Kidnap Victim Visible Via Xbox Community Site 119
Via Joystiq comes the confusing tale of Shawn Hornbeck. Shawn was kidnapped more than four years ago, and his absence has made his parents worry and left a hole in his friends' lives. He's been returned safely home, so there's a happy ending to this tale. Strangely, though, he has been publicly visible for over a year now - via Xbox Live. From the Joystiq post: "The GamerTagPics profile for Xbox Live user 'DevilDevlin' shows the kidnapped Hornbeck outside what appear to be [alleged kidnapper Michael] Devlin's apartment. The profile was created Sept. 4, 2005 but hasn't been accessed since early 2006. DevilDevlin's Gamertag reveals that someone played Saints Row on the account as recently as Friday. It seems likely that Hornbeck used the account -- a Washington Post story reveals Devlin's neighbors 'often spotted Shawn out and about, visiting friends on his bicycle or playing video games with the apartment door open.'"
The real travesty here (Score:5, Funny)
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So no REAL surprises, but not being able to close your browser if someone happens to pop into the room is dangerous!
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Kidnap? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Kidnap? (Score:4, Informative)
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Nice idea skippy, but your dumbass idea is a little late.
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"Neighbor Rick Butler, 43, said the FBI came to his door Thursday night and showed a picture of Ben, asking if he had seen him. He said he had not. But he had seen a boy he now believes was Hornbeck.
He said he saw no evidence that the boy now believed to be Hornbeck was scared or trying to get away. He had seen Devlin and the teen pitch a tent in the courtyard.
"I didn't see or hear anything
Re:Kidnap? (Score:4, Funny)
Huh. Huh huh huh. Huh huh huh huh huh.
</Beavis>
Re:Kidnap? (Score:5, Interesting)
Other details in the AP article confirm that he was mostly free and had plenty of access to the outside world. Apparently Devlin even taught him how to drive and he was seen driving the truck unsupervised at least once. Stockholm just seems too easy or too simple of an explanation.
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Why? It happens all the time.
The whole US gets told tales of terror and get exploited by Bush, then they actually reelect him and continue their usual lives playing video games, watching TV etc.
Most US people will tell you that they are mostly free and have plenty of access to the outside world.
Sounds pretty similar to me
Was is good. (Score:1, Offtopic)
I'm not a Bush fan. His domestic policies tend to really suck. But at least he'll follow through with what he starts and not listen to all the wusses out there who have the retarded belief that the bad guys are just like us and can be reaso
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So if Neighbour A attacks your house, you scream for vengeance and attack Neighbour B instead?
And you wonder why your neighbours are looking at you strangely or even saying bad things about you, when previously they supported you.
stupid_american_count++;
If you can justify attacking Iraq for 9/11, you can justify attacking England as well.
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stupid_american_count++;
Re:War is good. (Score:2)
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People, especially children (as they are much more impressionable than adults), that have been abducted, can develop what is called stockholm syndrome [wikipedia.org].
They would feel loyal to their captors, and even believe that they are acting in their best interests.
From the sound of the story, this could be what occurred.
Re:Kidnap? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Peter Pan? (Score:3, Funny)
Smarter money would be on molestation (Score:2)
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North American Man/Boy Love Association [wikipedia.org]
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Kids at age 11 aren't innocent anymore, don't be naive. While the innocence of 11 year olds is debatable and varies from kid to kid, I don't think wanting to pimp yourself out to pedophiles is a common desire for 11 year old. I find it offensive and horrifying that you would assume that a kid who may or may not have been molested wanted to be. What, when you hear of rapes do you automatically assume that she wanted it, too?
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Who said it was common?
I find it illogical that you would assume that a kid who may or may not have been molested didn't want to be. That doesn't mean I think you should assume that they did want to be, and it is r
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Heh. Do you mean Republicans or Democrats? Or both
Stay home and watch Fox News, MTV, play video games, don't go to school, get to drive big trucks etc.
Once in a while a figure of authority terrorizes them.
Meanwhile the door to the outside world is wide open but unused.
Yeah I definitely believe it can happen...
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so now the feds are.... (Score:5, Funny)
bush -------- "halo is being used as a training device for the terrorists, we need access to the user database. NukeDukeum1987 has been posting terrorist threats -
You are so Ded you think your 1337? bring it im gonna blow up your whole city than kidnap your son and make him my bitch-
If we cant monitor these people, they have already won."
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Worry? (Score:5, Funny)
It's only January, and we already have a solid nomination for understatement of the year!
This sounds like something a third-grader would say while giving a book report.
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Mother: I recall someone that use to eat all the food and leave a pile of dirty clothes, but I am trying to remember who that was.
Father: Was he our son?
Mother: Oh, that's right! Our son, I wonder where he is? I guess I should be worried about him, but it is nice not having to do all that laundry and cooking.
