I remember we played this game in a criminal justice class in college. The professor was giving class as normal, and someone walked in and asked her a question, and walked out. Quite a while later, she asked us all to write down a description of the man who had entered the room earlier. Heights were wildly off, clothing was wildly off; it was really eye opening. The point being that eye witness identification can be very problematic.
Oh, you’ve reminded me of something I did annually for 25 years.
On the first or second day of class (8th graders), as an opening exercise on the use of detail in writing, I used to ask for a volunteer to sit in another classroom for ten minutes.
Then I’d ask the remaining students to describe that child. Height, weight, clothing, hairstyle etc.
As you’ve experienced on the college level, my students, the same ages as Abby and Libby, would have answers that were all over the place. Blue eyes or brown eyes, wearing a purple sweatshirt or a green T-shirt, hair in a ponytail or loose, 5’2” or 4’ 3”, 100 lbs or 70 lbs, black sneakers or brown shoes….
As a beginning of the year exercise, the kids had a good laugh when I called the student back to the room.
Of course I never said in advance that they’d have to describe the child’s appearance. Then they would have studied it, which IMO is similar to what happened here.
As has been said so often by so many of us——prior to the girls going missing, especially before they were found to be murdered, anyone passing BG on the bridge would not necessarily register the details of some average person walking nearby.
Only in retrospect would it be imperative to recall the details of whom they saw, and that’s much trickier than it seems.
Thanks for the reminder. I’ve been retired for a few years and had forgotten all about it, but I completely concur.
JMO and experience.
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