Missing Baby Lisa Irwin Latest News: Parents' Lawyers at Odds in Girl's Case?
The attorneys representing the family of Lisa Irwin have entered into a strange public spar over the handling of the missing Kansas City, Mo., girl's case. Their conflict has apparently led to the postponement of planned police interviews with and DNA tests of Irwin's older brothers.
On Thursday, one of the lawyers, Cyndy Short, told the Kansas City Star, "I've done research and see more potential for harm than good with the interview. It won't happen tomorrow and maybe never."
That was after Short announcement that the brothers, 6 and 8, would be participating in a second interview with police about the night their sister vanished from their family home.
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The Irwin family’s other lawyer, Joe Tacopina, disagreed with Short when he told KCTV late Thursday that the heavily awaited interviews might transpire in the following weeks. The interviews were highly anticipated because Baby Lisa's two brothers told authorities they had heard noises the night of their baby sister's disappearance.
The lawyers' disagreement escalated late Thursday when reports emerged that New York-based Tacopina had fired Short from the case.
"He's not in a position to fire anyone," Short responded. "I work or the client, not him."
The spar happened hours shortly after Kansas City police officers searched Chuamiere Lake near the Irwin's family home. The search reportedly yielded no clues to Lisa's whereabouts.
The postponed interview of the boys, 11-month-old Lisa's half-brothers, was announced on the heels of a cancelled news conference reportedly due to the exhaustion of baby Lisa's parents Jeremy Irwin and Deborah Bradley.
Bradley confessed in several interviews that she drank "enough to be drunk" on Oct 3., the night Lisa vanished. She told People magazine that she "probably" had over five glasses of wine.
The search for baby Lisa continues, but Bradley told NBC she fears being arrested for her little girl's disappearance because "If they arrest me, people are going to stop looking for her."
On a search through the Irwin home last week, an FBI cadaver dog identified the scent of a human body, prompting a successive hunt.
