Lisa Irwin...

Lisa Irwin is the latest missing child (in her case, Infant) to make the news. The father returned from his job at 4:00 AM to find the whole house lit up, the front door and a window wide open, and no baby anywhere.

Today's news (October 7th, 2011) is that the parents have stopped cooperating with police.

Now, I remember the JonBenet Ramsey case a decade and a half ago, and there are some strange similarities. JonBenet was not kidnapped, although there was a ransom note. Instead JonBenet was murdered, and the detectives in that case seemed to have botched it about as badly as could be. One of the first things they did was to focus on the family as suspects.

Now, I am sure whenever a spouse is murdered, some large percentage of the time the killer is the surviving spouse. I am also sure that when a child goes missing, the parents or a close family member are involved a large percentage of the time. But as an accountant I knew used to say, "Figures don't lie... but liars figure."

Percentages don't really mean anything in an individual case. Just like "America has 90% employment" doesn't mean squat if you are searching for a job.

I suspect that the police began aggressively questioning someone in the family - the mom, the dad, a brother, whoever - because that is what detectives do. I am not implying that they should stop doing it. Police deal with criminals on a daily basis, and, after a while, I think it makes them a bit suspicious of everybody.

But not everybody who is working with the police is a criminal - like, say, the family of an infant who has been snatched from her bed. While the investigation may eventually lead to a family member, it should not start there. People in emotional distress behave differently depending on the individual. Some cry and scream and shout - like outsiders expect. Some drop into a state of shock, and maybe distance themselves from reality, becoming cold and distant. This, of course, would be viewed suspiciously, even though I suspect it is perfectly natural.

So what will become of young Lisa Irwin, and the family, and the police in Kansas City, MO? Statistics say that, if she was truly kidnapped, she will be returned home - eventually. Of the 250,000 kidnappings a year, only about 100 result in fatalities, and almost all of them occur within the first couple hours.

Of course, statistics don't mean much for this one family.

They will be in my prayers.

They need to be in all our prayers.