesses placing a man walking in the dark at around 2:15 and -- actually midnight, around midnight, October 4th, the day baby Lisa disappears. Then another eyewitness saying at around 4:00 in the morning as well seeing a baby -- a man walking in the dark carrying a baby.

So clearly that is the timeline. They don`t know exactly who this mystery man is, as you`re calling him, but he was carrying a baby in a diaper according to three eyewitnesses, Jane.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now I want to go back to Pat Brown, criminal profiler, because you laid out your theory of the case like you were a prosecutor. Again, the mother is not considered a suspect in this case.

How enter stage left the mystery man holding a baby? How does that factor into your theory, because this man seems to come out of nowhere with a child?

Remember, it`s 45 degrees that night approximately. He`s walking around in a T-shirt and he`s holding a baby that appears to be naked or almost naked wearing only a diaper.

PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER, AUTHOR OF "THE PROFILER": Right. Well, Jane, the biggest problem with that is the fact that he`s just walking around. If you`re a kidnapper, it behooves you to leave a car nearby where you can slip into the place, grab the baby, covered it with -- you know, something and put it in your vehicle and take off.

You know, put it in a bag, carry it off. Do something. But walking down the street with your face showing and the baby just going, look, everybody, I`m taking this baby away, is a little strange for a kidnapper. Kidnappers are a little more secretive than that.

And I have a problem with the time, too. Because we have one seen -- you know, 12-ish and the other one seen at 4-ish. So we`re talking a lot of hours in between, and it`s about three hours distance between where the child -- the man was seen with a child the first time and the second time.

Now he could walk that distance in less than an hour. So where has he been for the other two hours with this baby? Just walking in circles?

So there`s -- these kind of questions aren`t answered. And something else that`s never been answered. We have heard that Jeremy Irwin was at work. Now we`ve heard when he left and when he supposedly came home. But he`s working at the Starbucks. We have not heard whether he was working with somebody else consistently and constantly through the whole evening.

Whether he was seen on camera one time but, you know, not again for two hours and intermittently seen on a camera going by. We don`t know if his car remained at the job or he went off for lunch and dinner. We don`t know if the car could have been there and he could have walked off the job and walked back to the car at some point.

We just don`t know any of this. And that`s one of the reasons I think we, not being the police, are a little confused over who is doing what.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Factoring all into the equation, we have to factor in the cell phone issue, because usually law enforcement gets some of its best leads from looking at the cell phone pings and figuring out where key participants were at what hours of the night.

Bill Grady, reporter, News Radio 980 KMBZ, what do you know about the cell phones?

BILL GRADY, REPORTER, NEWS RADIO, 980 KMBZ, COVERING STORY: Well, I can tell you, again, what your previous guest had mentioned there are a lot of things we don`t know. And obviously police aren`t saying a lot. But I have talked with a private investigator --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: What do we know?

GRADY: What do you want to know? What is your question? Regarding the cell phone?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: About the cell phones, yes.

GRADY: OK. They were all in one area, and that was in the kitchen. Then there was subsequently a cell phone that was found in a drawer, and this is in the court documents, and some of the -- some of the questions that would have been raised, if you had three small children in a house, why would you have all the phones in one location as opposed to having a phone, you know, on your nightstand?

And so that`s one of the questions. And of course, with regard to this gentleman that was seen walking with -- allegedly with the baby, that`s like three miles away from the home. It`s over broken terrain. Some of it is residential, some of it is woods.

And there`s questions as to why the gentleman waited a week and a half to report that. Why wouldn`t you call, you know, 911 right away?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Bill, my understanding was that there were three phones that were missing, three cell phones that were missing from the house.

BRADY: Correct.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And that they couldn`t use some of the phones or all of the phones because they hadn`t paid their cell phone bill.

BRADY: Well, no, understood --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Is that your understanding?

BRADY: I think the question is, that why would it -- why would they all be in one area of the house? And this was positive to me by a separate investigators that if you had -- you know, three small children in the house, wouldn`t it make sense to have -- not all have all your phones basically in one area of the house where if you had an emergency or something, you know, you had to run to another part of the house to notify the authorities.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: But whoever is -- if, in fact, there is a mystery person responsible for this child and took this child, that person also only took three cell phones from the house, which a lot of people find strange. Why not take something else?

We`re going to go to the phone lines again. Sharon in Missouri, your question or thought, Sharon?

SHARON, CALLER FROM MISSOURI: Hi. I was wondering why they haven`t interviewed the parents separately already? What are they waiting on? Doesn`t that given them time to, you know, get a story together?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Alexis Tereszcuk, my understanding is that the parents have refused to be interviewed separately, but I could be wrong. What do you know?

