Police Investigate Shocking Photos Apparently Taken During Shawn Hornbeck's Captivity

Fox ^ | 02/01/2007

[devane617]

One of the more disturbing of the more than a dozen images obtained by KTVI appears to show Hornbeck with his face shrouded in a red bandanna pointing a gun at the camera. Investigators say the images show a "different side" of Hornbeck, and they hope that they will help them piece together the teen's puzzling disappearance.

[twigs]

People are different. From what I can tell Stayner was the exception, not Shawn. Many of these young men choose homosexuality as adults. Stayner did not. Shawn has struck me from the beginning as a follower and not a leader. So what? That describes many children. Ben Ownby, OTOH, loved school and probably would not have been as easy to manipulate. It might have cost him his life and Shawn's personality may well have saved his.

[soccermom]

Okay, so you ignore the details from the article and just label his behavior "disgusting?" Try calling DEVLIN disgusting! From your article:

Shawn's isolation and abuse during that first month were so intense that the then 11-year-old's identity was torn apart, the official said. Over time, Shawn began to see Devlin as his protector and surrogate parent in a pattern common to many abuse victims, the official said. "He's a victim. He was kidnapped. He was taken from his parents. He was forced to live with this guy. He was forced to accommodate," the official said."

But I suppose you know better than them, huh? Steven Staynor waited over a week before he escaped with Timmy. Ben and Shawn were found after 4 days -- you don't know what Shawn would have done. What we do know is that, according to the reports about their first words when they were rescued, Ben knew that Shawn was also a missing child. He didn't point to him as a captor. Also, in the Staynor case, he was younger when he was abducted and, apparently, didn't need abuse to break his will. He was, instead, convinced that his parents didn't want him and that he was adopted. The appearance of Timmy probably helped to jog him from that misconception.

[soccermom]

It isn't fair to compare Stayner to Hornbeck. First of all, in the Stayner case, Timmy was abducted on Feb 14 and Stayner didn't escape with him until March 1. Ben was found within 4 days of his abduction. It isn't fair to blame Shawn for failing to act in 4 days, when Stayner took 2 weeks to act. It is apparent from the police account when the boys were found that Ben knew Shawn was Shawn Hornbeck. It is entirely possible that the realization of what had happened to Shawn may have been knocked into reality with the appearance of Ben, just as it did with Stayner.

[twigs]

You're preaching to the choir!

[soccermom]

Oh -- I know you weren't blaming Shawn, I just don't think it helped matters when you suggesting Stayner was the "exception". We don't know what went through Stayner's mind over the 2 weeks he was with Timmy and we don't know that, given two weeks, Shawn wouldn't have been exposed to Ben long enough to realize he needed to act as well. Don't validate Pallidan's ignorant argument by suggesting that Stayner was the "exception" -- that is my only point.

[twigs]

I was actually referring to character in general, not the details of this timeline. Some FRs had a discussion recently about what often ended up happening to kidnapped young men later in life and from what I read, many of them turned homosexual. Stayner did not. I have just gotten the impression, and that's all it is, from the beginning of their release that Shawn is a follower and that Ben would have been harder for Devlin to manipulate. Mostly because of Shawn's dislike of school (made it easy to keep him home) and Ben's love of it.

[soccermom]

Perhaps, but again, I think that plays into the blame-the-victim crowd, as well. I don't care how strong-willed of a person you are, at some point, torture is going to break you down. We have grown men who go through survival training in the military. They are prepared for physical and psychological torture. Yet, there are those who want to blast a boy for failing to resist such tactics at the ripe old age of eleven. As far as the "homosexual" aspect goes, the fact that Stayner got married does not necessarily mean that he was straight. It was the early eighties when he was in high school and he took a lot of insults from ignorant peers because he was molested. Even if he were gay, he would have put on an act. (I really don't know -- I just know you can't come to that conclusion based on the fact that he was married to a woman and fathered children. So did the governor of New Jersey.) It appears that Shawn had a girl friend and, hopefully, things will work out for him in the relationship department. My only point is, you go down the wrong road when you try to attribute their behavior to personality types. They were all victims. None of them asked to be abducted and (apparently) molested -- period. Don't fall into the trap of trying to rationalize Shawn's failure to escape based on his personality -- this is all about Devlin's personality.

[twigs]

I agree. You misunderstand me. I think that this is entirely because of Devlin, not Shawn. I don't blame him in the least. I'm the choir here.

[knarf]

"All these people speculating about Shawn had better be crawling on their knees over broken glass to apologize to him when the facts come out."

Many years of sin, before I met the Lord, allowed a menagerie of other sinners to take residence in my Rolodex of memories.

I'll confess to having opinions and making assumptions, in part, because of what I know.

We will indeed find out more as time passes and facts become known.

[Palladin]

Good post. There is a time when all teenagers rebel. Why didn't Shawn rebel against the man he identified to everyone as his father?

Also, by age fifteen, conscience is formed. Did Shawn not know it was wrong to kidnap a child?

I know all about the brainwashing and the Stockholm syndrome. Pimps do the same thing to the young girls they lure into the trade. They brutalize and rape them into submission. Then they sell them on the streets. Most of these girls stay with the pimp. The few, the courageous, the rebellious ones leave, even at the risk of being brought back and killed.

