“A dark-skinned man, he wasn’t black – more like Hispanic with long, black hair that he wore in dreadlocks and was really tall.” This is renowned psychic Sylvia Browne’s take on the kidnapper of Shawn Hornbeck, a 15-year-old who was found – along with 13-year-old Ben Ownby, who had been missing four days prior – a few weeks ago in the home of Michael Devlin, a pizza parlor manager who doesn’t quite fit the image Sylvia depicted. He is white and has as many dreadlocks as the Bush Administration has IQ points. Sorry, Sylvia. Maybe next time.
Psychic psyching aside, what I find to be odd is why Hornbeck passed up the daily opportunities to escape his captor from Devlin’s Missouri apartment in which he played video games and surfed the net since Oct. 6, 2002, when he was abducted.
It is quite possible Hornbeck preferred living with Devlin to his own parents, but if Christina Crawford could tough it out with “Mommie Dearest,” surely so could Hornbeck. I am not disclaiming the possibility that his parents put him through psychological trauma and all that Dateline jazz, but I am stating that it is more likely he simply enjoyed his stay with Devlin.
Psychologists may argue he was brainwashed and threatened by Devlin that his escape would lead to physical harm. I personally find more validity in pre-teen snipers blaming their actions on “Grand Theft Auto” than Hornbeck, who claims, “There was a time when I was thinking about giving up, but then I just thought of what they were doing and searching for me and looking for me.” Here comes my favorite part: “And then I knew they weren’t giving up so I figured I shouldn’t.”
Gee, what a triumphant hero. I hope that if I am ever taken from my family and friends that I can last for four years through the shiver-inspiring trauma of playing “Final Fantasy XII” and checking my MySpace.
There is even a theory I came across on www.youtube.com in which Devlin kidnapped Ownby to be Hornbeck’s personal “object” just as Hornbeck was potentially the “object” of Devlin.
That theory is too much for me to stomach, so I will stick with the simple one: Hornbeck would have run away if he wanted to.
Even Oprah wasn’t allowed to ask the $64,000 question. She could, however, have a special in which Hornbeck and his parents discuss how he “crossed himself and prayed” every night. If there is any time for a universal rolling of the eyes, it is now.
Granted, Hornbeck could have a history of being violated in some way by Devlin or another adult. If that is so, I apologize for my cynicism, but until police have evidence that Devlin physically engaged in child abuse, color me skeptical.
Currently, Devlin is being held on a $1 million bond. The New York Post reports that child pornography was found on his computer. Also, he has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Ownby but has been charged with kidnapping Hornbeck.
Since Shawn’s return, www.shawnhornbeck.com has been visited 444,000 times with 99,000 views the day after its launch on the Jan. 23. There have also been over 10,000 e-mails sent to the Hornbeck family.
As for Ownby, all that has been paraded on the news in his part of the publicity ring is that he is back with his family.
But wait! Want to make a donation to The Shawn Hornbeck Foundation to further support their work to recover lost, missing or abducted children and educate children to prevent abduction? Mail a check to The Shawn Hornbeck Foundation, P.O. Box 249, Richwoods, MO 63071.
Mail a check to me if you’d rather not.

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