On October 6, 2002, 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck was riding his bike to a friend’s house near Richwood when he was knocked off his bike by a van. The van’s driver rushed out, seeming to want to help him at first – then grabbed him and brought him into the van.
That was the last many people would see of Shawn Hornbeck for more than four years.
This week marks 20 years since Hornbeck was kidnapped. He was missing until January of 2007, sequestered away in a rental apartment near Kirkwood by Michael J. Delvin, a manager of an Imo’s location in St. Louis.
Hornbeck suffered physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the hand of Delvin, who reportedly was once a friendly and outgoing person but became more reclusive after some issues with his health.
In the time he was missing, his name became a nationwide sensation. His story was picked up by national media, and KMOX reported on the missing boy for months.
Shawn’s parents started the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the search for their son. They even appeared on the Montel Williams Show where a psychic falsely told them that their child was dead.
“Sylvia Browne was telling his parents the worst possible news -- that Shawn was dead, and that his body was in a rocky, forested area within 20 miles of their home. For the next three weeks, the search reportedly focused on finding Shawn's body in that prescribed area.
Of course, they failed to find the body because last week -- four years after he went missing -- Shawn Hornbeck turned up very much alive.” -CNN, 2007
Hornbeck was found on January 12 of 2007. Police were looking for another missing boy, Ben Ownby, and were following the lead of a neighbor who had seen Delvin’s truck and thought something might not be right. When police spoke to Delvin, he reportedly continually referred to his “godson Shawn,” which police eventually connected to Hornbeck.
When Hornbeck and Ownby were found, they were dazed but physically unharmed. After getting back to his family, Hornbeck faced a swell of media attention, even appearing on Oprah. He told Winfrey that he thought about his family every day.
“I prayed to God that one day I would be back with my family every night, and I crossed myself every night,” he said.
Hornbeck said that while he had access to TV and the news about him or other missing kids, he couldn’t watch it – it would bring him to tears.
His story was told all over the country, popping up in national newspapers like the New York Times. In this article from 2007, the authors describe the search for Shawn.
“An intense hunt ensued in rural Franklin County. Members of the Ownby family appeared on television to make tearful appeals for the boy’s return. Community members plastered fliers throughout the area and ventured out on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicles looking for clues.”
Now, Hornbeck is living in St. Louis, trying to have a normal life after the traumatic childhood he experienced. He told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2013 that what he went through will always be a part of his life. The Post-Dispatch asked him how he felt about a similar missing child case at the time being solved.
“When missing children are found, he said, it doesn’t necessarily bring back bad memories for him from his years under the control of his captor, Michael Devlin. Instead, he says, it brings good memories of the day police walked him into a room to be reunited with his parents.”
KMOX will be looking back on the Shawn Hornbeck case on Total Information AM. Tune in to hear from the Hornbeck family, investigators, reporters, and more.