my bolds.
Response to the bolded sentence.
She didn't. It's that simple. JO didn't leave Nathan in a situation which she suspected might prove dangerous to him. She left him in the care of people who had already proven their love and care for her and her children--her own mother and stepfather.
Nathan was loved by his mother, his father, his brothers, and his grandparents, and everyone in his extended family.
Nathan, like a lot of little boys--like my grandson--liked to have sleepovers with his grandparents, and, if it had been a long day, and he really wanted to have some grandma and grandpa time, he might have asked his mom if he could stay.
So his mother, knowing how he had such a wonderful relationship with her mother--his grandmother, said yes.
Also. You couldn't "have heard this quote from JO" because she didn't say it. Your quote is inaccurate. Another reason why it's necessary to go, when possible, to the source material.
This is excerpted from my transcript of the press conference in order to show the context in which that quote occurred.
So,in fact, Nathan's father, Rod O'Brien, made the comment in answer to the unknown reporter's question (the CPS PR officer did not identify reporters, nor did reporters identify themselves). It seems to me that RO and JO had, by the time of the presser, decided Nathan couldn't have been the target of the crime since the sleepover was spontaneous. It was not a planned visit that some sex offender or extortionist could have found out about and then planned the abduction of the young boy.
The reporter, at least the way I'm reading it, was asking if the parents thought Nathan was still alive. His dad was saying that no one had a reason to kill his son, so he believed Nathan was alive, somewhere. And Nathan's mother, who had seen the aftermath of the violence first hand, and who may have seen an indication that her stepfather was gravely injured in an attack, and knew that her mother was in danger of becoming in medical distress, agreed with her husband that Nathan was alive.
The reporter was also, IMO, referring to that "sixth sense" mothers and fathers tend to have with their children, asking not about logical deductions or hard evidence, but rather asked about what their hearts, their gut instincts were telling them. And the parents, again IMO, were saying that they believed their child was still alive.
I'm going to rant now about a phrase that rankles, so feel free to skip this section if you want.
Rant
The phrase "in the wrong place at the wrong time" should be banned from use in the English language in any discourse in which it is used to indirectly take responsibility for a crime away from the perpetrator and shifting that burden onto the victim. Period. Full stop.
It is victim blaming at its finest. In this case, for example, it manages to blame the two adult primary victims: AL and KL. And then, an added bonus, it blames the secondary victims, one in particular, JO. That phrase shifts the blame from scum of the earth kidnapping felons to the parent and grandparents.
Nowhere has it been shown that there were signs that an attack was coming. Nowhere has it been shown that AL received threatening letters, or telephone messages, or emails or texts that he shared with JO or RO. Nowhere has it been shown that KL or AL would have allowed a little one to stay with them if an angry ex-con was demanding money from them.
At no point have we heard that JO claimed psychic powers, nor that she been given the gift of second sight. JO could not predict that her precious little boy would be harmed. Neither could she should be expected to somehow read the mind of a drug addicted criminal. And there is no rule that a mother should never, ever allow her child to spend any time out of her sight.
Wrong place? Was Nathan left in a rat infested crack house? Was plaster falling off the walls? Was the foundation crumbling? Was Nathan's bed going to be a torn blanket on a floor crawling with roaches? Was he alone in a seedy hotel? Was the house in a rough neighbourhood where street lights were broken, where there was no running water? Was it next to a half-way house? Did sex offenders live next door?
Those would be wrong places. That was not what JO did.
A warm, comfortable house in a pleasant, seemingly well organized and well looked after neighbourhood should not be remotely considered the wrong place for a little boy to spend the night with the grandmother and grandfather who loved him.
Wrong time? After a long day helping with the sale, playing with neighbourhood friends, it seems to me that by 10:00 Nathan might have been already falling asleep, and it probably seemed to be the best decision--let him fall asleep and go home in the morning rather than wake him up by buckling him into his car seat, waking him again after the ride home to unbuckle and get him changed and into bed. Not a wrong time.
This is a tragedy, and, because most human beings are pretty superstitious on some level or other, we hold talismans in front of us to try to give us protection from suffering a similar fate. If we convince ourself that someone else was hurt because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, then if we are in the right place at the right times, we cannot be hurt. Right?
Not so much.
The person or people who didn't belong, who were in the wrong place, were the lowlifes who participated in this crime. They deserve to carry all the burden of their actions.
And there's never a right time for assault or for kidnapping or for murder.
End of rant
I think it should never be doubted that Nathan was loved by his family.
I believe Nathan's family would never knowingly put any child in danger, much less their beloved little boy, and that they did not do so in this case.
