Posted on 01/16/2007 11:28:48 AM PST by keats5
NEW YORK -- Ben Ownby and his family appeared on the NBC "Today" show this morning to describe what it was like to be back after his abduction last week.
Host Meredith Vieira asked the boy what he had felt when he was reunited with his parents. His answer: "Great relief."
Ben's mother, Doris Ownby, recalled the words a police officer used to tell her they had recovered her son, who had been missing for four days: "We have him."
"And I said, 'We have who?'" she added, " 'cause I thought he was talking about the bad guy," Advertisement
Ben had praise for Mitchell Hults, the teenager who gave deputies a detailed description of the pickup truck. Asked what he'd like to say to Hults, Ben replied, "Thank you for being such a great big help in this entire thing."
His sister, Amanda, said, "I don't think I've ever been happier in my life."
Ben told Vieira that he was ready to head back to school. "I just need my backpack," he said.
His mother, Doris Ownby, said, "I've been trying to think of a way I could go to school with him."
Vieira asked, "What do you think of that, Ben?"
The boy's answer: "Nooooooooooo."
Later this morning, at Union High School, hundreds of students cheered Mitchell Hults at a special assembly honoring his role in Ownby's rescue. Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke said that Hults "provided us with an outstanding description" that led to Ben's recovery last week.
Roland Corvington, special agent in charge of the FBI office in St. Louis, presented Mitchell with an FBI baseball cap and said:
"I would hope, Mitchell, that as you grow older, you would consider law enforcement as a career."
The only member of the Ownby family at the assembly was Ben's sister, Amanda, who said: "Mitchell, we owe you the world."
The school presented Mitchell with a plaque honoring him as "the hero of the Missouri Miracle."
Mitchell sat in the audience at first, then was called to the podium as his fellow students gave him a standing ovation. He did not address the crowd.
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Our earlier story:
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.
Michael J. Devlin, 41, is being held in jail on a charge of kidnapping in the Jan. 8 abduction of William "Ben" Ownby, 13, near the teen's home in Beaufort, in Franklin County. Charges are pending in the 2002 disappearance of Shawn.
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.
"It's a connection — I would definitely say so," Schroeder said.
While officials have revealed almost nothing about the conditions under which Shawn was kept for so long, it is clear that he eventually enjoyed freedom to move alone around the community, use a cell phone and interact with others on the Internet.
There was at least one occasion when he had a police officer's full attention. But the physical ability to flee did not make him less of a captive, sources close to the case said.
Although Devlin had several traffic tickets and was sued in 1999 over four years worth of unpaid state taxes, investigators have found nothing that would have put him on their radar.
A tip during the search for Ben from someone at the Imo's Pizza in Kirkwood, where Devlin worked, alerting authorities of similarities between his white Nissan pickup and one seen near Ben's disappearance, was not given top priority because Devlin had no criminal record.
Two Kirkwood officers said they noticed the truck Thursday while trying to serve an unrelated warrant on someone else in the same apartment complex. While the officers were there, other residents also pointed out the truck to them.
Devlin refused to let officers check his apartment, which triggered surveillance that resulted in Devlin's arrest Friday and the subsequent rescue of the boys.
Investigators said Devlin has been somewhat cooperative with authorities, even confessing to Ben's abduction.
Schroeder, the Washington County sheriff, said Devlin could face charges as early as today in Shawn's disappearance. He also said Devlin is likely to be questioned about several missing children, perhaps some from outside the St. Louis area.
Schroeder said authorities are not pressing Shawn for answers.
"We're leaving Shawn alone for a little while, being away for that long, to give him time to readjust and basically reunite with his family," he said. "That's what our main concern is. We've got the suspect behind bars on a million-dollar bond. We have that luxury right now."
New details have emerged about Shawn's encounter with a police officer last year. Officials said he was riding his bike alone late the night of Sept. 29 when a Glendale officer stopped him.
The officer, parked near a house that had collapsed earlier that day, was keeping people away from the rubble when he spotted Shawn about 11:20 p.m. on Essex Avenue, about a mile from where he lived in Kirkwood.
According to the police report, Shawn told the officer his name was "Shawn Devlin" and gave him the birth date July 7, 1991 — 10 days off his true date of birth.
Shawn told the officer he was biking to his apartment in Kirkwood after visiting a friend's home.
"He was wearing dark clothing and didn't have reflectors on his bike. The officer stopped him to find out who he was," said Glendale police Sgt. Bob Catlett. "He just appeared to be a typical 15-year-old kid riding his bike from a friend's house. He said he was Shawn Devlin, and we had no reason to doubt him."
