Thursday, June 07, 2007
Crime: Living With Evil - Newsweek
In 2002, Shawn Hornbeck was abducted while riding his bike. He turned up four years later—alive, the alleged captive of a pizza-parlor manager. The saga of a kidnapped boy and his accused tormentor.
...
A spunky, likable kid who loved playing baseball and teasing girls, Shawn Hornbeck set off on his lime green bike to visit a friend in rural Richwoods, Mo., on Oct. 6, 2002. He didn't come back. Authorities have said that Michael Devlin, his alleged kidnapper, used a gun. ...
Cut off from his parents, Shawn became completely dependent on a 6-foot-4, 300-pound strange man for food, sleep, warmth, attention and affection. According to the Associated Press, Shawn said that at times Devlin awakened him every 45 minutes. (Sleep deprivation is often used as torture by intelligence services.) Yet, at the same time, Devlin showered Shawn with goodies. The 11-year-old boy no longer had to go to school. He could watch TV and play videogames all day. He was given an iPod, a computer, an Xbox 360 and a bike. And he was almost surely threatened with gruesome consequences if he said a word about his abduction to anyone else. Child kidnappers "know how to create a paralyzing sense of fear so even when the captor is not present, the child feels he is omnipresent," says Dr. Terri Weaver, psychology professor at Saint Louis University. "Their mental package is very coercive, very convincing, very mean. They don't just say, 'I'll kill your family.' They tell how they'll do it in graphic detail and manner—how they'll kill the child's family and even pets." ...
In 2002, Shawn Hornbeck was abducted while riding his bike. He turned up four years later—alive, the alleged captive of a pizza-parlor manager. The saga of a kidnapped boy and his accused tormentor.
...
A spunky, likable kid who loved playing baseball and teasing girls, Shawn Hornbeck set off on his lime green bike to visit a friend in rural Richwoods, Mo., on Oct. 6, 2002. He didn't come back. Authorities have said that Michael Devlin, his alleged kidnapper, used a gun. ...
Cut off from his parents, Shawn became completely dependent on a 6-foot-4, 300-pound strange man for food, sleep, warmth, attention and affection. According to the Associated Press, Shawn said that at times Devlin awakened him every 45 minutes. (Sleep deprivation is often used as torture by intelligence services.) Yet, at the same time, Devlin showered Shawn with goodies. The 11-year-old boy no longer had to go to school. He could watch TV and play videogames all day. He was given an iPod, a computer, an Xbox 360 and a bike. And he was almost surely threatened with gruesome consequences if he said a word about his abduction to anyone else. Child kidnappers "know how to create a paralyzing sense of fear so even when the captor is not present, the child feels he is omnipresent," says Dr. Terri Weaver, psychology professor at Saint Louis University. "Their mental package is very coercive, very convincing, very mean. They don't just say, 'I'll kill your family.' They tell how they'll do it in graphic detail and manner—how they'll kill the child's family and even pets." ...
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