FBI: Missing Iowa girls likely alive

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EVANSDALE, Iowa, July 21 (UPI) -- The FBI said Saturday two missing Iowa girls are likely alive but authorities are not getting "total cooperation from all family and close friends."

Cousins Lyric Cook-Morrissey, 10, and Elizabeth Collins, 8, disappeared July 13 in Evansdale and their bicycles were found along a trail near Meyers Lake the same day. After the lake and surrounding area were searched, authorities said Friday they had determined the girls had been abducted.

"Cooperation with law enforcement is the key factor in discovering the whereabouts of Lyric and Elizabeth," FBI spokeswoman Sandy Breault told reporters Saturday afternoon. "Unfortunately, law enforcement have not received total cooperation from all family and close friends."

The Des Moines Register reported Breault said the lack of cooperation by some family members and friends has been a "hindrance," but that officials "have some things that we can't discuss that lead us to believe they [the girls] are alive."

"We are not discouraged by the passage of time since their disappearance," she said.

Dan Morrissey and Misty Cook-Morrissey, the parents of Lyric, hired an attorney this week who advised them to stop talking with police or the media and to not agree to anymore polygraph tests, family told the newspaper.