Heather Ratcliffe and Dale Singer of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report, as did the Associated Press.
Sometimes O'reilly is a big jackass.
I wonder how he would feel if it was his little girl who was kidnapped?
Its not the "homosexuality".
It, (mind control manipulation of shame and guilt), is the same in any situation where someone, especially a minor, is forced, even just psychologically, into active submission to the demands of their predator-captor.
In this case the sicko liked boys, in others (like the Mormom girl a few years back) the predator likes little girls. The behaviors of the predators and the pschological brutality suffered by the victims is the same, regardless of sexuality.
Of course it is the "homosexuality." because regardless of the propoganda, homosexuality is not what the average parent wants for his child. A girl subjected to the same captivity is tainted goods. For a boy, the stain is deeper.
I think you are right...I think shame does enter in as well. O'Reilly's an ass. Is he suggesting that this poor kid prefered to be abused???? He sounds like NAMBLA!!!!If the poor boy did not leave his abductor, no doubt it was a combination of first thinking that he and his parents would be killed, shame that abused children often feel and no doubt thinking he could never go back...
I'm trying to figure out your point when you say " A girl subjected to the same captivity is tainted goods. For a boy, the stain is deeper."
Okay, when I checked this story on FR a few days ago the word was this guy was a convicted sex offender. Who came up with that?! (Note: I'm not saying he isn't one but apparently he has never been convicted of being one in the past.)
Each has been shamed and people don't forget that. But a girl of that age who has been a "love slave" is not looked upon the way that a boy who has been. The latter has been more humiliated, unmanned so to speak.
There are TWO Michael Devlins; both of which are perverts but the other one was a convicted pervert.
A guy in Utah with the same name who IS a sex offender...but not the same guy.
Ditto on the other replies to you. I think it was on the thread you pinged me to the other day. They tracked down another Michael Devlin but it turned out to be some other guy, same age, in Utah that was convicted for sexual offenses.
The "stain" while manifested in different ways is the same - it is the manipulated creation of guilt and shame egendered into the victim by the predator and the predators actions, in which they achieved the victims cooperation. The predator's sexual preferences of their victims does not change the psychology of what happens to the victim.
Are the resulting coping-problems different? Yes. They are different, mostly by degree.
In general, victims in heterosexual situations have an easier time opening up to others about what happened, and thus make more progress in undoing what happened to them; because the stigma placed on them for the sex implies less "shame", even if their own manipulated feelings of guilt are not any less.
However, in heterosexual-predator situations boys who have passed puberty often fair better than young girls just passed puberty, for the reverse-side of the reason stated above - they often feel less shame than a girl in a similar heterosexual situation; even when they do not feel any less guilty.
In either case, these are, like rape, situations where it is power and control the predator needs and seeks and sex is not for "sex" but part of the means and the ultimate expression of that power and control. The sexual predator is a sexual predator, because of, just like a rapist, their need to control, regardless of sexuality.
Well, the boy might feel like a guy in prison in similar circumstances. He goes along but does not consent. A problem here is that the kid was taken four years ago, before puberty. How is he going to relate to girls since he has been treated more or less like a girl for all that time? People are, of couse, hard to predict. Hopefully this kid's will was never broken despirte all. I know of one ex-military family where mom and dad were barflies and totally feckless. The son became in effect the parent, did well in school. He went into the service himself and became a highranking enlisted, whereas his dad had barely kept his third stripe.
This goes beyond what a parent thinks about homosexuality, this boy was in all likelihood molested. You get a sexual predator who will twist things around to make it seem like it is all your fault and you actually like it, and now they've made you gay. They know that a young boy who would not normally have homosexual relations be mortally humiliated by the fact that he did, even though it is rape. I believe most boys would much rather either die or submit to staying a prisoner than to have the secret out.
Right now there is a serial rapist in Texas that is targeting men, from what I've read, this rapist is not picking men up in gay bars but following them and attacking them. Very few have come forward, LE is concerned that there are many more victims out there but because it is homosexual rape the men will not come forward. Now if a grown man will keep silent think of a young child.
In a childs mind the damage is done, his parents and friends will be disgusted by him and hate him. He's got nowhere to turn, except to the one person who knows the secret.
This is all so sad. What's going to make it harder are all the questions about why Shawn didn't just leave. Poor kid.
Mark to read later
Isn't this the same name as the poster to the family's website with the entry along the lines of "How long are you going to look for your son?"...
This whole case is weird and smells funny...
"Put him down as humanely as possible, just as we would any other dangerous animal."
Agree.
Why should tax dollars support this freak?
No prison is worse than hell. He needs to go there asap.
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