Suspect’s pain is being projected onto society

If Amanda Daniel were my daughter, I would be very angry. I would feel the same as everyone who has followed this (kidnapping) atrocity. But I am not Amanda's mother or even a relative. I am the sister of Keith Van Elson Jr. I am also cognizant of how very different my emotions and rhetoric would be if the tables of fate were turned; yet my anger is just as real.

We, as a society and as my brother's family, let Amanda down by not stepping in to protect my brother from his own childhood. So, the weights of pain my brother has carried from his own abuse is being forced upon those who do not know his past.

My brother was not born a problem child but created. Now his pain is being projected onto society, as it has been for some time, and we as his family and as the society in which he lives, have let him down. We did not protect him and because we didn't, we were unable to protect Amanda.

I am so sorry for what Amanda has had to go through. I hope she and her family will find it in their hearts to one day forgive my brother. Many times my siblings and I have wished (forgive us, Lord) that my brother would be released from his pain, not only to protect him from himself, but to protect those that he may harm. I love my brother with all my heart.

Becky Elson-Ehlts

Nashville, Tenn.