KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - The 8-year-old half brother of Lisa Irwin, a Kansas City baby who has been missing for six weeks, is the subject of a motion for temporary custody filed by his mother, the woman's attorney said.
The boy lives with his father, Jeremy Irwin, and the baby's mother Deborah Bradley, who reported Lisa missing in the early hours of Oct. 4. Bradley and Irwin insist an intruder crept into their home as the family slept and abducted Lisa from her crib.
Rasleen Raim, the boy's mother, has filed a petition in Clay County that seeks to modify the custody and visitation agreement, her attorney Dorothy Savory told The Kansas City Star (http://bit.ly/vWO61b). The court declined to provide details because the original case started as a paternity case.
The newspaper report did not provide details of the agreement. Irwin and Bradley's attorney, Joe Tacopina, said Raim hasn't seen the boy for 6 years despite a court order allowing visits. He said she also hasn't paid court-ordered child support.
"She should be ashamed to call herself a mother," he said in an email to The Associated Press.
Raim's lawyer said recent events prompted her to make the move for temporary custody.
"Mrs. Raim has always kept her son . in her thoughts and prayers," Dorothy Savory said in a written statement. "Now, more than ever, she is concerned about 'her baby's' comfort and peace of mind. Rasleen misses her son and has always, and will forever, love him."
The mother didn't have a listed phone number. Calls by the AP to police and her attorney weren't immediately returned.
Jeremy Irwin says he came home in the early hours of Oct 4. after working a late shift and discovered Lisa missing. He says the front door was unlocked, a window was ajar, lights were on and three cellphones were missing.
Lisa's 8-year-old half brother was home at the time, as were Bradley and her now-6-year-old son from another relationship.
Law enforcement officers combed the neighborhood, local woods, an industrial area and even storm drains in their hunt for Lisa. FBI agents searched the house with cadaver dogs. Police say efforts to find Lisa continue behind the scenes although the physical search for the baby, whose first birthday was last week, has ended.
Tacopina said the family plans to move back into their house Tuesday. They had been staying with family while investigations into Lisa's whereabouts continued.
Bradley admits she had spent the night before the baby was found missing sitting outside with a neighbor, smoking cigarettes and getting drunk on boxed wine, and says she last checked on the baby around 6:30 p.m.
She has said police have accused her of being involved in the child's disappearance, and that she failed a polygraph test. In tearful early statements to the media, Bradley repeatedly insisted she doesn't know what happened to her child.
Discrepancies in Bradley's story - she initially told investigators she last checked on the baby around 10:30 p.m. - and the parents' apparent unwillingness to speak separately with detectives have cast the family in a negative light.
Bradley and Irwin's Kansas City lawyer, John Picerno, has said the couple spoke to police for more than 30 hours before limiting contact after the questioning became "nasty." He said the police can submit new questions for the parents to him or the couple's New York attorney.
Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com