Parents of baby Lisa Press Release 10/21/11

[Karmaa]

I'm just catching up this morning,but I have to respectfully disagree with you .
If my baby was taken I would be attached to LE like velcro. I would be at the headquarters ,setting up a command center at my home or the closest place to my home that I was allowed. I would be begging every media outlet to keep my baby's picture up. I would be hounding anyone and everyone until..........No one would have to hunt me down for an interview.They couldn't shut me up.And I wouldn't have to be paid for pictures. No exclusives,because I would want every network to have it all. I would want prayer vigils set up around the clock . Billboards,facebook,ads in the newspaper. Whatever it took to put the pressure on returning my child.
But that's just me. :maddening:

Is it confirmed that they have been paid for pictures or interviews? And, if they have, did it go into a search or reward fund, or directly to the parents?

By the way - the "exclusives" that the media reported - weren't in fact exclusive. If you recall, the parents did three interviews last weekend. Each network billed it as "exclusive". I believe that in their new lingo, that means that they were alone in the interview, not that the family ONLY spoke to them.

 

[AlmostGone]

Only if you have a mouthy one. I'd hire a lawyer on the basis that they keep their mouth shut unless necessary (no unneeded media statements or press releases) and also focus on assisting LE in finding my child. Now in this case, the attorneys are doing their jobs and I can't fault them for that. But I can't fault the parents for hiring them either, I'd do the same.

I'd hire a lawyer too without doubt! Even if everything was cut and dry and my story or timeline was perfect! Now about hiring a lawyer who handles murder cases, no I wouldn't lol. BUT if he's pro-Bono and the only one who would take my case free I would hire him....

 

[IWillDare]

With respect, finding Lisa is not her job. That's LE's job.

JMO, but I think finding Lisa is ALL of our jobs.

 

[AlmostGone]

JMO, but I think finding Lisa is ALL of our jobs.

Agreed! Wish I lived closer because I'd still be walking the streets looking everywhere!

 

[natsound]

With all due respect, that was a different time. The nation wasn't transfixed daily on one or other missing child tv shows and internet websites accusing parents whenever a child goes missing.

And there were two 12 year old witnesses with a clear description of the kidnapper and an airtight story of what happened.

There was never any doubt what happened to Polly. None. The nation was fully behind the Klaas family in searching for the daughter the nation knew was kidnapped from her bedroom.

There was no reason for Marc to get a lawyer.

I guess that's where we differ. I don't think it has as much to do with the time or the era. IMO it has more to do with DB and JI needing a lawyer. Klaas didn't need one. If he did, he would have hired one.

 

[MissJames]

I'm just watching - I can see this going either way but I'm not ready to say I think the parents are involved. Could they be? Sure, but LE could also be going in the wrong direction. I'm not going to buy into "they act guilty" and "if it were me..." because I want more facts and some evidence. I pray to God they find this baby alive.

I agree,but I don't believe LE is going in ONLY one direction. I believe they are also following up on sightings. I would expect them to search the house ,the yard and the surrounding areas,even if they were only focused on an abductor.Finding the phones could also be associated with locating an abductor.
We are looking at what LE is doing based on the belief that they are focused on the parents,but look at it again as though they are looking for an intruder.They'd be doing all the same things,IMO.

ETA: Elizabeth Smarts abductor kept her hidden in a wooded area close to the home,just after he took her,IIRC. Didn't she say she could hear tthe searchers calling her name? or am I confusing cases?

 

[Geralyn]

I'd definitely get an attorney in a situation like this, if I were innocent. Particularly if ,or at the point, LE tried to put me under the bare bulb treatment and were being adversarial in their approach to me.

However...and I've always made this distinction...I would not stop communicating with LE. I would still sit through however many interviews they requested, I'd just have my attorney present with me. I'd never hire an attorney who wouldn't go along with that either.

I strongly dislike when use a layer as a sheild from talking to police.

 

[AuburnJenn]

I fully believe the parents are in on this, and distrust them immensely, but if someone could clear this up for me - did the cadaver dog smell something of Baby Lisa's when it hit on the 'death smell' -- or was it just a generic death smell? I only ask because we used to live in a house in which a former elderly owner had passed away in the master bedroom (it always creeped us out when we were kids). I have not understood if the dog smelled (I hate to put it this way) "death of Lisa" or just a generic smell that could have been there for who knows how long?

 

[MissJames]

Is it confirmed that they have been paid for pictures or interviews? And, if they have, did it go into a search or reward fund, or directly to the parents?