ALEXIS TERESZCUK, REPORTER, RADAROLINE.COM: I know what you know. I believe you`re exactly right. That they have refused to be interviewed separately. The husband -- the boyfriend has said that he wants to be with Deborah when they`re interviewed, but according to the family they were very cooperative with the police in the beginning. They answered every question that they wanted.

They did 14-hour stretches at a time talking to police. Then they said they wanted a break, they were tired, they wanted to take some time away from the police, and they haven`t gone back since October 6th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: An emotional Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin break down in tears.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know that it really just takes the one right nugget of information.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are we focusing on Debbie? We should be focusing on her.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NANCY GRACE, HLN HOST: She said she had five glasses of wine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Time is so crucial here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trying to find baby Lisa.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can`t take anyone off the table.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Being drunk.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But right now I really want to believe the parents, but as days go by it`s just not happening.

GRACE: And that she was basically not out drunk. That she may have even blacked out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If she was -- been taken out of the house at night, this is almost pitch-black.

GRACE: If their main interest was finding the missing child, I`d just brought myself up at the police station and say fine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We`re just hoping for a tip that somebody somewhere finds her.

GRACE: Handcuff me, but what can I do to help find my baby?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jane Velez-Mitchell in for Nancy Grace.

Where is this beautiful, adorable, helpless child? And we`re learning so many bizarre details, of this cadaver dog hit in the bedroom of the mother, a mystery man seen walking around with a little baby, the very night Lisa disappears. And as everybody is talking and this is a total hypothetical, Andrew Scott, it occurs to me, could it possibly be that someone was trying to make it look like a kidnapping, and took a doll and walked around the neighborhood to kind of throw somebody off the scent?

ANDREW J. SCOTT, FMR. CHIEF OF POLICE, BOCA RATON, FL.; PRESIDENT, AJS CONSULTING: Something is off the table in this type of an investigation. You really have to take a look at all of the possibilities. If law enforcement is focusing on what they think the mother did or did not do, and they exclude those other possibilities, that`s a problem. We`ve seen that hit down here in Boca Raton on one of our major homicide cases.

You can -- the police cannot exclude these other aspects that seem disconnected until they can make sure that they`re not related to the scene, and, in fact, that this could have been contrived. You`re absolutely right.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now a follow-up, Andrew. The mother has said that cops told her that she failed a polygraph. We haven`t heard pretty much anything from the cops themselves. Should the first thing cops do, if they do get to talk to these parents again, is not only separate them but give them a polygraph, find out what they know about this mystery man?

SCOTT: Without a doubt. And the parents should not be hesitant -- A, to take that polygraph and more importantly not be hesitant to be interviewed separately. And this is what`s causing me some problems relative to if you`re concerned about the welfare of your daughter, the police want to get to the bottom of this, you don`t necessarily need your boyfriend in with you while you`re being interviewed and vice versa.

And by the way, that`s not standard operating procedure when you do interrogations of this nature to find out what happened.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Meg Strickler, defense attorney, there were two other children in the house, a 6-year-old approximately and an 8-year-old, both boys. These parents are not letting, according to published reports, cops talk to those kids again. What can police do to gain access to those children legally?

MEG STRICKLER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, the police have to get permission from the parents in order to interrogate the children. And as a criminal defense lawyer, I`m very hesitant to have my client speak to law enforcement. I mean you wait too long, and anything that goes on with law enforcement in the interrogation can be spun a certain way.

And in this circumstance I have to say from the criminal defense side that baby Lisa was left alone with a drunk mother. That, by definition, is a crime. So she`s facing child neglect. If this baby miraculously re- appears tomorrow, she`s still facing a crime. So she, A, she needs a lawyer and B, she should not speak to law enforcement.

And then C, she should take a polygraph, sure, maybe, but a private one. And guess what, since she was drunk, the polygraph isn`t very good. It doesn`t give as good results as if somebody who hadn`t been taking any kind of alcohol or medications.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, yes. Alex Sanchez, we`ve also discussed the possibility that the mother may have gone into a blackout, an alcoholic blackout, and simply does not remember what happened. And something that struck me was that according to "People" magazine, one published report said that when the husband comes home and wakes her up, she jumps out of bed.

How would she know to be so shocked upon just waking up? Often people who`ve experienced blackouts -- and I talk as, very freely, as a recovering alcoholic with 16 years of sobriety -- when you kind of come to your senses and remember what happens, you often go into shock because you remember something that`s not very pleasant.

What do you make of it, Alex?

ALEX SANCHEZ, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: You know who knows what her reaction was when the husband first came home. The only people that know is her and her husband.

You know I just want to point out something that Pat Brown said. Let me tell you something. The cadaver dog evidence is meaningless unless we know the experience of that dog. We know how that dog was trained, we know the track record of that dog, we know the track record of the trainer.

