Why Didn’t Kidnapped Missouri Boy Leave After Four Years In Captivity?
Posted January 15, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It’s the one question everyone who’s heard about the “Missouri Miracle” has been asking: Why didn’t young Shawn Hornbeck leave his captor after being held for more than four long years?
The answer may not be as obvious as it seems.
By now you’ve heard about the teen’s remarkable rescue. Hornbeck is the Missouri boy who disappeared in 2002. He was discovered in the Kirkwood apartment of a man named Michael Devlin when police spotted a truck similar to the one used in a separate abduction involving a 13-year-old boy just a few days earlier.
Young Ben Ownby was also discovered in the same residence when police went to check out the vehicle.
After a tear-filled and emotional reunion with his parents on the weekend, it’s now been revealed that the now-15-year-old Hornbeck was frequently seen riding his bike by himself around the neighbourhood where he was being held. And while he wasn’t allowed to go to school, he also made friends with some teens in the area.
He’d even seen his own picture as a campaign to find the missing child went all over the state.
Why didn’t he ride off or tell someone? It’s a query repeatedly being asked, but the details may be a while in coming.
Still, psychologists who have seen these kinds of tragedies before warn it’s not as mysterious as it seems.
They believe his alleged captor used force, threats and intimidation to brainwash the boy into believing he’d suffer even worse consequences if he tried to leave.
Neighbours frequently heard loud noises and the sound of violence coming from the apartment, but believed it was simply a father disciplining his own son and saw no real reason to get involved.
“I think it’s a real mistake to judge this child,” cautions Terri Weaver, a Saint Louis University associate psychology professor. “Whatever he did to this point to stay alive is to his credit.
“Over time, your safety has been threatened. You are a child. You may have been traumatized in other ways. You may feel helpless to reach out to other people.”
There have been similar cases reported before.
Just last summer, the world was stunned when Natascha Kampusch escaped from a home in Austria. She’d been missing for more than eight years and was frequently allowed to go to the store on her own. Yet she never left or tried to call her family until August 2006.
Reports indicate she was frequently beaten and threatened with death, and told her special room was booby trapped with explosives that would go off if she attempted to escape.
Elizabeth Smart in Utah shared a similar experience. She was kidnapped by a man alleged to believe he was an omniscient religious leader. And while she was just miles away from her home, he told her he would kill her and her family if she tried to get away.
Steven Stayner is another famous case. The seven-year-old was taken by a child molester named Kenneth Parnell in 1972 and was told his parents no longer wanted him. Although he was allowed to go to school and his appearance was changed by his abductor, he remained captive until he left with another newly kidnapped boy in 1980.
In every case, it was fear and their tender ages that kept the kids from making the decision to leave.
“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,” explains forensic psychologist Stephen Golding.
Devlin, who was remembered by neighbours as being quiet but capable of sudden anger, is being held on $1 million bail.
The children involved have yet to speak publicly about what happened to them or what they endured during their captivity.
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