One of my coworkers knows the Ownby family, so our office got the very early word. Everyone was absolutely shocked about the other boy (kidnapped at age 11, now 15, appeared to all to be the arrested man's son).

From what I've heard here, police were serving an unrelated warrant when they saw the truck (the description of which came from a 16 year old kid who rode the same bus as Ben), took pictures and called back. The next day they stopped by, knocked on the door and Shawn answered, but didn't give his name. It was only after they spotted Ben that Shawn dropped his name absolutely stunning the officers.

Thrilling for the families -- especially since a major ice storm is supposed to come through tonight which would have hindered or stopped all searching. Plus, Shawn's parents live a good hour or more away. They had time to get into town before the weather got too bad.

Kid's gonna have a lot of work ahead of him, but at least he's home.

I just saw that on Fox...

Man, what a stroke of luck and great police work finding and rescuing both boys while searching for the recently lost boy.

Just hit him with a 1 million dollar bail and it appears he has a previous criminal history.

What awesomely fabulous news. I haven't heard news this good in a very long time.

Yes, good police work indeed. This is what local cops do, they look for things that are out of place and they investigate them. You'd almost think they were profiling people, but that would be wrong, now, wouldn't it?

Well, they were definitely profiling white trucks with shell campers.

I hate it when good news can't be taken without having to dust on the cynicism. Enjoy it, for goodness sake!

I can tell you that the town is just thrilled over this story so far. But, as I said, that kid has a lot ahead of him. His parents were dedicated people in missing child cases, and to now know -- what he apparently knew! -- he was there, right in the city the whole time....

Well, I think it's just thrilling. Looking around at some other blogs, I guess it's not as thrilling as a drunken Paula Abdul, but there ya go.
I'll be interested in learning what trip Devlin used on the kid to keep him psychologically imprisoned.

His family has done so much in the missing children area since his abduction. I'm so happy to see all their hope rewarded. What a joyous day. For the other kid's family too, but geez, I'm just floored at Shawn Hornbeck's being found.

There are a lot of details yet to come, but as for right now I don't want to read them. I will in a few days (as morbid fascination takes over), but I'm just so thrilled these boys are home.

But for Hornbeck's family, the modern assumption is to assume their guilt. The more fanatically they get involved, the more we are to assume their guilt. In these days, it's just so awesome to get a happy result for a family that just plain did right.

I don't think most people think that. I assumed it was a predator. The police have a pretty good weeding system for what's the proper parental reaction. I have an interesting training packet on police interrogation questions of suspects in missing persons' cases. It's so innocuous. Not like Law and Order, really. It's more like a Meyers-Briggs. It asks the same stuff over and over, but in a lot of different ways. It will pick up on things like referring to someone in the past tense. In any case, the standard response from parents is "Here are my arms. Cut them off if it will help you find my kid." When the police don't get that is when the fun starts. You can pick up pretty fast in the papers when the police think the parents are hinky.

The only morbid details I can think of would refer to sexual assault, and I'm not there.

You don't think it's interesting a kid would leave coded messages on his own missing person website? I sure do. "Shawn Devlin in Kirkwood". That's amazing.

More on Stockholm Syndrome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

-"Shawn Devlin in Kirkwood" That's amazing-

Truly amazing. What kind of "mind rape" did that poor kid go through? Why not, "I'm at XYZ Soandso St"!!!! SAVE ME!!!!

What goes around comes around. The monster that did this will be stuffed away in a prison with other monsters. He will become the prey. That's no utopian system of justice- but it's justice well deserved.

Shawn is the one that will live the rest of his life with unjustified pain.

no way, ever could I be a cop.

How can somebody arrest a child predator ?

My ex-brother-in-law (from my first marriage)
had to arrest a person who had bashed a kid with a pipe in the head, after he raped the child.

I still can't go fishing with him.

I see I was up and trying to comment at almost 2am my time....that's never good.

Here's an article about how the area reacted with announcements being made over PA systems in grocery stores and Wal-Marts.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/E7B53AF9C5324F5486257262001A90AC?OpenDocument

(sorry it's so wide)

This has a detail I hadn't heard or seen anywhere else that Hornbeck's mother initially only heard that bodies were found.

Yes, I read that. I'm assuming that was something on an early newscast that she saw. The police would naturally know they were dealing with a live kid, even if they weren't 100% sure it was Shawn at that point.
Both law enforcement and the families are being extremely reticent about giving details, which I understand. Some interesting bits and pieces I've gleaned that aren't in the main narrative:
It was Ben who prompted Shawn to tell the FBI who was was, to "tell them that you're missing too."

Also interesting: when police went to serve the unrelated warrant at the apartment complex, the resident named Geoff saying to them "I assume you're here about that truck." That's what focused the police's attention.

The hero of the story, the kid Mitch who saw the truck, had to take a polygraph test! He's an adorable kid and I'm enjoying his obvious pleasure at being the key to bringing two kids home. In a video that had Mitch's father's reaction, the dad was bursting with pride. Rightly so, considering someone as far removed from things as I am is bursting with pride for him too. GREAT KID.

Worse than commenting late at night -- sometimes I post late at night. Some morning I wake up in the morning and it's like WTF did I post last night? Zero alcohol involved, just reduced wattage from lack of sleep.

AmeriDan- It's a psychological imprisonment. Steven Stayner went to school and was on a sport team. After his escape he got asked a lot why he never said anything. He described a couple of moments of personal interaction with teachers where he thought to himself "If you ask, I'll tell you." But they didn't ask.
One nice thing in the very sad story of his life is that when he died at the age of 24, the little boy he'd rescued was one of his pallbearers.