Until 2013, 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. 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 author who claimed to be a medium with psychic abilities. 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.
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, this sentence totals 4,240 years.
Mack Ray Edwards was an American heavy equipment operator, child sex abuser and serial killer who molested and murdered at least six children in Los Angeles County, California, between 1953 and 1970. Sentenced to death, he committed suicide by hanging in his prison cell.
On 19 February 2008, Shannon Louise Matthews, a nine-year-old girl, was reported missing in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England. The search for her became a major missing person police operation which was compared to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Shannon was found alive and well on 14 March 2008 at a Batley Carr house belonging to 39-year-old Michael Donovan. Donovan is the uncle of Craig Meehan, the boyfriend of the kidnapped girl's mother, Karen Matthews.
Sian Kingi was a 12-year-old New Zealand-Australian girl of Maori descent who was abducted, raped and murdered in Noosa, Queensland in November 1987. Barrie John Watts and Valmae Faye Beck, a married couple, were convicted in 1988 of the much-publicised crime. Watts was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole; however, his wife would have been eligible for parole after 14.5 years, but died while she was still incarcerated.
On June 10, 1991, Jaycee Lee Dugard, an 11-year-old girl, was abducted from a street while walking to a school bus stop in Meyers, California, United States. Searches began immediately after Dugard's disappearance, but no reliable leads were generated, even though several people witnessed the kidnapping. Dugard remained missing for over eighteen years until 2009, when a convicted sex offender, Phillip Garrido, visited the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, accompanied by two adolescent girls, now known to be the biological daughters of Garrido and Dugard, on August 24 and 25 that year. The unusual behavior of the trio sparked an investigation that led Garrido's parole officer to order him to take the two girls to a parole office in Concord, California, on August 26. He was accompanied by a woman who was eventually identified as Dugard.
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 kidnapped Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Georgina "Gina" DeJesus from the streets of Cleveland, Ohio and later held them captive in his home of 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 imprisoned, 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 is a missing child who was last seen on August 18, 1993.
On October 15, 2018, 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson abducted American 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.
