Jennifer Aglialoro didn't mind that the little girl hid behind the couch, her face shrouded in her hood.
She just wanted her to keep talking and, with any luck, the abuse the child suffered would come up in the conversation.
"It's one of those kids I'll never forget because I helped her say it. She wasn't going to say it, and she came here, and we helped her say it," Ms. Aglialoro said.
Hearing those stories about children being beaten, raped or molested would be unendurable for most.
But Ms. Aglialoro and Kristen Cashuric Fetcho, forensic interviewers at the Children's Advocacy Center of Northeast Pennsylvania, listen past the horror and hear the voice of a child who needs help.
"If my child said that to me I'd be horrified and I'd be upset," Ms. Aglialoro said, recalling a particularly graphic disclosure. "And my first thought was, 'Wow, she shouldn't know that,' and my second thought was, 'This is great because this is really credible information.' ⦠So your head's kind of thinking, 'What's going to help this child? What's going to help this case?'â"
Every day, Ms. Fetcho and Ms. Aglialoro sit down with children and listen as they describe how someone sexually or physically abused them.
"I learned a long time ago that if I'm here or not it's going to happen," Ms. Fetcho said. "So the fact that I do have the ability to make a difference and to help kids out - I get my strength from that. I'm going to keep doing that."
In a nondescript room on Mulberry Street filled with little more than a couch, a couple of beanbag chairs and a camera, they sit down with children one-on-one and hope they will open up and tell them about what are likely the worst moments of their young lives.
"It's very precise. It's like a science, and you get the kids right at a point where you're a very important person to them because they're disclosing to you," Ms. Aglialoro said.
Their work is essential to the investigation and prosecution of crimes against children.
Lackawanna County protocol mandates that all victims of abuse under the age of 18 be interviewed at the center, where Ms. Fetcho and Ms. Aglialoro conduct the interviews in a fashion that avoids leading the children into a disclosure.
They start simply, explaining what the camera is and that there is a team of people - investigators, prosecutors, counselors and center employees - watching in another room.
"And then we'll ask them, 'Tell me why you think you're here today,'â" Ms. Fetcho said.
If the child has not disclosed the abuse yet, the interviewer will go on "fishing trips," asking general questions about their home or their family.
Ms. Fetcho likens her process to a funnel - she starts the conversation out wide and, hopefully, gets it more and more narrow until they reach the moment where the child feels comfortable enough to say what happened.
"So you never really focus on 'this is why we're here.' You kind of bring it all full circle," she said.
For all the training they have had in conducting these interviews, ultimately it is up to the child on how the discussion will go.
There tends to be a certain "flow" to most interviews, "but if a child takes it in a different direction, we go with them," Ms. Fetcho said.
Sometimes that direction is away from the abuse, but the interviewers said that the pressure on them - from the investigators and prosecutors watching and waiting to hear something that can be corroborated - does not come into their minds.
"You're just in there alone with the child and so everything else doesn't matter. Mom and dad's reaction downstairs doesn't matter and who's in the room doesn't matter. It's just connecting with that kid," Ms. Aglialoro said.
Of course, they want to hear the child disclose information just like the team watching the interview does.
There are times when law enforcement has a credible report and may have someone in mind, but pressuring a child to tell his or her side of the story is simply not an option.
"We never, ever make them say anything that they don't want to say because if that ever were to happen I think that would be us disservicing them and it could taint all future disclosures," Ms. Fetcho said.
Sometimes, no matter what questions they're asked, children just won't talk - "That's the part that I hate. I got this far and I just couldn't get it," Ms. Aglialoro said.
"You've tried all of your tricks and you've tried everything you could think of and you just don't get it," she said.
Sometimes, when children go downstairs at the center for a medical evaluation, they will tell their stories to the doctor - unprompted. Sometimes they won't say anything for years.
Children disclose when they are ready, Ms. Fetcho said. When they are, she and Ms. Aglialoro are eager to listen, no matter how horrible the details.
"It's really weird. People think we're crazy," Ms. Aglialoro said. "It's so pure. You're so purely helping the child."
Contact the writer: domalley@timesshamrock.com, @domalleyTT on Twitter