BBM
To me, the cited example is another "could be hinky, could be an individual verbal quirk, I don't know enough to know." Without knowing PR for several years, without knowing if she also referred to their son as "that child" on occasion, etc, it is impossible for me to judge just how off-kilter the statement is.
I have done quite a bit of reading on statement analysis and I am unconvinced.
I have a counter-example: when Devon Davis disappeared (toddler from Texas who was found drowned in a nearby body of water 4 days later), one of the statement analysis blogs analysed April Davis's statements to the media and made it sound like she was guilty as heck in his disappearance:
http://***************************/2012/03/mother-pleas-for-2-year-old-son.html
However, she wasn't guilty of anything other than being an exhausted mom grabbing a nap while her children napped (with is what parents of babies and small children are often told to do!).
Why did she speak the way she did? I don't know but my guess is exhaustion, shock, perhaps not the most educated person out there and may have horrible stage fright too (I've often read that fear of speaking in public is the most common fear).