By the way - the "exclusives" that the media reported - weren't in fact exclusive. If you recall, the parents did three interviews last weekend. Each network billed it as "exclusive". I believe that in their new lingo, that means that they were alone in the interview, not that the family ONLY spoke to them.

No,I'm not saying they did at all. I'm saying what I would do and not do. In recent cases media has paid for pictures. IMO Exclusives means getting new info first.

 

[~n/t~]

JMO, but I think finding Lisa is ALL of our jobs.

You're miscontruing my post. An attorney's job is not to physically search for a missing child that is local LE and FBI to do so. Citizens can volunteer for searches and we can keep an eye out for sightings but it is not our job.

 

[MissJames]

I fully believe the parents are in on this, and distrust them immensely, but if someone could clear this up for me - did the cadaver dog smell something of Baby Lisa's when it hit on the 'death smell' -- or was it just a generic death smell? I only ask because we used to live in a house in which a former elderly owner had passed away in the master bedroom (it always creeped us out when we were kids). I have not understood if the dog smelled (I hate to put it this way) "death of Lisa" or just a generic smell that could have been there for who knows how long?

It's the generic smell of a dead person.

 

[MissJames]

You're miscontruing my post. An attorney's job is not to physically search for a missing child that is local LE and FBI to do so. Citizens can volunteer for searches and we can keep an eye out for sightings but it is not our job.

Speaking for myself, I think hiring a lawyer typically puts a stop to parents fully co-operating with LE. Yes,that's the lawyer's job ,to protect the parents,but it doesn't do a thing to help find the baby,and we are more concerned about the baby. By lawyering up it appears that the parents are more concerned about themselves ,also.JMHO

 

[IWillDare]

You're miscontruing my post. An attorney's job is not to physically search for a missing child that is local LE and FBI to do so. Citizens can volunteer for searches and we can keep an eye out for sightings but it is not our job.

Oh sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with your post. I realize it's not a lawyer's job to find a missing child. It's not my 9-5 job either. But as human beings, it's all of our "jobs" to care for each other and be advocates for the helpless. Especially babies!

Guess I'm in a kumbaya mood this morning. Gonna go have some granola now...lol.

 

[mysteriew]

What could an innocent person say to convince you that they are innocent?

IMO this family is doing everything that an innocent family would do.

And yes, that includes getting lawyers, only talking to national media, telling the world all of the possible suspicious things around the case. If these people are "psyching us out" then they are diabolically brilliant. So far, there is nothing that can't be explained with an innocent explanation, if one chooses to look in that direction. Especially since most of what we know is speculation, and we do not know most of what LE knows. (Even the info released in the search warrant was fairly cryptic, obviously in case it was not sealed.) If one is only looking for the worst-case scenario they will view this case in one way, and unless that baby is found in the arms of some crazy person, they will never believe that the parents are innocent. (And even if she were found under those conditions, some people would STILL believe that the parents sold her, traded her for drugs or something equally evil.)

BBM

When they made the deal with a national news work and decided not to talk to local media, they ran a risk that local media would decide that if parents didn't want to talk to them, they wouldn't cover the baby's disappearance. How likely would she be found if a local person had kidnapped her, and local media wasn't publicizing the fact that she was missing?

Would you also get on national TV and give different versions of the timeline on the night your baby went missing?

Like it or not, statisical evidence show that a young child is most likely to be harmed by someone in her household. Therefore LE would be negligent in their duty to ignore that possibility in their search for Lisa. And they would be rightly ridiculed down the road when the case remained unsolved, because LE didn't rule in/out the parents.

It is not LE's fault that the parents have gotten on national TV and given different versions of the timeline for the night the baby went missing. It also isn't LE's fault that DB told national TV that she was drinking, possibly drunk the night the baby went missing. It also isn't LE's fault that DB announced that she failed the lie detector test.

And I also have to give the local LE kudos because they have been following up on tips and looking at other possible persons of interest and baby sightings at the same time they are trying to clear the parents. They haven't picked one possible suspect and excluded all others or only worked on the theory that baby Lisa is alive.

 

[Karmaa]

No,I'm not saying they did at all. I'm saying what I would do and not do. In recent cases media has paid for pictures. IMO Exclusives means getting new info first.

I agree with your take on the word "exclusive" - at least as far as what WE expect it to mean. I think we also expect "exclusive" to mean that there is a good chance the network paid for the information. Because IF the networks are willing to pay for an interview then it is in the fine print that the interviewee cant speak to other networks for a set period of time - thus it is exclusive.

So when a network said "exclusive" many people would have just jumped to the conclusion that they were being paid. I would have myself, except the fact that all three interviews were around the same time. If one network had paid them, they could not have talked to the other two.

