Mom Debbie Bradley Was Drunk When Baby Lisa Irwin Disappeared

Missing Kansas City, Mo., 10-month-old Lisa Irwin's mom Deborah Bradley admitted on the "Today" show that she may have been drunk the night her child disappeared. This comes revelation comes as the investigation nears its second week. Does this mean mom is implicated, either as an accomplice or a perpetrator? Was she impaired enough that she wouldn't have heard the alleged intruder?

Bradley didn't volunteer the fact that she had been drinking, until she was caught on surveillance camera earlier that day buying a box of wine. This may explain part of the reason that Bradley failed a lie detector test given at the time. The polygraph showed she may know where her baby is. She says she had more than five glasses of wine and may have blacked out, it doesn't mean that she somehow hurt her child. She also said

"If I thought there was a chance, I'd say it. I don't think that alcohol changes a person enough to do something like that."

Can five or more glasses of wine make a parent harm her child? Alcohol is a depressant. It certainly changes the way a person behaves. Normal, healthy, balanced people may do bizarre and dangerous things when intoxicate.

Is five glasses too much? Five glasses is the equivalent of one 750 ml bottle. The legal Blood Alcohol Level limit for drivers is .08 (this may drop to .05). That's the equivalent of about one and one half to two drinks.

The effects of alcohol depend on several things: tolerance (people who drink 2-3 drinks daily often build up some resistance, body size (heavier people can hold more alcohol without feeling the effects), how much food is in the body (alcohol on an empty stomach impairs more quickly) and frame of mind (alcohol in a depressed or angry person increases the negative mood).

Alcohol could easily explain why Bradley failed to hear the dog bark, the baby monitor, or the abductors thought to have taken the baby. Bradley also changed her story about when she last saw baby Lisa Initially, she told investigators that she last saw Lisa when she changed her and put her to bed at 10:30 p.m. Oct. 4. Now Bradley says it may have been about 6:40 p.m. when she last saw the child. The baby's father, Jeremy Irwin says the baby was not in her crib when he came home from work at 4 a.m. He claims the lights were on, windows were open and the door was unlocked.

Police questioned Bradley and Irwin when the baby first disappeared, asking why they hadn't immediately contacted police. The couple says their cellphones, left to charge on the kitchen counter, had disappeared, too. Bradley and Irwin claim police failed to note this in their report. Bradley complained early on, that officers were accusing her of harming her child. At one point, the couple were said to have "stopped cooperating" with police, after an argument. This was later called a "cooling off" period. No arrests were made.

Questions remain unanswered in this baffling case.