Kidnapper told boy his parents did not want him

Kidnap victim Shawn Hornbeck was "brainwashed" into staying with his abductor after being told his parents no longer wanted him.

His kidnapper also threatened to shoot the 15-year-old after snatching him off the street.

Friends of the teenager have revealed Michael Devlin, 41, had at least three guns in the apartment where Shawn was held captive.

Tony Douglas, 15, who was Shawn's best friend, said: "We both knew there were guns in the house. Michael told us that he had the guns and were for his protection."

Shawn's stepfather Craig Akers, 45, has revealed his son's life was threatened by Devlin while he lived with him in a ground floor flat in Kirkwood, a suburb of St Louis, Missouri.

I recommend impalement for this perpetrator using the official sharia seventeen-foot-long sharpened phone poll.

Then when that video is made widely available, the next Devlin may be deterred--after all, it's not life in prison with food and television, but rather, appropriate karma, not to put too fine a point on it.

Okay, okay, I'm cherry-picking sharia law for the right punishment, and now a fatwa will be issued.

I think this 300-pound monster deserves a fatwa.

I know people keep saying that this stuff didn't happen back in the 50s, but if did. It just didn't get reported. I remember hearing stories like that one not frequently, but often to know that it was happening.
We have doubled the population so undoubtedly we have doubled the amount of perverts.

So your kids never succumbed to peer pressure? Wow, they must be the only two on the planet to never have done so. Now imagine if their friends had guns at your kids' heads telling them they would have their heads blown off. Still so confident they wouldn't fall to the peer pressure? Yet Shawn had much worse done to him. There is no difference between today's children or me when I was a child except kids now can figure out how to program a cell phone and vcr without reading the directions. They are still children capable of being abused by a parent, uncle or stranger. Or are you saying that that doesn't happen anymore either because kids are savvy? That thought would be naive at best but most likely it is recklessly dangerous.

Are you so hard on a POW who cracks under torture and doesn't try to escape? If not, then why are you so hard on an 11 year old kid who was kidnapped at gun point, beaten and raped repeatedly for years? It is stunning that people question the child, yet don't question the barbaric treatment he received at the hands of a 300 pound, 6 foot 4 inch gorilla that broke his will so thoroughly. He is the one who deserves the questions and scorn, not his hostage.

You are out of line. Now take a deep breath. I have only stated on this forum that I do not understand why he didn't escape. Heck, he even had a cop take his police report about his stolen bike. I don't BLAME the child. I just don't understand. Glad you know so much about psychology and POWs and so on. I also beg to differ with you. There are great, huge, differences between the kids of today and my day. We were vastly more naive back then. Kids didn't call 911-Kids on their parents in the 50's and 60's or threaten to do so.... Remember, when you get emotional, you are not using your critical thinking skills. As for the "gorilla," well, I wish the death penalty was available for this crime, so that's how I feel about him.

As for children not being abused anymore, surely you gest. Of course I know it happens. I also know that children are instructed ad nauseum on what to do if touched inappropriately and so on. When I was a child, I was instructed never to take candy from a stranger, get in a stranger's car or talk to a stranger. Nobody, ever, ever, no parent, teacher, adult of any kind, not my Brownie Troop leader, my priest, nobody, ever told me WHY I shouldn't do it or WHAT COULD HAPPEN. Kids today KNOW. Unless they are very, very small, say 4 or 5. Hell, nowadays, they are even teaching sex ed in elementary school, so you need to recheck your facts, madam.

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