My guess would be that the family did NOT get paid. I could be wrong, but it just makes sense.

 

[Abby Normal]

With all due respect, that was a different time. The nation wasn't transfixed daily on one or other missing child tv shows and internet websites accusing parents whenever a child goes missing.

And there were two 12 year old witnesses with a clear description of the kidnapper and an airtight story of what happened.

There was never any doubt what happened to Polly. None. The nation was fully behind the Klaas family in searching for the daughter the nation knew was kidnapped from her bedroom.

There was no reason for Marc to get a lawyer.

My thoughts exactly. It WAS a different era. That was the height of child abduction- statistically speaking. Now we know that probably some of those abductions were parental cover-ups, but we didn't make that assumption then. Parents were innocent unless found guilty in the process of the investigation. Now parents are (probably rightfully) guilty until proven innocent. Now days you probably do need legal advocates.

I think I would hire a competent local attorney to advise and help me navigate the system after a day or two. But I absolutely would not allow a "big name" defense attorney who everyone associates with big crimes to come in, even for free. That just seems like you're asking to be the focus of the investigation. Guilty by association and all.

 

[Karmaa]

BBM

When they made the deal with a national news work and decided not to talk to local media, they ran a risk that local media would decide that if parents didn't want to talk to them, they wouldn't cover the baby's disappearance. How likely would she be found if a local person had kidnapped her, and local media wasn't publicizing the fact that she was missing?

Would you also get on national TV and give different versions of the timeline on the night your baby went missing?

Like it or not, statisical evidence show that a young child is most likely to be harmed by someone in her household. Therefore LE would be negligent in their duty to ignore that possibility in their search for Lisa. And they would be rightly ridiculed down the road when the case remained unsolved, because LE didn't rule in/out the parents.

It is not LE's fault that the parents have gotten on national TV and given different versions of the timeline for the night the baby went missing. It also isn't LE's fault that DB told national TV that she was drinking, possibly drunk the night the baby went missing. It also isn't LE's fault that DB announced that she failed the lie detector test.

And I also have to give the local LE kudos because they have been following up on tips and looking at other possible persons of interest and baby sightings at the same time they are trying to clear the parents. They haven't picked one possible suspect and excluded all others or only worked on the theory that baby Lisa is alive.

I have no issue with LE and the job they are doing. I know that there are bad cops out there and that they can really louse things up, but I tend to believe that MOST cops are good. Not so much about the prosecutors, but the cops are doing what they have to.

My point is that we should not jump to conclusions until we know what LE knows. At least some of it. And, we do have to keep a healthy skepticism about what the media is telling us. They don't seem to have any problem misrepresenting the truth if it will get them more viewers.

 

[andalso]

I do have a tiny twinge of doubt about these parents being involved, but I (at this point) can not call it reasonable doubt. It's more like wishful thinking.

It's not what LE is telling us, it's what they are not telling us that tells me where their suspicions lie.

They are NOT telling people to be aware that (O/T...OMG...just about to type "the boogieman" when my doorbell rang and I'm not expecting anyone....I didn't answer...heart beating fast...)

anyway...they are NOT telling people to be aware of the boogieman (are they, maybe they are but I'm not local so don't know?).

They aren't saying, we have cleared the parents of any wrong doing.
They aren't discounting the parents involvement in any way (but have discounted many other stories/rumors).

If I read between the lines, I feel LE is telling me....one or both of these parents are our only persons of interest.

Have you ever had a secret that you couldn't tell, but you wanted someone to know, and you elude to it, make them guess, until they get it and you don't tell them "no, that's not it", you just say, "...I didn't say anything...". Well, IMO, it's kinda like that with LE. They have most certainly NOT come out and said "we don't think these parents had anything to do with it.

My thoughts are not coming out as clear as I would like, but I hope you all can grasp what I am getting at.

 

[Donjeta]

I fully believe the parents are in on this, and distrust them immensely, but if someone could clear this up for me - did the cadaver dog smell something of Baby Lisa's when it hit on the 'death smell' -- or was it just a generic death smell? I only ask because we used to live in a house in which a former elderly owner had passed away in the master bedroom (it always creeped us out when we were kids). I have not understood if the dog smelled (I hate to put it this way) "death of Lisa" or just a generic smell that could have been there for who knows how long?

There was a discussion of this in the other thread and it was said that depending on the training the dogs have a way of distinguishing between an old smell and a fresh scent.

 

[SarahW]

There was a discussion of this in the other thread and it was said that depending on the training the dogs have a way of distinguishing between an old smell and a fresh scent.

And yet people are mocking Bill Stanton for bringing up the extent of the dog's training.