Missing Missouri 1-year-old baby Lisa Irwin's parents appeared on Dr. Phil today via satellite, breaking a nearly three month silence. The normally stoic couple vented their frustrations, and Lisa's mother Deborah Bradley was especially verbal about the misconceptions she believes the public has about her.
"It just became a circus. It's not a joke, it's not a circus, it's not a game," a tearful Deborah Bradley said. "This is my baby."
Lisa disappeared the night of Oct. 3, 2011 from her Kansas City home and the family has maintained from the beginning that the infant was abducted from her bedroom inside the home while her mother and brothers were asleep in another room.
Parents Deborah Bradley, 25, and Jeremy Irwin, 29, became a focal point for suspicion for both the public and the police. The relationship between the parents and the Kansas City Police Department has been contentious, with frequent public sparring between the two.
They have argued about issues including the extent of the parents' cooperation, polygraph tests and interviewing Lisa's two young brothers.
"All I know is that someone came into our house and took her for some reason and all I know is that she's still out there somewhere," Jeremy Irwin said on the show.
The Kansas City Police Department did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Bradley addressed the frenzy that surrounded the revelation that she had been drinking the night Lisa disappeared. Dr. Phil asked her directly if she was drunk the night her daughter disappeared.
"To me, more than two drinks in an hour means you're drunk, so yes," she said. "I told the truth because I have nothing to hide."
"Pretty much the only thing that I'm guilty of is drinking too much. And even when she comes back, that's something I have to live with that I might have heard something and been able to stop them," a tearful Bradley said.
She said the issue has been blown out of proportion and the she is neither an alcoholic nor a neglectful parent.
"All three of my kids mean the world to me," she said angrily. "The entire scenario of me drinking outside with a friend…has been blown into a theatrical giant theory-fest."
Dr. Phil also asked her about the changing timeline that she presented to authorities and to the public. She has said that she put Lisa to sleep early around 6:30 p.m. because she was not feeling well, but there have been discrepancies about whether or not Bradley later checked on Lisa in her bedroom.
"It is literally impossible to remember every single detail and say it exactly the same every single time and there are so many negative people or hateful people that have picked it all apart," Bradley said. "If I had done something, id' be in jail right now. Joe [Tacopina, her attorney] doesn't save me from jail."
Tacopina also said that claims that Bradley had failed a polygraph test were false.
Private investigator "Wild" Bill Stanton also appeared on the show to discuss his part of the investigation and the anonymous benefactor who hired him and is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the resolution of the case.
The benefactor is a women with ties to a member of the Irwin family, Stanton said. He said he was hired by the benefactor, not the family, to solve the case.
"I did not want to take this case for the parents because, quite frankly, when I got on that plane, I thought they did it," Stanton said. He said that the first time he sat down with the parents, he told them, "I'm not here for you. I'm here for Lisa." Stanton did not go into specifics, but he said that the more he investigates the disappearance, the more he believes the abductor was from outside the home.
Dr. Phil also allowed some time in the show for Bradley to ask him any questions she might have and she asked about how to answer questions from Lisa's two brothers.
"My boys ask about her all the time," she said. "We tell them we're never going to stop looking. We'll bring her home." Dr. Phil asked Bradley what message she would like to send to the person she believes took her baby girl.
"Please look beyond what you want and what you need and look at what she needs and what she wants. She needs and wants to be with her parents and brothers," Bradley said. "We love her and her brothers more than anything in the world and we are dying here. It's been over three months and I would do anything to see her again and there's a $100,000 reward."
She said that the abductor could drop Lisa off at a firehouse or hospital, no questions asked.
"We don't want you," she said defiantly. "We want her."
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