What Happened to Baby Daphne?
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST: Tonight, breaking news just in. A frantic search under way as we speak for a beautiful toddler. Tonight, where is baby Daphne? New information is just coming in. This 21-month-old vanishes as her dad says he runs into the store, leaving his little girl in the car with her 87-year-old grandmother, who just happens to suffer from dementia. And when he comes out, baby Daphne is gone. But tonight, questions about his story. What happened to this adorable toddler? Is he telling the whole story? I`m Jane Velez-Mitchell, coming to you live.</s>KIANA DAVIS, DAPHNE`S MOTHER (singing): Each though my heart is breaking...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Daphne Webb is just 21 months old. Her father reported her missing.</s>KIANA DAVIS: There`s no way to express how you feel when your child is missing.</s>JOHN WEBB, DAPHNE`S FATHER: These passing days have been the worst nightmare of any parent.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They left Daphne in the car while he went into this store last Wednesday. When he came back, she was gone.</s>WEBB: I`m just a home body. I mean, even before all this happened, I never really went nowhere.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody else saw Anthony with Daphne.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Somebody knows something.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Little Daphne`s dad -- you saw him right there on the surveillance cam video. He claims she disappeared two weeks ago tomorrow. And again, here is the dad, John Webb, on convenience store surveillance video, buying an energy drink. He says he walked out of the store, and his little girl is gone and so is Grandma`s purse. Was Daphne kidnapped? Was this a stranger abduction? Does his story add up? And now we are just getting new reports in that relatives are telling us they had not seen baby Daphne for more than two weeks -- two weeks -- before her father reports her missing. But the dad responds that`s because, well, he doesn`t really leave the house.</s>WEBB: I`m just a home body. I mean, even before all this happened, I never really went nowhere unless I just had to leave the house for something.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Why? Why does he stay at the house all the time? Do you buy the dad`s story? What do you think? Call me: 1-877-JVM-SAYS, 1- 877-586-7297. Straight out to Henry Lee, reporter with "The San Francisco Chronicle." Henry, what is the very latest?</s>HENRY LEE, REPORTER, "SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE": The very latest, Jane, is that at one point, John Webb was in jail in custody for child endangerment, but the district attorney`s office did not file charges, so he`s a free man. He, in fact, showed up, Jane, at a vigil for missing Daphne Webb outside the store where he says he last saw her. Police are still looking for this little child, and he is saying he has nothing to do with her disappearance.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: HLN contributor Jon Leiberman, you`ve been investigating. You`ve been making calls; you`ve been digging. What have you learned?</s>JON LEIBERMAN, HLN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, at this point, Jane, it`s very interesting. Police have released a photo of the little girl and her father, because they`re trying to put a timeline together of when they were last seen together. Because family and friends say that they weren`t seen together for -- until two weeks before the little girl went missing, and police are skeptical that this was a stranger abduction in broad daylight, in late morning while this man was in the convenience store for all of a few minutes. So they`re trying to put together this timeline to see if the dad`s story adds up.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Here`s the problem. The big problem with the father`s story. Police say the last confirmed sighting of baby Daphne -- and look at this adorable child -- it`s from late June. And we`re well into July, people. Despite the dad says, oh, she disappeared July 10. So there`s a gap of about two weeks when the family sees this little girl and when he says, "Oh, she disappears while I get an energy drink at the convenience store." When the dad reports his toddler missing, he was then jailed by authorities -- you just heard that -- for child endangerment, because he left a toddler alone in a car with a woman who suffers from dementia. But again, those child -- those charges were not filed against him, so he has been released. Now, we have an exclusive interview with Kevin Davis. You are the grandfather of this missing toddler on the mother`s side. First of all, thank you for joining us. I know you must be heartbroken and absolutely torn apart. This is an adorable toddler. We want to help find her. Do you buy the dad`s story? You`re part of this family. Do you buy the dad`s story?</s>KEVIN DAVIS, GRANDFATHER OF DAPHNE WEBB (via phone): Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. And for us to have a chance to put this on air. There`s some questions that I have about it. And basically, that`s the question -- one of the questions is, went in the store, came out. The baby seat -- the car seat is a little difficult to take it loose. So you need a few minutes to take that off and get the baby out. But even more so, there was an adult in the car. Even though she had dementia, you can`t really see dementia on the face of a person. So the question I have is who was bold enough to take the baby out of the car with an adult in the car present?</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, if you could stand by, sir, let us go to the Lion`s Den, because this -- a maternal grandfather is raising very good questions. And I`ll start with Vinny Parco. Vinny, he makes the point that yes, Grandma had dementia, but how does anybody know that Grandma had dementia, unless you had a crystal ball?</s>VINNY PARCO, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR: I don`t think -- you know, this whole story sounds very fishy. No. 1, the wife is in jail -- is in rehab. She has a drug problem. He claims that he`s home as a home body. What is he -- how is he making his money? I -- I smell drug -- I smell drugs all over this case. And maybe he`s a drug dealer. Maybe somebody took the kid as revenge because they beat him on a deal. Who knows?</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well...</s>PARCO: The story is very fishy.