Missing Baby Lisa Irwin Shows similarities of Haliegh Cummings Case

It was a week ago yesterday in Kansas City, Missouri that 10 month old Lisa Irwin disappeared from her crib. The search for her has been difficult due to the lack of eye witnesses and leads. At one point her parents, Jeremy Irwin and Deborah Bradley, stopped cooperating with police. Deborah Bradley reported putting the baby to bed about 10:30 p.m., and that Irwin returned home from his night shift at about 4:00 a.m. to find the front door open, lights on, and the baby missing from her crib and the couple’s three cell phones were taken. Deborah Bradley, who repeatedly presented herself in the media as Jeremy Irwin’s fiancée, is legally married to another man, the Daily Mail reported. Her husband is Sean Bradley, and the couple has a 6-year-old son together. That son is one of the two boys living with Bradley and Irwin. The other is Irwin’s son from a prior marriage. Sean Bradley’s family reportedly told reporters for Kansas City’s Fox 4 that Sean and Deborah have been separated four years but did not divorce because of the cost. They also said she is a good person and they don’t believe she would harm her baby. Deborah Bradley failed a lie detector test.

Haliegh Cummings was a five year old girl that was reportedly taken from her Florida home in the night. Haleigh lived with her father, Ronald Cummings, and his girlfriend in a double-wide trailer in Satsuma, an isolated riverfront community northeast of Ocala National Forest. The girlfriend, Misty Croslin, reportedly put Haleigh to bed about 10 p.m. while Cummings was working. Croslin stated she woke up about 3:30 a.m. and noticed Haleigh was missing and called 911 for help. “I just woke up and my back door is open, and I can’t find my daughter,” Croslin told a 911 dispatcher. She said she had been sleeping and the door was not open when she went to bed. A screen door on the side of the couple’s Satsuma home had been propped open with a cinder block. The main door was slightly ajar, but authorities found no obvious signs of forced entry. Cummings just returned home while Croslin was talking to the 911 dispatcher. Officials issued a statewide alert for Haleigh, triggering a search that invovled officers from several law-enforcement agencies with bloodhounds and helicopters. Misty Croslin failed a lie detector test and is currently serving a prison sentence on unrelated charges. That was February 2009 and the girl has never been found, and the case remains open.

Kansas City’s Northland neighborhood residents held a vigil Sunday night to pray for Lisa Irwin’s safe return.