None of this has been challenged and none of that information has come forward. And also I don`t know who would possibly dismiss three witnesses claiming they saw an individual with a baby walking down a street even if it is three miles way. That`s a very aberrational act. So that needs to be carefully investigated.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, but nobody can agree on who this person was. One person, the one who saw him at 4:00 in the morning picked an individual out of a photo line-up.

SANCHEZ: Yes, but --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And the other witness, a woman says, uh-huh. That`s not the person I saw.

SANCHEZ: Right. But what`s important --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: There`s disagreement.

SANCHEZ: What`s important was that it happened. Somebody saw somebody with a baby at 3:00 in the morning. There`s a baby missing from a house. Just put two and two together. There has to be a connection. The police are saying she`s not a suspect, but their behavior indicates to me they`re treating them like suspects and they`re treating them --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, wait a second.

SANCHEZ: -- like they are the persons responsible for that missing child.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Then who is the mystery man?

SANCHEZ: We don`t --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Who is the mystery man? Because you could presume the mystery man is a stranger and it was a stranger abduction that she might have passed out, left the lights on.

SANCHEZ: You know, let me -- that`s another thing. That`s --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And the door open and somebody walks in.

SANCHEZ: No, that`s another thing.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Or you could assume that maybe -- there`s a couple of possibilities. A stranger abduction, she was passed out, he walks in, takes the baby, walking on the street. B, she`s in a blackout. She makes friends. People do that when they`re drinking with a stranger. Invites them in to party and that stranger then who is partying with the mother leaves with the child.

SANCHEZ: Listen.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Or, three, the possibility that they pretend that there`s an intruder and they send somebody out to walk around with a doll to look like a child is being abducted.

SANCHEZ: Or four, a very disturbed individual broke into that house and took that child out for reasons that don`t make any sense. And who`s to say it`s not a sexual crime? We don`t know that.

So, you know, all these questions have not been answered by the police and I think it`s a very unfair to characterize these people as suspects even though they`re not using the word suspect.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: I`m not characterizing. We`ve said --

SANCHEZ: You`re not, but the police --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: We said I don`t know how many times today.

SANCHEZ: But the police -- the police are treating --

VELEZ-MITCHELL: The police haven`t said anything.

SANCHEZ: But the police are treating them as suspects. Even though they`re not using the word suspects.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Ironically, Pat Brown, the police aren`t saying anything, it`s the mother who says she feels she is the focus of the investigation.

What do you make of that, Pat?

BROWN: Well, she`s been correct. I mean, she is the focus of the investigation. I`ll have to agree with other guests. The police are essentially treating them like suspects, although the focus is heavily on that house and the people in it. And they keep, you know, harping about the parents coming back in. So they clearly are focused on the parents.

But you know, you cannot look at this and say the parents had no responsibility. Deborah Bradley changed her story. That makes her suspicious. She also said her two boys heard a noise in the night either before or after they went to sleep, which she doesn`t even want to question them. Just won`t know anything about it.

That`s ridiculous. If somebody took your child, you don`t want to even ask your other kids, hey, did you -- what did you hear? And you know, that`s not going to hurt them. You don`t even want to talk to your own children?

And thirdly, she doesn`t want to look in the yard for her child. Hey, if my -- I wake up and my child is missing, one of my thoughts is going to be, oh my god, maybe the guy, somebody took her out, maybe they freaked out, you know, got scared, dropped the baby in the bushes. I`m going to be ripping up my yard and screaming at the neighbors, make sure my baby isn`t lying in the bushes dying when I`m not doing anything.

So I`m going to be out there. So there`s reasons the police are focused on the parents. It`s not like nothing happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: The parents say the reason they haven`t agreed to do interviews is that they haven`t been able to agree on terms.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Is this a desperate place in the investigation?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I wouldn`t say that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It`s been right now. Whatever x-ray they did not confirm whatever it was that some dog thought it smelled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Congratulations to our very own Nancy Grace for her thrilling performance last night on "Dancing with the Stars."

Nancy and her fantastic dancing partner Tristan MacManus nailed it for Broadway week with their spectacular foxtrot. It was astounding. Nancy even -- are you sitting down -- did a handstand during the big finale, the group dance.

Way to go, Nancy. You can win this thing. We know it. We`re voting for you. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Dancing the foxtrot, Nancy Grace and her partner Tristan MacManus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Bravo, Nancy. And she is dancing for an amazing cause, for children.

Tonight, let`s stop to remember Army Sergeant Jeremy Wright, 31, from Shelbyville, Illinois, killed in Afghanistan. An Elite Green Beret. He was awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and a Meritorious Service Medal.

His passion was running and he did it as part of the USA track and field mountain running team. He leaves behind parents, Dale and Jacqui, stepparents Linda and Bill, and a sister Allison.

Jeremy Wright. A true American hero.

Thank you to all our guests and thanks to you at home. See you tomorrow night at 8:00 sharp Eastern. Until then, have a safe evening.

And Nancy, you can win this thing.

END