[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.