This could mean a huge break in the case if Thompson’s observations prove reliable. The fact that police were able to show him a photo of a man they’d already interviewed suggests they may have more information than the public knows about who may have removed baby Lisa from the Irwin home.
Earlier Witness Contradicts Thompson Account
The Irwins’ neighbors who first reported seeing a man carrying a baby wearing only a diaper in the early hours of Oct. 4 say the man is not the man they saw. Showed a photo by ABC News, the woman, who has been publicly identified only by her first name, Lisa, said, “No, I don’t recognize him.” She said the man she and her husband saw was tall and slender and looked to be bald.
Disparate Witness Accounts Not Surprising
The failure of the witnesses to agree on the identity of the man carrying the baby is not surprising. Eyewitness memory is often unreliable. According to the Visual Expert, the unreliability stems from many factors including blurred recollections; the reliance of memory storage on words rather than pictures; the reconstructive nature of memory which causes witnesses to unconsciously fill in any gaps; systemic biases toward distance and size; the interpretive nature of memories; retrieval biases; and the tendency to incorporate learned information into the retelling.
Police Pushing for Answers
Kansas City, Mo., detectives are pushing Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin’s lawyers to agree to separate interviews with each of the missing baby’s parents. Captain Steve Young said the couple needs to individually answer tough questions about “what they may or may not know about anything, who came and went” the night Lisa disappeared from her crib.
Unidentified DNA in Irwin Home
Bradley and Irwin have agreed to make their 5 and 8 year old sons available for interviews and for DNA sampling. The children are scheduled to be interviewed Friday. This is a big development, since the couple has shielded the boys from the investigation since their initial, short interviews right after Lisa was reported missing.
The investigators collected unknown DNA samples in the Irwin home and expect that a comparison with the boys’ DNA will help them identify whether any of the samples belong to a stranger.
So far the police aren’t tipping their hand as to whether they’re closing in on a suspect
