 Sick, misanthropic bastards like Bill O'Reilly and fact-challenged morons like this guy should be slapped for insinuating that the abducted Missouri boy, Shawn Hornbeck, who was held by a wacko named Michael Devlin for for years, either liked his circumstances as an abductee, or ran away from home and stayed with Devlin on purpose. The latest news, that he talked to a police officer about a stolen bike, 10 months into his ordeal, and that he made friends and even went to a school dance, are titilating to a public hungry to know the gory details of his captivity, but as most psychologists will tell you, they are not dispositive.
It seems to me that the most likely scenario is the obvious one: Shawn, who after all was just an 11 year old child when he was taken at gunpoint. was terrified of his captor as he told Oprah, not to mention psychologically brutalized and so he complied with him completely, in order to survive. It seems likely that Devlin not only had a gun, he also had abducted, probably molested and maybe even killed, children before. And then there was the other kind of terror he likely used. This chilling slip by a Missouri Sheriff tells a lot:
"In cases like these, there might be a possibility that there might be other kids involved," Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke told a news conference.
Franklin County is home to Ben Ownby, 13, one of the boys Devlin is accused of kidnapping.
Toelke described Devlin, who will be arraigned today, as a sex offender but then took it back.
"People who commit these crimes don't just wake up one day and decide to be a sex offender," he said.
But in the next breath, the sheriff said he didn't have information that the 300-pound pizzeria manager was a sex offender. ...
But he most likely is, and maybe even a murderous one.
And if that's true, it's also likely that the day that police stumbled on that truck, and discovered Ben Ownby in that apartment, was the luckiest day of Shawn Hornbeck's life. It seems obvious that his captor was drawn to boys around 11 years old, and since Shawn was now a considerably bigger, older teen, he was looking to "replace" him with Ben Ownby. And that can only mean one thing: Shawn Hornbeck probably didn't have long to live. Scroll down to the second headline in this report:
The captor who held Shawn Hornbeck for more than four years kept him from fleeing by threatening to kill the boy and his entire family, investigators said Monday.
That helps explain why Shawn, 15, freed Friday when police tracked a second kidnapped boy to an apartment in Kirkwood, did not seize ample opportunities to run or summon help, according to the investigators....
Officials have determined that Shawn and Ben both were grabbed off the street and prevented from leaving Devlin's vehicle. And while all three were wired into the Internet and involved in computer games, there is no evidence of prior contact between Devlin and either boy, according to investigators.
Investigators have found no evidence that Devlin abducted any other children, sources said. But they are poring over computer equipment and videotapes obtained in a weekend search of his apartment, looking for evidence in Ben and Shawn's cases and any indication of other victims.
Investigators say they are puzzled that Devlin never has been accused of lesser offenses, which tend to be found among people who work their way up the crime ladder to child abduction.
Also on Monday, Washington County Sheriff Kevin Schroeder said Devlin owned a piece of vacant property there, about 20 minutes from where Shawn was kidnapped in the rural community of Richwoods. Cue the backhoes...
All the speculation about him should end. What this kid needs is support -- emotional, psychological and financial. He's going to need to catch up on four years of school, four years with his family, and create new memories to replace what have to be horrible ones -- and mundane ones -- he was likely forced to adjust to a situation he didn't create, and to his credit, he seems to have done so. That said, his parents will have to keep a close eye on this young man, and pray that he can still become a well adjusted adult, after several years of loving care and some semblance of a normal life.
As for that lying, self-aggrandizing fool, Bill O'Reilly, if Fox had an ounce of decency, they'd fire his dumb ass, like yesterday.
There are a lot of questions here. Why didn't anyone around "Shawn Devlin" act on what seemed to be suspicions that he at least looked like Shawn Hornbeck? Why didn't his friends tell their parents? If they did, why didn't their parents tell police? This case was apparently huge in that part of Missouri, yet no one seemed to question what was apparent, right in front of them? Even Devilin's boss apparently became suspicious of him eventually, and to his credit, he did talk to a friend on the police force. But the boss was the exception, and that's the real tragedy here; in addition to the prurience of so many people about what these two boys went through, and the insensitivity of a Bill O'Reilly (who should, as Keith Olbermann said, be immediately pushed off the public stage,) there is this paralysis that inflicts all of us -- an unwillingness to get involved, which allows people like Michael Devlin to do the evil things they do.
But even that is 20/20 hindsight. Those folks in Missouri could have been any of us.
Anyway, give to the Shawn Hornbeck foundation here. I'm not sure if there's a fund for Ben Ownby, but there should be, and if I find it, I'll link to it, too.
Labels: Ben Ownby, crime, media, Michael Devlin, mysteries, Shawn Hornbeck |
