A grand jury subpoena and a potential arrest top the news concerning baby Lisa Irwin, who was reported missing from her crib at 4:00 a.m. last Tuesday. The issuance of grand jury subpoenas undercuts the Irwin family assertion that baby mom Deborah Bradley’s arrest is imminent.
According to ABC News, four stations received similar subpoenas. KCTV 5 News posted its subpoena online. It directed the station to turn over all footage, including raw footage, of interviews or statements by family, friends of the family, or neighbors of the missing baby. The compliance date is Oct. 18.
Police have denied that any arrest is imminent, and the Oct. 18 subpoena compliance date lends credence to the view that they don’t have evidence at present that would warrant an earlier arrest of Bradley or anyone else. Whether Bradley is the grand jury target is something the public doesn’t know and may not know until the grand jury issues an indictment. Even then, the judge could order any indictment sealed until an arrest has been made.
The charges that could come out of the grand jury process may not directly involve what happened to baby Lisa and who is responsible. With subpoenas issued for interview footage, false reporting could be the angle the police are pursuing.
The news station footage isn’t the only video in police possession. Officers went to Festival Foods Monday and copied surveillance tape of Bradley and an unidentified man shopping for wine, paper plates and napkins about five hours before Bradley says she put Lisa to bed. With no mention of Lisa being at the grocery store with her mom in the news reports, the tape doesn’t appear to shed light on whether the baby was alive and well at that hour. However, it will help fill in the timeline of Bradley’s actions and the company she was keeping in the hours preceding her daughter’s reported disappearance.
While the police seem to be focusing on family and Bradley in particular, they have pursued other leads simultaneously. In the past day, police have asked neighbors about a homeless man seen in the neighborhood about two weeks before Lisa was reported missing; they searched a drainage ditch by her home; and they returned to the Irwin backyard for a repeat search.