| If anyone remembers the Steven Staynor case...this is like that case all over again.
Ownby found alive -- along with missing Hornbeck boy
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
01/12/2007
Ben Ownby, the 13-year-old Franklin County boy missing since Monday, has been found alive in Kirkwood -- as well as Shawn Hornbeck, a boy from Washington County who has been missing since 2002.
Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke said officers located both boys today in an apartment in Kirkwood. He said the case broke when two Kirkwood police officers went to serve a warrant last night and noticed the white pickup truck that had been the object of an intense search in the Ownby case. Officers went to the apartment today and found both boys inside.
Hornbeck identified himself as the boy who has been missing since October 2002. Both boys appeared to be in good health, Toelke said.
One person has been charged in the case, identified as Michael Devlin, 41,Toelke said. He was being held in lieu of $1 million bond and being questioned as the news of the boys' recovery was announced.
"We have some good news and we have some probably unbelievable news," Toelke told reporters this afternoon.
Reflecting on the earlier case involving the kidnapping of baby Abigale Woods last year -- another happy ending -- Toelke said:
"To have two endings like this is just unbelievable, just unbelievable."
Ben Ownby's parents were at the Franklin County sheriff's office, where the boys were taken. Toelke said Hornbeck's parents were on their way.
In Kirkwood this afternoon, a next door neighbor of Devlin said she has seen Hornbeck in the neighborhood for years, often playing with friends in the neighborhood.
The neighbor, Shavonne Butler, said she and other neighbors watched Hornbeck grow from a young boy to a teenager, but they never had any clue he was the boy who had been reported missing.
Instead, they thought he was Devlin's son.
Ownby disappeared after getting off his school bus in Beaufort near his home Monday afternoon. He has been sought ever since, with authorities concentrating on a white pickup truck seen near in the area.
Hornbeck was last seen on his bicycle, riding to the home of a friend in Richwoods, Mo., on Oct. 6, 2002. | |
