Two Kidnapped Boys Have Been Found

According to a CNN report, a great recovery was made this morning of two boys who had been kidnapped! While Ben had been missing four days, Shawn had been missing for four years! But for the families of both of these boys, today was a joyous occassion, as they were reunited with their sons who had been missing. Police had begun searching for Ben Ownby (13) when he disappeared on Monday after getting off the school bus on his way home from school. In the process of their search, they entered a man's apartment outside of St. Louis, Missouri. They found Ben there, but along with him they found another teenage boy who told the police officers that he was Shawn Hornbeck. They had been searching for Shawn for 2002; Shawn was last seen out riding his bike. The then-11-year-old boy was now a fifteen year old young man!

Robert Parks, Franklin County Prosecutor, reports that Michael J. Devlin, the 41-year-old apartment owner in whose home the boys were found, was taken into custody and charged with one count of first-degree kidnapping. Devlin may face federal charges and is currently being held on a $1 million bail.

But as may well be imagined, the families of the two boys are overwhelmed with joy and gratefulness. The two families have shared at separate news conferences.

The reports from Shawn Aker's family are exciting to hear. Craig Akers, the stepfather of Shawn, was on his way home from work when he got the call telling him Shawn had been found--alive! Craig had to find a place to pull over. The news was shocking and wonderful, although both Craig and his wife Pam (Shawn's mother) had kept alive for all those years. There is sorrow mixed with the happiness, though. Pam Akers said, "We've got a lot of catching up to do...He's grown up on me, that's for sure." But the joy supercedes all the mixed feelings: "To have one missing child found is just extraordinary," Craig said. "To have two found at the same time is one of those things--you don't even read about things like that."

Shawn and his family sat together, hugging and just enjoying being together. The whole time, Shawn's parents said, they had never given up hope. For the past four years, they have helped in other cases of missing children, and now they hope to share their hope with these parents. The case of Elizabeth Smart being found a year after her kidnapping had given them hope to go on hoping, and they want other parents who have missing children to be able to have the same hope.

How were the boys found? The break was made by police who were actually at the apartment complex to serve a warrant unrelated to the kidnapping case. In the parking lot they saw a pickup truck that seemed to fit the description of one that had been noted at the time of Ben's disappearance. They went on to make the discovery and bring the boys safely back to their parents!