The case began on a Sunday afternoon in autumn 2002. Shawn Hornbeck, then 11 years old, was riding his bicycle to a friend's house in Richwoods, an unincorporated community in Washington County, Missouri. Devlin, driving through the area, ran him off the road, forced him into a truck at gunpoint, and brought him to his apartment in Kirkwood, roughly 50 miles away.
For the next four years, Devlin subjected Hornbeck to psychological and physical control. Devlin used isolation and intense manipulation, gradually allowing Hornbeck controlled access to the neighborhood, a bicycle, and even an internet connection under strict surveillance. Neighbors regularly saw the boy outside. Some spoke to him. Yet Devlin had instilled a pervasive terror in the child, convincing him that attempting escape or contacting his parents would result in the torture and murder of his family.
Everything collapsed for Devlin on January 8, 2007, when he abducted 13-year-old Ben Ownby in Beaufort, Missouri. An observant neighbor noticed an unfamiliar white Nissan pickup truck speeding away from the scene and memorized a partial description. Four days later, Kirkwood police officers noticed a truck matching the bulletin parked outside Devlin’s apartment complex on Rose Hill Avenue. Officers executed a search warrant. Inside, they found Ownby unharmed, alongside the missing boy from Richwoods whose disappearance had baffled investigators for 1,560 days.
