THE O.J. SIMPSON MURDER TRIAL : Children’s Reactions in Wake of Slayings Described in Report

Despite efforts to shield Nicole Brown Simpson’s children from seeing the carnage outside her condominium the night she and Ronald Goldman were killed, the eldest child sensed something horrible had occurred, according to a Los Angeles police report released Tuesday.

“Justin, you know something happened to Mommy or she would have come for us by now,” the report quotes then-8-year-old Sydney Simpson as having said to her younger brother.

An officer assigned to distract the children with games and snacks reported that Sydney repeatedly asked about her mother and cried when given vague answers. The two-page report was released to The Times with Judge Lance A. Ito’s approval.

It chronicles the emotional toll on the Simpson children in the hours after they were awakened by police officers and whisked from their home through a rear garage as the bodies of their mother and Goldman lay outside near the front gate.

It also contains statements Sydney made to Justin that lawyers for O.J. Simpson contend might point to a suspect other than the former football great. Sydney is quoted as saying she had heard her mother’s “best friend’s voice and heard Mommy crying,” according to the report, which does not say when this occurred.

Most poignant, however, are the descriptions of the children’s behavior in the five hours they were being cared for by police.

“I offered them sodas and candy but they refused,” an officer wrote in the report. “Justin asked me what all the police officers were doing in front of his house.”

As dawn neared, Justin is quoted as saying: “Why can’t Dad just come for us?” Sydney turned to her brother and said simply, “Because he doesn’t stay with us sometimes.”