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From: Kate
T1:
Category 3: Category 1
Date: 05 Aug 1999
Time: 00:57:37
Remote Name: pm417.isomedia.com
Jasper and All:
This thread is for what particular journalists who covered the trial wrote about many of the issues we have discussed.
This first story is about what Sydney heard that night:
Kids' Tears O.J. children cried, `Where's Mommy?' By Shirley E. Perlman
Taken from their beds in the middle of the night as their mother lay dead in the yard, O.J. Simpson's two youngest children tearfully asked police, "Where's Mommy?" according to a police report obtained by New York Newsday.
About 2 1/2 hours after the bodies were found on June 13, 8-year-old Sydney turned to her 5-year-old brother at the West Los Angeles police station and said, "Justin, you know something happened to Mommy or she would have come for us by now," said the report, by an Officer Vasquez.
Sydney then said, "Justin, I heard Mommy's best friend's voice and I heard Mommy crying."
New York Newsday learned yesterday that defense lawyers are seeking to call Sydney, now 9, as a witness in her father's murder trial to testify about the "voice" and the "crying." But the family of the girl's slain mother, Nicole Brown Simpson, will not allow the lawyers to interview the child because they feel it would traumatize her.
Sydney's statement to police came up during defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran's cross-examination of Det. Tom Lange. According to the police report, Vasquez played games with the children and tried to keep them occupied during the almost six hours they spent at the precinct.
Vasquez said that during the ride to the precinct, Sydney asked, "Where's my mommy?" She said the child seemed upset, "and I heard a whimper in her voice as if she was crying," the report said.
She said that another officer who was in the car, Officer Heiden, told the children he didn't know and asked if they wanted anything. Sydney said, "No, I'm just tired and I want my mommy."
She said they arrived at the police station at about 1:25 a.m. and took the children into the conference room. Vasquez said she offered the children sodas and candy, but they refused.
"Justin asked me what all the police were doing in front of his house and Sydney repeatedly asked me waht happened to Mommy and I told them I did not know," Vasquez wrote.
She continued: "I attempted to distract them. I asked what they liked to watch on TV and what they liked doing. Justin stated, 'I like the Power Rangers because I'm a green belt in karate and my mom is going to start going with me again.
"Sydney stated 'I go to dance class. Today Mom and Dad and everybody went to see my dance [recital], but I did not like it because it was some cowboy stuff and I like doing jazz better.' "
Vasquez said Sydney continued to ask about her mother. "Every time she did so she became very upset and would begin to cry."
Throughout the night, Vasquez tried to distract them, playing with them and teaching them sign language until Simpson's oldest daughter, Arnelle, picked them up about 6:30 a.m.
When Sydney mentioned hearing her mother's friend and her mother crying, she asked, "Did you hear, Justin?" Vasquez wrote.
Justin shrugged his shoulders, indicating he didn't know, Vasquez wrote, adding that Sydney didn't "indicate whether her mother's best friend was a male or a female and did not say where or when she heard her mother crying."
After the children had something to eat, they played hangman until 5:30 a.m.
After a while, Justin asked, "Why can't Dad just come for us?"
Sydney turned and said, "because he doesn't stay with us sometimes."
Copyright 1995, Newsday Inc. Shirley E. Perlman, Kids' Tears O.J. children cried, `Where's Mommy?'. , Newsday, 02-24-1995, pp A07.