Kidnappings solved; drumbeat sounds on kid safety

By Pat Reber Jan 18, 2007, 15:21 GMT

Washington - The rescue of two teenage boys from a kidnapper last week, one of them after four years, has set off a steady drumbeat on the need for vigilance across the US.

While the Washington County, Missouri, District Attorney John Rupp has been busy preparing charges of armed kidnapping and other crimes to be formally presented Thursday, child safety experts have been sending out alarms.

Parents must not only watch closely over their children, but everyone young and old must stay alert to their surroundings, they say.

Speed is of the essence. The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCME) says that 74 per cent of abducted children who are murdered are dead within three hours after their abduction.

Without such vigilance and speed, in fact, police would have never found Shawn Hornbeck, 15, held captive in a St Louis suburb since 2002, and Ben Ownby, 13, held by the same suspect for four days last week.

They were among an estimated 800,000 children under 18 who go missing every year, according to a 2002 study by the US Department of Justice. More than 500,000 were classified as endangered runaways, and another 260,000 were abducted by family or non-family members. The vast majority returned home, a spokeswoman at the NCME said.

But Hornbeck and Ownby belonged to an even smaller subset - the estimated 115 children a year who are victims of classic kidnappings.

Ownby disappeared on Monday, January 8, after getting off his school bus in Beaufort, a small town about 100 kilometres west of St Louis.

An 'Amber' alert for missing children went out in the media, jogging the memory of a classmate of Ownby's who recalled seeing a white Nissan truck speed off from where Ownby was last seen walking. He gave details to police: a battered vehicle, camper shell, 'Nissan' printed on the tailgate.

Days later, two police officers from suburban Kirkwood outside St Louis happened to be at the apartment complex where the boys were being held. Michael Devlin, 41, who has since been detained as the kidnapping suspect, was not yet in their cross-hairs.

The police were looking for someone else who was not home, on another matter, but as they came down the stairs they noticed in the parking lot a white Nissan that fit the Amber Alert description, the officers said in broadcast comments.

'We canvassed the area,' said Officer Gary Wagster. 'We checked the vehicle for warrants. The registration checked out.'

While the officers were puzzling over the car, Devlin walked towards the police with a garbage bag he was bringing to the dumpster.

Wagster and his partner, Officer Chris Nelson, recognized and greeted him. Devlin, tall and chunky, was the guy who often delivered pizza to the police station from the restaurant he'd worked at for 25 years. He had a reputation for being chatty and friendly.

'We asked him, do you know whose pickup truck this is?' Nelson recalled. 'He said, 'Yes, it's mine'.'

After a little while, however, casual talk turned to police questions, and Devlin 'became just a different person,' Wagster said. 'His whole demeanour changed. He started clenching his fists. He wouldn't make eye contact.'

By Friday, the boys were freed to jubilant parents, who faced clamouring reporters on Saturday at press conferences. Ownby, who had been held four days, grinned confidently beneath his eyeglasses as his parents answered questions.

Hornbeck, tall and lanky and 'grown up on me,' as his mother Pam Akers put it, was more subdued - giving way to speculation about the torment he may have suffered over four years.

In media reports since their release, neighbours at the apartment complex said they thought Hornbeck was Devlin's son, although they thought it strange he did not go to school and stayed home all day apparently playing video games.

Hornbeck, in fact, had been held for four years in plain sight. He had access to the internet, was often seen outside the apartment and had even been stopped by police three times for violating a curfew.

As to why he never tried to escape, child experts say he could have succumbed to the Stockholm syndrome and identified with his captor, or been terrified that Devlin would kill him or his family if he tried to escape.

Either way, Hornbeck's stepfather Craig Akers told reporters that the situation showed how a little more curiosity may have helped.

'It goes back to everybody minding their own business, not wanting to get involved, not paying attention and putting their blinders on and worrying about themselves and themselves only,' Akers said. 'We've lost a lot of our sense of community. We've lost a lot of our neighbour-helping-neighbour.'

Ernie Allen of the NCME said in recent remarks that the survival of Ownby and Hornbeck sends a 'key message' of 'hope.'

'Most of America's missing children are returned alive,' he said.

In addition to the standard advice about teaching kids to avoid strangers and other situations, the NCME urges parents to teach children 'that safety is more important than manners.'

'It is more important for children to get themselves out of a threatening situation than it is to be polite,' the website says.