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: I don`t want to attack this dad. I mean, he is the father of this child. And Marc Klaas, you`re the president and founder of Klaas Kids Foundation. You are the leader in this nation in seeking missing children. Your own precious daughter was abducted and murdered, so you know that it can happen. And sometimes parents, when they report something like this, they`re treated with skepticism.</s>MARC KLAAS, PRESIDENT/FOUNDER, KLAAS KIDS FOUNDATION: Well, they`re going to be treated with skepticism, because the numbers always take you back to two things: the last person to see the child, and the person -- the child`s family, their parents, because the statistics are very clear that, in the vast majority of cases, parents are involved. I think something else, just to add on to what Kevin said. There are degrees of dementia. The fact that she has dementia doesn`t mean that she`s completely and totally zoned out all the time by any means. She might have slight episodes. She might be coherent and cognizant the vast majority of the time. So I think that Kevin`s absolutely correct. I think something else that needs to be pointed out is that that, first of all, is a very mean street, that location, at 79th and International Boulevard. But there`s also a lot of businesses there, so there are going to be a variety of surveillance cameras in and around that neighborhood. And to think that nobody caught anything, either him parking, him getting out of the car, or somebody leaving with that little child, I think speaks volumes.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Lisa Bloom, legal analyst, Avvo.com, one would think that, even though the grandma has dementia, maybe she comes to enough to answer the question "Was the baby ever in the car?"</s>LISA BLOOM, LEGAL ANALYST, AVVO.COM: Well, that`s right. And wouldn`t the baby have screamed bloody murder if she`s being abducted by a stranger? Wouldn`t the grandmother, even suffering from dementia, potentially have screamed at a stranger coming into the car and taking a child? You know, look, the man is innocent until proven guilty. And let`s give him every benefit of the doubt, because his daughter has disappeared. But he has a lot of questions to answer. The biggest red flag for me is the two-week period when nobody saw that little girl. It reminds me very much of Casey Anthony, whose daughter was not...</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Oh, yes.</s>BLOOM: ... seen for several weeks till she was reported missing. We all know how that turned out. So I really wonder how you can be the single father of a baby under the age of 2 and nobody sees the baby. If the only other adult is somebody with dementia, you have to take the baby out with you when you go buy food...</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well...</s>BLOOM: ... when you go buy...</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: What about play dates? What about play dates? A 21- month-old child. Listen, we`re going to go to Officer Johnna Watson, who is with the public information office of the Oakland Police Department. What else can you tell us? You`ve been hearing our dialogue here. We are trying to find this precious child with these big, big, big eyes. What do you know, Officer?</s>OFFICER JOHNNA WATSON, OAKLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT (via phone): Well, first of all, I want to say thank you and especially from the Oakland Police Department, for shining a light on this case. The true focus is locating baby Daphne. That is our focus of the investigation. It`s still very active. And we continue and have never stopped the search since she was reported by her father, John Webb, on July 10. We continue to reach out to the community, and our focus at this point of the investigation is really narrowing that timeline down. A lot of conversations with a lot of speculation, and obviously, the investigation is very broad-based. So we`re taking into a lot of account...</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Let me ask you this, Officer. Did you give this guy, this dad a polygraph?</s>WATSON: I can`t share that information with you, because it still is an active investigation. I can`t go into...</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. OK.</s>WATSON: ... the type of investigative tools we`ve used. And additionally, I can`t go into any conversations that took place between the investigator...</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: Does he have a rap sheet? Does he have a criminal record? What does he do? What does he do for a living? I mean, he says he spends most of his time at home. What father of a toddler spends most of his time at home with a toddler? I mean, there`s daycare. There`s play dates. There`s preschool. There`s a million things. Kids have to go outside. I don`t get that. I mean, at least the neighbors would probably have had to have seen the child playing in the yard. The fact that the family has not seen the family for two weeks prior to when he reports her missing. Let me put it this way -- and I know you have to be very circumspect in how answer a question -- are you investigating the father`s story?</s>WATSON: Absolutely. So let me share with you where we are in the investigation. We really have three parallel investigations. One focuses on the missing kidnapping portion. The second focuses on if there should be foul play and who would factor into the foul play. And thirdly, the child endangerment and reports of the child not being seen by family or neighbors or just even the community at large. And some of the factors that weigh in. So we`re really looking at different areas of this investigation as a whole.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: I know this is public information, so maybe you can answer this: Have you executed a search warrant on the father`s home?</s>WATSON: Yes, we have. We did that immediately, the father`s home, along with other areas, vehicles associated and other areas, as well. Those were initiated immediately.</s>VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Officer Watson, thank you so very much. I know you`re busy; I know you`re trying to find this precious angel. Look at her with her little bow and her big eyes. Innocence, innocence. And it`s such a tragedy when we report these cases. This poor little thing, what happened to her? Now we have information on the other side. We`re going to go back to the maternal grandfather and ask him what does he know about the dad. What does this dad do for a living? Why is he saying that he`s at home all the time? Maybe there`s a good reason. Maybe he works on a computer out of his house. A lot of people do. I know a lot of people who do. Stay right there. We`re taking your calls on the other side.</s>WEBB: I`m just a home body. I mean, even before all this happened, I never really went nowhere. Unless I had to leave the house for something.