[Palladin]

Exactly what "matters" are we supposed to be "helping" here?

This is an open discussion forum. This is where we discuss and analyze all aspects of different subjects in an effort to arrive at truth and understanding.

You cannot by force of personality drive off those who disagree with you on SOME aspects of this case.

[Scotswife]

"I believe he was in the truck and heald the gun during the kidnapping of the other kid"

Oh really.
It's so nice when folks who are totally removed from the events and have no idea what went on whatsoever start "believing" things.

"However, I could be wrong."

Oh really.

"I am sure someone else knows the details"

Gee...ya think?

[Scotswife]

"Yeah, they are. But bored teens, with access to a camera, have been known to take bizzare pictures. I imagine Shawn was pretty bored sitting around while his captor was at work."

and angry to boot.

[ican'tbelieveit]

I think he did show some signs of rebellion. Staying out late after curfew, etc.

By the time Shawn was 15, his conscience was "malformed" by his experiences; has a huge effect on his decision making processes.

[soccermom]

No -- I don't misunderstand you. I understand you don't blame Shawn in the slightest. I'm simply stating that, by talking about his personality (and I don't know that child, so I don't feel qualified to talk about his personality anyway) you are unwittingly giving credence to the notion that his personality played a role in his failure to escape.

[soccermom]

"I'll confess to having opinions and making assumptions, in part, because of what I know." OK, but unless you know what it is liked to be kidnapped at the age of 11, abused, threatened and (presumably) molested over the course of 4 years, I don't think it is fair to make assumptions about what a 15-year-old should do.

[soccermom]

What "matters" are we supposed to be "helping"? We are supposed to be "helping" to put an end to the misconceptions that any of us can project how a child should behave in a situation where he is held captive. You can discuss and speculate all you want but, unless you are one of the victims, the perp, a family member or part of the investigation team, you have no clue what the "truth" is. Challenging people on their assumptions is not about "driving them off."

[soccermom]

Also, there is a bit of a difference between a girl who is
"lured" into prostitution and a child who is literally snatched by a stranger. Yes, the young girls who are lured into prostitution are abused and victimized. But, unless, they were literally snatched and sold into sex slavery, they were not initially captives. In most cases they are runaways who are preyed upon. In Shawn's case, as your article notes, he was tortured, isolated and broken down first. I don't know how on earth anyone can expect a child who went through that kind of torture and, then, lived with that monster for 4 years without benefit of positive influences like teachers or clergy could expect him to form a healthy conscience! Sheesh!

[Palladin]

"I don't know how on earth anyone can expect a child who went through that kind of torture and, then, lived with that monster for 4 years without benefit of positive influences like teachers or clergy could expect him to form a healthy conscience! Sheesh!"

The Jesuits used to say "Give me a boy for the first six years, and he is mine for life."

(That doesn't sound so good nowadays.)

But what they were talking about was religious formation. I would think that Shawn had excellent religious training in his first eleven years of life, and that some of it would come back to him when ordered to kidnap and hold Ben Ownby.

Of course, the brutality imposed on him over those four years could have erased from his mind all religious and moral beliefs.

It is also a conundrum for law enforcement. At what point is a person responsible for his own actions, and could Shawn have become a willing accomplice in the Ownby kidnapping? How do you determine if a sane person has a conscience? Or maybe Shawn is no longer sane.

Again--the Patty Hearst case. She was prosecuted and convicted for armed robbery. I never agreed with that decision. It is a very complex issue.


It is just so sad and awful.

I think they should torture that coward Devlin the way he tortured Shawn, and get from him the truth of how many boys he has corrupted and destoyed (and maybe even killed).

[soccermom]

"But what they were talking about was religious formation. I would think that Shawn had excellent religious training in his first eleven years of life, and that some of it would come back to him when ordered to kidnap and hold Ben Ownby.

Of course, the brutality imposed on him over those four years could have erased from his mind all religious and moral beliefs."

Exactly. It is easy for you to project what should have happened based on your adult perspective and your understanding of faith. But we can't know what went on in his mind. We do know that other people in similar situations have also been broken of their wills. When you combine that absence of will with an isolation from others who might have provided him with a moral compass, it is understandable that he lost all semblance of a conscience and was strictly in survival mode. I think one of the reasons we didn't see this phenomenon with Holocaust survivors is because they were all together and could look to each other for moral reenforcement.

"It is also a conundrum for law enforcement. At what point is a person responsible for his own actions, and could Shawn have become a willing accomplice in the Ownby kidnapping?" Well, according to everything we've heard from law enforcement -- both on the record and off the record -- they consider him a victim and not a willing accomplice. I trust that they know more than we do and I trust that medical professionals can distinguish a real syndrome from a fake one.

As for Patty Hearst, I don't know much about her case -- I was in diapers at the time. But I'm not surprised that a jury in the seventies convicted her. Look at all the skepticism surrounding Shawn, even with everything we now know. How could we expect a comparatively "unenlightened" (for lack of a better term) jury from the seventies to grasp what people still have a hard time grasping now?

I think we have a lot to learn about the human mind.