Police focus on questions after boys found alive

Echoes of Elizabeth Smart case
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Devlin’s relatives also were shocked by the case and said they had no idea the boy was with him.

At Imo’s Pizzeria, where Devlin was a manager, an employee who did not want to be identified told the newspaper that a boy called the restaurant Friday afternoon looking for Devlin, who was being questioned by the FBI at the time. The worker noticed on the caller ID that the call came from Devlin’s home. The boy told him, “I’m Shawn Wilcox. My father is a friend of Mike Devlin.”

The case recalls the improbable survival of Elizabeth Smart, the Salt Lake City teen taken for nine months by a religious zealot. After her return, many questioned why she didn’t flee her captors, despite many apparent chances at freedom.

Control through fear
Stephen Golding, a forensic psychologist who examined the suspect in the Smart case, said captors often establish control over their victims through fear.

“People are led to believe, through someone taking advantage of their vulnerabilities, that leaving is not an option, that things will get worse for them or will get worse for others,” Golding said.

Both boys were abducted from rural areas of eastern Missouri, both about an hour from metro St. Louis. Hornbeck disappeared Oct. 6, 2002, while riding his bike in Richwoods in Washington County. Ownby was taken soon after getting off a school bus Monday afternoon in the Franklin County town of Beaufort, a beat-up white pickup seen by a schoolmate the only real clue.

On Thursday night, police in Kirkwood, an upper middle class suburban town, noticed a truck matching the description while serving an unrelated warrant at a nearby apartment.

‘Still feel like I’m in a dream’
When FBI agents walked into a suburban St. Louis apartment a day later, 13-year-old Ben Ownby asked them, “Are you going to take me home?”, and another teenager in the modest dwelling identified himself as Shawn Hornbeck — reported missing 4½ years ago.

“Obviously it was quite euphoric,” FBI Special Agent Roland Corvington said Saturday.

NBC VIDEO A uniquely joyful family reunion Jan. 13: Craig Aker, stepfather of a 15-year-old Missouri boy who was found Friday after being missing four years, describes his family's elation. Nightly News

Hornbeck’s parents dealt with their grief over the years by devoting themselves to bringing missing people home. Having their son back, they said at a news conference, was evidence for parents of other missing children to never give up hope.

“I still feel like I’m in a dream, only this time it’s a good dream, not the nightmare I’ve had four-and-a-half years,” said his mother, Pam Akers.

Hornbeck’s stepfather, Craig Akers, said he and his wife were in disbelief when they were reunited with the boy.

“There was that split second of shock,” he said. “Once I saw the face, I said, ’Oh my God, that’s my son.”’

At the news conference in an elementary school adorned with balloons and welcome-home signs, the shaggy-haired Hornbeck smiled sheepishly, his mother’s arm draped around him.

At the other news conference, Ben Ownby grinned broadly as his mother recalled that soon after his return home, Ownby immediately went to the computer to play video games.

“We’re just ecstatic,” Doris Ownby said. “Don’t want to let him go out of our sight.”

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