The 2011 disappearance of “Baby Lisa” remains unsolved

On the night of October 3 to 4, 2011, 10-month-old Lisa Renee Irwin vanished from her crib in Kansas City. Her father, Jeremy Irwin, returned from a night shift around 4 a.m. and found the door open, the lights on, and Lisa missing. More than a decade later, she is still officially listed as missing, and the case remains open.

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

Police and FBI investigators explored the kidnapping theory, but could not prove it. On October 19, 2011, search dogs reportedly detected the scent of a corpse in Bradley’s bedroom near the bed, raising suspicion that the mother was involved. Authorities also said Bradley failed a polygraph test, though she said she was never shown the results and denied wrongdoing. She was never formally charged.

Other clues pointed elsewhere. Witnesses said they saw a man carrying a baby near the Irwin home in the early morning hours, and security footage allegedly showed a man in white leaving a wooded area near the house around 2:30 a.m. Police checked one suspect, but he had an alibi. Jeremy Irwin also said three cell phones disappeared from the house, and one made a 50-second call around midnight to Megan Wright, a Kansas City woman linked to a possible suspect. A private investigator hired by the family said the key question was who made that call, arguing, “We firmly believe that the person who had that phone also had Lisa.” Despite periodic age-progressed images released by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, no body, arrest, or indictment has ended the case.