Investigators are turning their focus to finding 18-month-old Lana Leigh Bailey, who has been missing for more than a week after the bodies of her mother and two others were discovered at a farm in Ottawa, Kans., according to NBC News.
The bodies of her mother Kaylie Bailey, 21, Andrew Stout, 30, and Steven White, 31, were discovered on Monday without any trace of Bailey's daughter, Lana.
Police requested that an Amber Alert be issued, but the request was denied by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, according to KSHB.com. They decided that the request was made too late, and "utilizing the Emergency Alert System ... would not enhance coverage" in finding the baby.
"Please bring [Lana] back to us. We're focused on getting her back," Lana's aunt Shawna Pettijohn said in a heartfelt plea for information on the missing baby. She shared some of Lana's habits in hopes that someone may recognize them. "She loves holding things up to her heart and saying 'I', she loves clapping her hands. She'll make you work hard for a smile, but it is always worth it."
Rachel Helms-Bailey, Lana's paternal grandmother who lives in Lebanon, Mo., said "she was a very, very loving child," having helped take care of her when she was born, and her being missing fills a great void in her life. "I use to lay with her and put her to sleep every night for eight months," she said.
Pettijohn told investigators that Lana's mother Bailey was "cheerful and playful, strong-minded" and "very sweet," though could at times be "somewhat naive maybe in the people she associated with," and she "thought the world of her baby. She loved her dearly."
Bailey and Lana were last seen at the farm on May 1, and family members told KSHB.com that Bailey had planned to leave Lana with co-worker Stout, whom her friends said she was having a relationship with, while she worked a nightshift job at a clothing distribution center.
They were reported missing by Bailey's family on Friday after she failed to show up for work for a second consecutive shift. Officers were able to link the report with a home in Franklin County.
Franklin County Sheriff Jeffrey Richards told reporters on Wednesday this week that he intends to find Lana alive. "We are going to continue to look for Lana," he said. "Right now our focus is going to be finding this child." The Sheriff's department said in an emailed statement that the three victims were identified following a forensic examination and deemed to have been murdered in a triple homicide.
"The sheriff's department statement said Lana had brown hair, blue eyes and was about 2 feet tall and 30 pounds."
