Two Missing Boys Found Alive In St. Louis, Mo.
Posted January 13, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A miraculous story unfolded in St. Louis, Mo. after two boys, one missing for four years, were found alive.
Thirteen-year-old William Ownby vanished after getting off a school bus near his home Monday and was discovered safe and sound about 100 kilometres away in a suburban St. Louis home Friday.
Even more incredible was the safe return of 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck, who went missing October 2002, when he was just 11.
He went for a bike ride and never returned.
Both were found in a Kirkwood, Mo. apartment belonging to pizza store manager and part-time funeral home worker Michael Devlin, 41.
He has since been charged with one count of first-degree kidnapping, Sheriff Gary Toelke said, and bail has been set at $1 million. Federal charges could follow.
Both boys appeared unharmed and were reunited with their relieved families. Hornbeck’s parents started an organization to help find missing children after their son disappeared.
“Shawn is a miracle here,” his mother, Pam Akers, said Saturday at an elementary school in his hometown of Richwoods. “We’re glad to have him home. 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.”
Hornbeck attended the news conference Saturday with his parents, but didn’t speak.
“There was that split second of shock,” Hornbeck’s step-father Craig Akers said. “Once I saw the face, I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s my son.'”
Ownby and his family also appeared at a news conference Saturday. The boy’s mother told reporters the first thing her son wanted to do when he got home was play some computer games.
“We’re just ecstatic,” Doris Ownby said. “Don’t want to let him go out of our sight.”
The boys were taken to hospital for evaluation Friday night and doctors said both were in good spirits.
Toelke said the big break in the case came Thursday night when police officers noticed a white truck matching the description of a vehicle authorities had been searching for in the investigation.
They then determined the owner of the truck and proceeded to search Devlin’s home.
Despite the happy ending, much of the case remains shrouded in mystery. Authorities haven’t said what they found inside Devlin’s apartment or how the boys were detained.
“There are a lot of things we don’t know right now,” Toelke said.
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