Understatement indeed calling the parents worried after what was surely the most horrifying four years of their lives.
common (Score:5, Interesting)
It has to od with how a child determins whats safe and whats not. In the beginnibg, he was probably afraid and wishing to be rescued. After a while the attacker becomes the protector and it seems somewhat normal. also, the attacker does things to remind the victom they are the provider and protector, maybe slipping in some things about how his real parrent gave him away durring a poker game or something. After time this will lead to the kid/victom not thinking anything is wrong.
Don't believe me, just look at all these teen mothers who get stuck with some looser who refuses to get a job and provide for the family, they often get abused in the process too. They know it sucks yet they refuse to leave. It is the same thing. It happens quit often! and it usualy isn't because of the guy having a big dick either.
Of course i could be wrong and the kid wanted to stay for other reasons. Maybe a sexual relationship or something. I doubt it though. Even that would require some sort of conditioning simular to the previous to get the kid to stay. Especialy when another kid was introduced.
Mod Up (Score:2)
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sick minds (Score:2)
2 + 2 != 5 (Score:4, Insightful)
Y'know, call me crazy, but... Does anyone else find this entire situation somewhat unbelievable as a "kidnapping"?
In child kidnapping cases that don't involve a parent or close relative, they either:
A) Recover the child within a few days, or
B) Recover the body within a few months.
Yet, in this case, we have a kid missing for four years, found in good health, who had the freedom to leave the apartment and hang out with friends?
Not to take a "blame the victim" stance here, but did running into a friend's house and begging the friend's parents to call the police never cross this kid's mind? Hello?
Personally, I suspect the kid ran away and eventually hooked up with some random guy that let him live there. As for the second kid, well, I can't explain that one so well, but the "kidnapping" angle just doesn't sit right with me.
Re:2 + 2 != 5 (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's still kidnapping (Score:1, Interesting)
Even with the most benign explanation there is no excuse to have a kid in your house for that long without informing the family or CPS. It's just wrong on so many levels.
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This doesn't even begin to cover the threat of force - "Try getting in touch with your parents or running away from me, and I'll kill you and them."
Learn2psychol
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Not to take a "blame the victim" stance here, but did running into a friend's house and begging the friend's parents to call the police never cross this kid's mind?
How about the kidnapper told the victim that his parents hated him and gave him away? Proof was that they failed to come for him--if they wanted him back they would have asked for him back. If he was fed and taken care of, like one does a pet, one could put up with a lot--and I'd guess he put up with a lot, as he wasn't allowed to compare it
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He may have posted messages on the website his parents created to try to find him. If he did, he was well aware they thought he was abducted and wanted him back.
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about you
by how you add
2+2 ha 5 indeed
I find you to be incredibly dense, and an insensitive clod.
A city in sweden (Score:2)
Y'know, call me crazy, but... Does anyone else find this entire situation somewhat unbelievableas a "kidnapping"?
In child kidnapping cases that don't involve a parent or close relative, they either:
A) Recover the child within a few days, or
B) Recover the body within a few months.
Ok: You're crazy.
You forgot the very usual C) The kid just vanished and is never heard from again.
You also fail completely to take the Stockholm syndrome into account, not to mention the fact that the kid was found after someone tracked down the van that was seen speeding away from where another kid was abducted, along with that other kid.
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The guy was probably molesting the kid. Why else would you keep some random pre-teen in your house for four years without ever sending him home or calling child services? He was only 11 at the time, so the guy probably bribed him with games and threatened him with force until the kid got used to it and thought it was "normal". I imagine the parents would much rather the world think that he s
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There is a handy preview feature though... Maybe it's disabled in IE7 - contact your tech support.
Re:2 + 2 != 5 (Score:4, Interesting)
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Except that, as usual, a twelve-year-old aspie decided that anything he hasn't heard of doesn't belong in Wikipedia, and so the article—like so many others that could have provided information—is up for deletion. Because said twelve-year-old aspie is, like all other twelve-year-old aspies, a Wikipedia administrator. No wonder those fucktards are having problems raising $1.5M. How long was that fundraiser supposed to last again, three weeks?
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Or may be he really was kidnapped, but wasn't too fond of his family.
When I was a kid I had a sincere fantasy, hoping to be kidnapped by pirates and spend my teenage years robbing spanish galleons, courting lovely young ladies, and counting my piasters (yeah, I had been reading Captain Blood [amazon.com]
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C) Child is sexually abused for years and years, then finally killed or gotten rid of, or in a lucky case found and reunited with his parents
Re:2 + 2 != 5 (Score:5, Interesting)
No, just fish, rabbits, and game birds, and only within a few miles (ie hiking distance) of my parents' house. From your question, I suppose Nintendo's "Duck Hunt", from the living-room floor, about did it for you, then?
Every response to me so far has take the stance that 11YO kids count as completely helpless idiots. They don't. They have the presense of mind to get help when they direly need it. They don't consider "bad men" omnipotent evil deities that can kill them and their parents. They understand the difference between "Wierd uncle Joe" and "Some guy that dragged me into his car at the mall one afternoon".
Hell, I don't think most of the responses so far would have applied to me at six. By eleven, I truly believe that if I couldn't have outright escaped, I would have killed the guy in his sleep.
