K.C. police search for missing infant

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Dozens of law enforcement officers searched into the night Tuesday for a 10-month-old Kansas City girl whose disappearance from the crib in her home sparked fears of an induction by an intruder.

Lisa Irwin's mother reported last seeing the baby when she put her into her crib around 10:30 p.m. Monday. The father called police around 4 a.m. Tuesday when he returned home from his job at an electrical company and couldn't find the baby.

More than 100 officers scoured deep woods behind the home in the northern part of Kansas City on Tuesday afternoon before ending the search there. Officers are investigating whether Lisa was taken by an intruder who climbed through a window.

At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, police Capt. Steve Young said the parents had been cooperative and that investigators had no indication that some type of domestic or relationship dispute was involved.

Two young brothers also were at home in a separate bedroom, Young said, but were unharmed.

"Originally there was a window on the front of the house that appeared to be tampered with, that's something they were looking at, but we're not really sure if that's the entry point or not," Young said. "That's just a detail. The main point is there is a 10-month-old who isn't where she belongs and we're trying to find that child."

Although police continued their search, they canceled an Amber Alert for Lisa around 7 p.m. Tuesday. Police said the alert had done the job of notifying the public of a possibly endangered missing child.

Lisa has blue eyes and blond hair. She is 30 inches tall and weighs between 26 and 30 pounds. Police say she has two bottom teeth, a small bug bite under her left ear and a beauty mark on her right thigh. She also has a cold with a cough.

Young said a woman in the neighborhood had called police saying she saw a man overnight carrying a baby up the street, but he didn't know if anything had come of that.

"I do know that somebody did contact us and say late last night, early this morning, she did see somebody walking down the street with a baby," he said. "That is something we've looked into. I don't know if it's necessarily led anywhere."

Crime scene tape was still stretched around the front yard of the girl's home, a light-green ranch-style dwelling in a quiet neighborhood on a winding road on the northeast side of the city, at 3 p.m. Tuesday.

Several police cars lined the street in front of the house, where an officer kept guard as a steady stream of traffic slowly navigated past and neighbors sat in lawn chairs watching. Overhead, at least one television news helicopter hovered overhead while at least four news trucks with extended satellite antennas sat a block away.

The front windows of the house -- one large one on the left side decorated with Halloween decorations, and a smaller one on the right with no signs of curtains or a screen -- are easily accessible from the ground. A large deck is attached to the rear of the home, which has a fenced-in backyard.

"We're just hoping the child is safe somewhere," Snapp said.