All very good questions.
Regarding media interviews of children: There was a wide array of circumstances involved. Some children were approached by reporters and questioned at random, while other children may have made contact with the press first and the police second. Most of these interviews were of the "human interest" sort of story, like how concerned and apprehensive kids were becoming, or how they felt sorry for the Lyon family, etc.
One boy, age 12, was actually named early on by a newspaper and he stated that he saw the girls that day on their way to the mall. I believe that police may have subsequently interviewed the boy, but publically expressed doubt in his story.
In all cases where the police interviewed a child first, they consistantly refused to release the child's name to reporters, but often did summarize the child's testimony. In one case, they identified a boy by the fake name of "Jimmy". This was the boy who first came forward with the story about the Tape Recorder Man.
When "Jimmy's" story became front page news, his parents agreed to let him be interviewed on Television and by a Washington Star Reporter. His real name was not used, and he never gave any follow-on interviews to my knowledge. The full text of that Washington Star story is posted in the section on News and media stories.
Another Washington Star reporter named some adult witnesses in a story; One, a retired seamstress, saw and recognized Sheila and Katherine soon after they arrived at the mall. Another witness, a male sales clerk aged 18, saw them moments later in an adjacent store. These two witnesses helped to establish a good approximate time of arrival of the girls that day, but neither was ever mentioned by police in their press briefings - so it is possible that only the reporter and NOT the police interviewed them. I have also posted the full text of that story in the section on News Stories.
