For sexual abuse victims, one interview is usually sufficient for investigators to get what they need. But child homicide witnesses, staggered by the trauma, present in haphazard pieces. Boychuk says they might require more and shorter interviews. Sometimes, the child is left with the body for a period of time. All that leads to so many different sounds, smells, thoughts, and images that the child may be overwhelmed.
Some children obsess about the red flashing lights and wailing sirens of the police and ambulance.
Interviewers might need to ask for that information outright, because it could anchor the child and interfere with the interview, Boychuk says. Drawings can sometimes draw out a description of events. After listening to sparse information from one boy, Boychuk asked him to draw his living room, where police found his mother's body. But the child insisted he could not draw, so Boychuk had police fax her a picture of the living room. She cut out the furniture pieces, gave them to the boy along with a blank sheet of paper, and asked him to reconstruct the living room.