Missing Baby Lisa Irwin: Police Search Kansas City Lake

Police searched a small lake near the Kansas City home of Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin, hoping to find clues to the disappearance of missing baby Lisa Irwin.

The search of Chaumiere Lake was not initiated by a tip, police said. Investigators looked at the map and decided they need to expand their search farther from the Irwin home at 3620 N. Lister Avenue, Snapp told KMBC-TV.

Investigators used dogs and boats to search the area in and around the lake, which is less than 2 miles away from the Bradley-Irwin family home. The search lasted approximately an hour and nothing significant was found, police spokesman Darin Snapp told Fox News.

Baby Lisa's parents, Bradley and Irwin, canceled a news conference and planned walkthrough of their home earlier Thursday.

The 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, said attorney Cynthia L. Short in a written statement, according to the Kansas City Star. Therefore, the consensus is we all need a rest, until next week all media, therefore all appointments in Kansas City today and tomorrow are being postponed until next week [sic].

Short said that Lisa's half-brothers' interviews and DNA swabs with police, scheduled for Friday, would go on as planned.

Police claim they want the DNA samples from the two brothers to compare it to the unidentified samples they have taken from the Bradley-Irwin home last week, the Kansas City Star reports. The brothers' DNA is necessary so they can eliminate certain DNA samples from the home and then see if there are any unknown samples that might indicate an intruder was present the night of Lisa's disappearance.

The interviews will happen with... special certified forensic interviewers who are specially trained to interview children, Short told Fox News. Snapp confirmed there will be no investigators or detectives in the room with the boys.

Bradley told NBC last week that the boys heard noises the night Lisa vanished, but she was uncertain of the details. The night baby Lisa disappeared her two brothers were sleeping in Bradley's bed.

They said they heard noises [the night Lisa disappeared], Bradley said. I don't know if that was before we went to sleep or after. Bradley said she has not tried to learn more from the boys because she doesn't want to bother them.

Despite Bradley and Irwin allowing Lisa's brothers to be interviewed, police still maintain that the family has been uncooperative as they are refusing to answer tough questions and have refused to be interviewed separately since Oct. 8.

The bottom line is detectives need to sit down with them unrestricted and they need to answer questions that we need answered, Kansas City Police Capt. Young said.

Joe Tacopina, one of the family's lawyers, does, however, have restrictions on the kind of questions he will allow baby Lisa's parents to answer. He claims that police have unfairly targeted Bradley, baby Lisa's mother, which doesn't build good faith in them. He says Lisa's parents are only willing to speak to police if they do not presume guilt before having sufficient evidence.

Bradley and Irwin's lawyers, Tacopina and Short, believe police should focus their investigation on the man seen by three eyewitnesses carrying a baby in a diaper the night baby Lisa disappeared. Police, however, have refused to comment on the surveillance video found at a Kansas City gas station showing a man leaving a wooded area two miles from Lisa's home the night she disappeared. They also declined to comment Tuesday on the eyewitness reports, CNN said.

Authorities have received over 975 tips and have cleared nearly 800. There are still no major suspects or leads in the investigation.

Hope is what they're living on, Short says of the parents. They are drained of strength at times, and there's really no road map on the journey they're on. They're just hoping and praying that someone will make that one tip.

Baby Lisa's parents claim the 11-month old mysteriously disappeared from their home late Monday night or early Tuesday morning nearly three weeks ago. Irwin, an electrician, maintains that he returned from work around 4 a.m. Tuesday to discover her daughter missing. The parents say they searched frantically for the infant early Tuesday morning, but found only the front door unlocked, a window opened, house lights turned on, and three cell phones missing.