The “best friend” of a boy kidnapped and held captive for four years described yesterday how they had played together like normal teenagers and were even escorted home by police if they stayed out late.
Tony Douglas, 15, said that he had known Shawn Hornbeck — who was abducted in October 2002 — since they were both 11. They lived in the same apartment complex in a prosperous St Louis suburb and often went out to eat, shop or watch films together.

 
 
He had known his friend as Shawn Devlin, the son of a pizza parlour manager, and never had any idea that he had been kidnapped by Michael Devlin, the man he called “Dad”.

Tony’s sister-in-law added that the family had teased Shawn that he looked like the missing boy when the kidnapping featured on television, but he would say nothing.

“I came over there almost every day,” Tony told local television. He had seen two or three guns inside Mr Devlin’s flat, but insisted: “Michael was always good to him and stuff.”

Shawn’s true identity was revealed on Friday when police hunting another abducted boy called at Mr Devlin’s flat. They found both missing boys there and Mr Devlin, 41, has been charged with kidnap.

Neighbours in Kirkwood voiced shock that Mr Devlin, the adopted fifth son in a family of six children, could have kept Shawn for so long without anyone realising who he was. He had even called the police last year when a neighbour parked in his reserved space — and had the boy in the car with him when he did so.

Shawn went missing on October 6, 2002 as he rode his mountain bike from his home to a friend’s house in the woodland around Richwoods, about 50 miles (80km) from Kirkwood. Police investigated a report that someone had seen a boy tied up in a pick-up truck, but failed to find him.

As the years passed, investigators thought that Shawn might have been killed by a passing car and that the driver had buried his body. His mother and stepfather were told that he was probably dead, but they never gave up looking and created a foundation in his name to help to search for missing children.

Shawn was found as police searched for Ben Ownby, 13, who disappeared last Monday after getting off a school bus near his home in the small town of Beaufort, about 50 miles from Kirkwood and 40 miles from where Shawn was kidnapped.

The breakthough came when police spotted a white pick-up truck matching the description of a vehicle seen by a fellow pupil when Ben disappeared. Police questioned Mr Devlin, who has no criminal record, and found the two kidnapped boys in his flat.

Reunited with their ecstatic parents, the boys appeared at separate press conferences with their families on Saturday under instructions not to speak about their ordeal. “I feel like I’m in a dream,” Pam Akers, Shawn’s mother, said, “only now it’s a good dream, not the nightmare I’ve had for the last 4½ years.”

Craig Akers, his stepfather, said that the teenager had seen an age-adjusted missing-child poster on display at a supermarket a mile from the Kirkwood flat and found the police’s prediction of what he would look like at 15 “insulting”.

Mr Akers added that his stepson had thought that “it would be the end of his life if he tried to tell anyone or do anything”.

Tony Douglas told television interviewers yesterday that he was Shawn’s best friend and that they often went out together. They had been stopped three times by police for breaking the night curfew for unaccompanied children, but the officers never realised that Shawn was a missing child. “Sometimes the cop would just drive us home,” he said.