To the editor:

This isn’t an easy letter to write, but in reading all the stories covering the Hendricks situation, one glaring point is continually omitted. While strangers do occasionally molest children, the vast majority of child sexual abuse is committed by someone the child knows and trusts. We teach our children to beware of the creepy stranger hiding in the bushes or in the windowless van, but it seems we don’t want to address that our child is far more likely to be sexually abused by our neighbors, friends or relatives.

I imagine that in the time this debate over where to house this ailing criminal has played out, several Lawrence children have been abused in their own homes, by people they know, and these crimes may never be reported. I personally wouldn’t want Hendricks living next door to me either, but I can’t ignore the fact that he poses far less of a harm to my children than already exists in our community.

Heather Muth,

Lawrence