So yeah, if it makes me an "asshole", I have trouble believing this as a simple kidnapping.
For one, how about a motive???
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I didn't plan to respond any more on this topic, but given this comment and your handle, I couldn't resist.
I don't see how doing the things a normal, health 11YO boy should do makes me so unbelievable. As the only "unusual" circumstance from my childhood, we lived in the middle of nowhere, so I mostly only saw my friends at school; resultingly, I learned to entertain myself, and can thank my current self-sufficience on that part
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It's not about what you were like when you were 11, it's what an 11 year old boy is like after going through what this boy may have gone through. Maybe this boy had the same skills as you had, and at first he would have killed his captor if he had the opportunity. But maybe the captor made sure that couldn't happen until the boy was broken. Maybe it was Stockholm, or maybe he just convinced the kid that tryin
Re:2 + 2 != 5 (Score:5, Funny)
I once met this kid, couldn't have been more than eleven at the time, that was accidentally left home alone when his parents and brothers took a trip to France. During the first days the kid managed to do the cooking, cleaning and shopping all by himself, no problem. But then, he found out that some burglars had targeted the house assuming it was empty for the holidays, so this brilliant kid first tried to make the house appear occupied by a full family through some clever tactics and minor inventions (like cardboard cut-outs which he animated with ropes and then projected through the curtains).
Eventually the burglars found out the house was just occupied by a very small kid and did the same as the GP here, and assumed 11 year olds are helpless morons. They found they were wrong the hard way, when the kid rigged the whole house making it a lethal burglar trap by using the coolest rube goldberg contraptions you can imagine.
I could also tell you about very young kids who found a pirate's gold while exploring some sewers... but I think I made my point.
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-Eric
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I really want more info. (Score:2)
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Without the new kidnap case, the odds might tilt to runaway. With the new case and the circumstances (not similar to a runaway situation), the odds may tilt towards kidnapping/etc. Or maybe the guy 'befriended
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Nothing about this one makes any sense. The parents are acting way too nonchalant about his return. They don't seem to want to know what happened. Maybe they're in shock. And this kid has a lip piercing - who did that? Was it a home piercing? If it was done professionally, they're re
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Inevitably, the guy will accept a plea to avoid the death penalty, so there won't be any trial or anything more public.
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Now assuming nothing else happened (abuse, etc) I'd say the guy maybe serves the better part of a decade on the kidnapping and then a bunch of time on parol/probation.
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He may not be up for the death penalty by the state, but you know how the other alleged criminals in prison take to violent crimes against children... He'll likely plea bargain
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the first thing they teach you is to keep your big mouth shut.
Um...why is this a Slashdot story? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kidnapper was president of local Mac user's gro (Score:1)
Uncyclopedia is an open wiki humor page. It is not Wikipedia!
Some of it is quite amusing, most of it is barely coherent Leeroy Jenkins jokes.
Not surprising he kept quiet (Score:2, Insightful)
Fear and shame are very, very powerful forces.
What is truly scary is the thought that he kidnapped Ownby as a "replacement" for Hornbeck. Hornbeck had grown older, and was starting to look like an adult. Ownby is a very young looking boy.
Even more scary is the thought that Shawn may have been a replacement for someone else.
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I'm afraid you may be right. And for those who doubt that this was a real kidnapping, check into the true story of Steven Stayner at http://www.amazon.com/Know-My-First-Name-Steven/dp /0786011041/ [amazon.com] or http://imdb.com/title/tt0097553/ [imdb.com]. He was kidnapped at age 7, and was finally able to alert the police 7 years later when his kidnapper rounded up the next boy. What I've heard about the current case sounds a lot like this.
Officers brought him "home"? (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe now I can find MY son! (Score:3, Funny)
Reminds me of the Elephant Trap (Score:5, Insightful)
Elephant traps
A method of confining elephants practiced in the Indian Subcontinent is far less physical and brutal, and more psychological, than earlier means. It is called the "elephant trap". The following is taken from a newsletter:
From when an elephant is a baby they tie him for certain periods with a rope to a tree. The young elephant tries his hardest to escape, he pulls and wriggles and jumps and crawls yet the rope just tightens and to the tree it remains tied. Learning that, the elephant doesn't try to escape and accepts his confinement. A couple of years pass and the elephant is now an adult weighing several tons. Yet the trainer continues to tie the elephant to the tree with the same rope he's always used, for the simple reason that the elephant has the concept in his mind that the rope is stronger than him. Abiding to this conditioning the elephant is trapped for life. To break free all the elephant has to do is erase that limiting thought for in fact he is free to go.
Man now suspect to other kidnapping! (Score:1)
Authorities are examining similarities between the disappearances of Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby and the 1991 disappearance of 11-year-old Arlin Henderson from rural Moscow Mills. Both Shawn and Arlin were last seen riding bicycles, and Arlin bears a physical resemblance to Ben. Police said the recovery of Hornbeck and Ownby has breathed new life into the Henderson investigation.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/17/missing.boy.ap/in dex.html [cnn.com]
Note: I guess short ha