Posted on 01/13/2007 5:39:56 PM PST by valkyrieanne
Neither Shawn Hornbeck or William "Ben" Ownby were allowed Saturday to publicly discuss the ordeal that ended with their recovery Friday and the arrest of the 41-year-old pizza parlor manager charged with holding them in a Kirkwood apartment.
But the relief expressed by the families of both boys at separate press conferences Saturday morning let the world know that the future is now and that they are willing to let the past take care of itself.
"I feel like I'm in a dream," said Shawn's mother, Pam Akers, who until Friday last saw her son on Oct. 6, 2002 when he left his Washington County home to visit a friend. "Only now it's a good dream, not the nightmare I've had to live for the last 4-1/2 years."
At her family's press conference at the Franklin County Courthouse, Doris Ownby was asked to describe her reunion with the son abducted Monday after he stepped off a school bus near his Beaufort home.
"I didn't say anything," she said. "I grabbed him and held him."
FBI Special Agent Roland Corvington said 13-year-old Ben had one question when authorities rescued him Friday afternoon from the Kirkwood apartment of suspect Michael J. Devlin.
"Young Ben looked at the agent and asked, 'Are you going to take me home?'" Corvington recounted.
The agent then turned to the other youth who identified himself as Shawn Hornbeck.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
Hope it turns out that way.
prisoner6
God bless and be with these familes. Their ordeal is far from over, but yesterday they were given a second chance. Most families of missing children are not given that chance.
God must have something special in store for those boys!!!
We are just bowled over here in STL. Finding Hornbeck was just unbelievable. Devlin should be moved to Quantico, taken apart, studied, and then returned to a maximum security facilty where all the mainline cons know what he did..
there is someting so werid about this story...how could the perp keep this kid and with Devlin having his family aorund and no one suspsected where did you suddenly get an 11 yr old boy?
He could easily tell a story about the mother abandoning him, his mother dying, etc... and everyone would believe him.
The Devlin family? What family are you talking about? Please don't make a conspiracy where there is none.
I think you're likely right.
Praise God for their safety.
Someone posted that they heard a neighbor in the apt complex interviewed who said Shawn told one of them that his mother died in a car accident.
That might be what Devlin told him.
bump for when I'm sober
Hildy, just because you are unaware of the Devlin family, who was told that the boy was a godson, does not mean there was no family.
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