A former attorney for the Missouri family of a baby reported missing four weeks ago said Monday she has stopped representing the parents of Lisa Irwin, but will continue to work as an advocate for the family.
Attorney Cyndy Short said she and New York-based attorney Joe Tacopina "were not able to work as a team" during her brief tenure as the local counsel of Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin, who reported their 10-month-old daughter Lisa missing on Oct. 4 after Jeremy Irwin returned from a late shift at work.
"Our approaches were very different," Short told reporters during a press conference outside her Kansas City office. "It was not going to work for me to work with him … therefore he's in and I'm out."
Short said her team had logged more than 700 hours in the past 12 days while working on the case. She will continue work for Bradley and Irwin by maintaining a website dedicated to finding the missing girl and by fielding possible tips and forwarding them to investigators, she said.
"We will continue to work for them," she said. "Now that I have embraced this family and this child, I cannot just walk away."
Short said she believes Lisa Irwin was "stolen" from her family's home.
"I think she was stolen from that home, I really do," she said. "That's my theory."
Kansas City police said Friday that they had pursued 934 of the 1,059 tips they've received, but still have no solid leads. Hundreds of investigators have combed wooded and other areas but each search has come up empty, they said. A $100,000 reward is also being offered in the case.
Tacopina, who has requested a delay in a planned second interview by a forensic specialist with the couple's other two children, did not return a message seeking comment.
Tacopina told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Monday that Bradley and Irwin are fully cooperating with authorities and that their older children can be re-interviewed by police.
"Absolutely," he replied when asked if the boys would be made available for a second interview. "There was never an issue. Some of the logistics were an issue. I’ve been reading and hearing a lot of things that have been reported about cancellations of meetings and such. It’s been wildly inaccurate, a lot of this stuff."
Tacopina also stressed that the girl's parents will continue to work with authorities in the search for Lisa Irwin. He claimed investigators are becoming frustrated by a lack of progress in the case.
"They’ve let that crime scene be trampled on within the first few days by media and other people," Tacopina continued. "They’re frustrated because they can’t find answers, so of course, they’re turning their frustrations onto the parents because statistically that’s where the focus belongs. I have no problem with them looking at the parents and focusing on them, but don’t narrow your investigation to the point where that’s the only scenario they want to look at."
Deborah Bradley and the girl's two older brothers had been asleep elsewhere in the house on the night of the Lisa's disappearance, and Bradley has admitted she drank heavily that night -- perhaps up to 10 glasses of wine with a neighbor and may have blacked out.
FoxNews.com's Joshua Rhett Miller and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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