The Mystery of Baby Lisa Irvine, Who Vanished From Her Crib

Lisa Rene Irwin was 10 months old when she disappeared from her home in Kansas City, Missouri, on the night of October 3 to 4, 2011. Her father, Jeremy Irwin, came home from a night shift at about 4 a.m. and found the front door open, the lights on, and Lisa’s crib empty. The case has remained open for more than a decade, and Lisa is still officially listed as missing.

At first, the disappearance looked like a possible kidnapping. Lisa’s mother, Deborah Bradley, initially said she had seen the baby around 10:30 p.m., but later said she had been drinking with a friend and could not remember the last time she saw her daughter. She said the only time she knew for sure was around 6:30 p.m. before she started drinking. Bradley later told reporters, “We just got up and started screaming. We looked everywhere, but she wasn’t there.”

Police and FBI agents investigated the abduction theory but could not prove it. On October 19, 2011, search dogs reportedly alerted to the smell of a corpse in Bradley’s bedroom near the bed, which raised suspicion toward the mother. Investigators also said Bradley failed a polygraph, though she said she was never shown the results and denied wrongdoing. She was never formally charged. A former acquaintance, Shirley Pfaff, told the media Bradley had a “dark side,” but no evidence led to an indictment.

Other clues pointed away from Bradley. Witnesses said they saw a man carrying a baby near the home in the early morning hours, and security footage reportedly showed a man in white leaving a wooded area nearby around 2:30 a.m. Police investigated one man who matched some descriptions, but he had an alibi. Jeremy Irwin also said three cellphones were missing from the house, and one placed a 50-second call around midnight to Megan Wright, an ex-partner of another suspect. A private investigator said, “This whole case hinges on who made that call and why,” but the call did not lead to an arrest. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has periodically released age-progressed images, yet no body, suspect, or resolution has been found.