The Shawn Hornbeck Foundation was a non-profit charitable organization based in Richwoods, Missouri, devoted to the search for and rescue of abducted children. It ran the Shawn Hornbeck Search and Rescue Team.
The rescue team was founded by Pam and Craig Akers following the disappearance of their son Shawn Hornbeck (born July 17, 1991 [1] ). Hornbeck was eleven years old on October 6, 2002, when he was kidnapped while riding his bicycle near his home in Richwoods, Missouri. Shawn Hornbeck was missing for over four years before being discovered on January 12, 2007, along with another teenage boy, Ben Ownby. They had been kidnapped by Michael J. Devlin.
The Shawn Hornbeck Search and Rescue Team was a member of NASAR (National Association for Search and Rescue) and a member of SARCOM (Search and Rescue Council of Missouri). It was also involved with the National Search Dog Association.
The Akers founded the Shawn Hornbeck Search and Rescue Team following the disappearance of their son Shawn Hornbeck. Hornbeck was eleven years old when he was kidnapped while riding his bicycle near his Richwoods, Missouri home on October 6, 2002.
Shortly after Hornbeck's disappearance, his parents appeared on The Montel Williams Show , where self-described psychic Sylvia Browne erroneously told the Akers that Hornbeck was dead. Browne also described the abduction, telling them several things about the abductor that later proved to be incorrect. [2] [3]
Hornbeck was missing for over four years before being discovered on January 12, 2007. Police were searching for 13-year-old Ben Ownby of Beaufort, Missouri, who had gone missing earlier that week. Aided by a descriptive tip from teenager Mitchell Hults of Beaufort, Missouri, [4] police searched Michael J. Devlin's apartment in Kirkwood, Missouri. Hornbeck and Ownby were both found alive there. [5]
In June 2007, Devlin was charged with 80 counts in the abductions and molestations of Hornbeck and Ownby. On October 8, 2007, Devlin pleaded guilty to all charges filed against him and was sentenced to life imprisonment. [6]
Kirkwood is an inner-ring western suburb of St. Louis located in St. Louis County, Missouri. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 27,540. Founded in 1853, the city is named after James P. Kirkwood, builder of the Pacific Railroad through that city. It was the first planned suburb located west of the Mississippi River.
A psychic detective is a person who investigates crimes by using purported paranormal psychic abilities. Examples have included postcognition, psychometry, telepathy, dowsing, clairvoyance, and remote viewing. In murder cases, psychic detectives may purport to be in communication with the spirits of the murder victims.
Sylvia Celeste Browne was an American writer and self-proclaimed medium and psychic. She appeared regularly on television and radio, including on The Montel Williams Show and Larry King Live, and hosted an hour-long online radio show on Hay House Radio.
Etan Kalil Patz was an American boy who was six years old on May 25, 1979, when he disappeared on his way to his school bus stop in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. His disappearance helped launch the missing children movement, which included new legislation and new methods for tracking down missing children. Several years after he disappeared, Patz was one of the first children to be profiled on the "photo on a milk carton" campaigns of the early 1980s. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan designated May 25—the anniversary of Etan's disappearance—as National Missing Children's Day in the United States.
Brooke Carol Wilberger was an American student from the state of Oregon who was abducted and later murdered. Her disappearance was covered by the national media; her murder investigation was one of the most publicized in Oregon's history. Joel Patrick Courtney ultimately pleaded guilty to the aggravated murder of Wilberger; he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Jessica Lyn Keen was a murder victim killed in Foster Chapel Cemetery in West Jefferson, Ohio. Her case was profiled on the television program Unsolved Mysteries and On the Case with Paula Zahn as well as Dead Silent on Investigation Discovery.
The Montel Williams Show is an American syndicated tabloid talk show, hosted by Montel Williams, which ran from 1991 to 2008.
The disappearance of Genette Tate is a missing person case in which a 13-year-old girl disappeared while delivering newspapers in Aylesbeare, Devon, England, on 19 August 1978. Despite extensive searches, Tate's body has not been found and the cause of her disappearance remains unknown.
Michael John Devlin is an American criminal convicted of kidnapping and child sexual abuse of two young boys, Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby. He is serving 74 life sentences plus 2,020 years at Western Missouri Correctional Center in Cameron, Missouri. His life sentences are 30 years each; his total sentence is 4,240 years.
The murders of Katherine and Sheila Lyon were the abduction, sexual abuse and murder of two sisters – aged 10 and 12 respectively – who disappeared from a shopping center in Wheaton, Maryland, on March 25, 1975.
Mack Ray Edwards was an American child molester and serial killer who molested and murdered at least six children in Los Angeles County, California, between 1953 and 1970. Sentenced to death, he hanged himself in his prison cell.
Robert Starrett Lancaster was an American computer programmer and skeptical activist who created the websites Stop Kaz and Stop Sylvia Browne.
Between 2002 and 2004, Ariel Castro abducted Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus from the roads of Cleveland, Ohio and later held them captive in his home at 2207 Seymour Avenue in the city's Tremont neighborhood. All three girls were imprisoned at Castro's home until 2013, when Berry successfully escaped with her six-year-old daughter, to whom she had given birth while captive, and contacted the police. Police rescued Knight and DeJesus, and arrested Castro hours later.
Mark Anthony Tildesley was a seven-year-old English child who disappeared on 1 June 1984 whilst visiting a funfair in Wokingham, Berkshire. A widespread search of the Wokingham area, involving both police officers and British Army soldiers, did not locate him. Thames Valley Police initially suspected that his body was buried near Wellington Road in Wokingham, near the funfair from which he was abducted, but they now believe that he was probably buried in a shallow grave on abandoned farmland.
Sara Anne Wood was a twelve-year-old American girl who disappeared while riding her bicycle home from Norwich Corners Church in Sauquoit, New York. She is believed to have been abducted less than half a mile from her own home by convicted child killer Lewis Stephen Lent Jr.
On October 15, 2018, 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson abducted 13-year-old Jayme Lynn Closs from her family's home in Barron, Wisconsin. The attack took place at 12:53 a.m. after he forced his way inside and fatally shot her parents. Patterson took Closs to a house 70 miles (110 km) away in rural Gordon, Wisconsin, and held her in captivity for 88 days until she escaped on January 10, 2019.
Dawn Dumont is the pen name of Dawn Marie Walker, a Plains Cree writer, former lawyer, comedian, former CEO and journalist from the Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Bianca Noel Piper is an American missing person who disappeared at the age of 13 in Foley, Missouri, on March 10, 2005. She is believed to have been abducted.
