RSSCould Michael Devlin Been involved in the 1991 Disappearance of Charles Arlin Henderson
Charles Arlin Henderson, then 11, has been missing since July 25, 1991 from Moscow Mills, Missouri. Charles Henderson, age 11, was riding his white and yellow bicycle near his family’s Moscow Mills mobile home when he went missing. Moscow Mills is about fifty miles north of St. Louis. Sound familiar? Shawn Hornbeck was last seen riding his bike to a friends house before he was abducted allegedly by Michael Devlin.
Could Michael Devlin been involved in other missing children’s cases in the Missouri area?
(Charles Arlin Henderson)
Read more on this case and other Missouri Missing children that have similar circumstances at Missing & Exploited.
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21 Responses to “Could Michael Devlin Been involved in the 1991 Disappearance of Charles Arlin Henderson”
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I was wondering if Shawn will be able to tell if there were other boys at Devlins residence, either when Shawn arrived or during the his kidnap.
I was wondering the same. Hard to imagine this guy was not a repeat offender.
To hide in plain site is pretty brazen. Usually that comes from years of getting way with the same thing.
R
Well, there were three other missing boys in that area.
I would not be surprised if now other boys come forward as having contact or an attempted contact with Devlin. Hope the police in the areas go back into their case files where there was attemped adbuction or other criminal acts.
Devlin is 41 and he has probably been at this most of his adult life.
Heard that the Akers family was going to be on Oprah today. Good for them. Shawn and Ben and any other boys were the victims and we have to understand that. Victims. Some of the blogs and CNN have been speculating as to why Shawn never ran away from Devlin when he had the chance.
Well, Devlin had an ALLEGED gun when he ALLEGEDLY kidnapped Shawn.Guess there were two choices presented to him.
Devlin’s family issued a statement where they were concerned for Devlin’s rights.Guess they never visited Devlin or had alot to do with him if they did not notice
( or noticed and did not do anything ) that there was a boy there who was not related to them. I would not like to see Devlin abused while in custody by his keepers as that is not what our countries are all about,but the Devlin family should have just kept their mouths shut.
Kat
I think someone should inform Devil-n’s family about the rights of his victims. Like you asked, where were these ppl?
Yes, I know about the rights of the victims, it is just so obvious I didn’t state it.
It seems no matter what any parents do to protect their children, educating them, how can a parent prevent an abduction by gun or another weapon. Or just a grab off the street ? A 300 pound man vs a small boy is no contest.
Devlin’s Mother lived in the area as Devlin would go there to do house repairs.
Yes, where were his family ? Shawn was gone four long years.
The prosecutors don’t need to press any sexual abuse charges either, they have enough on this guy for a life sentence or two.If they go for all the charges, then Shawn
and possibly Ben might have to make a court appearance and that probably might not be a good thing for Shawn in his recovery. These cases take years to prosecute and I am trying to imagine how a kid or kids could recover if this is hanging over their heads for all these years ?
ps I do read around and they are mapping other missing kids in the area so there has been a connection made that LE is looking at.
Heard a sound bite on the Oprah show (which was a personal interview in private, not with an audience)
Shawn said he prayed that his family would find him. So much for the nay Sayers wondering why he did not try to escape. I wonder if he realized he was only a town away?
When you are young towns seem so large.
Reminds me of Jessica Lundsford and the other creeps in Creepy little monster’s trailer, they freaking knew Jessica was in the closet. Did Deviln’s family see Shawn? Didn’t they think and you know what, allot of families know that a person is a predators. I have seen it happen with a family in town, they KNOW, they just look the other way, if the kid ain’t crying it must be okay, mentality.
Pray for Shawn, Ben and their families, they are going to need it for the road ahead. Kat good post’s as always
Miss-U!
I’ve been asking myself the same question, what did Devlin’s family know?
I’m watching Oprah now……the audience gave Shawn a standing ovation.
I just want everyone to remember not to judge this young man harshly about him not trying to escape. Keep the focus where it belongs, on an evil bastard who STOLE these boys lives.
Mitchell is a Hero & his whole town is sooo proud of him. I’m going to try & be more aware of children i see now because of Mitchell.
Kat i’ve got a gut feeling this devlin had something to do with Charles disappearence. Maybe Charles resisted & was killed. I just feel this guy was so brazen & i can’t help wonder if Shawn was to be killed after taking Ben. Not right away but soon.
I find it very troubling that this Devlin worked part time for a funeral home. Wonder how many others, if any, he has worked for in the past. For obvious reasons a funeral home could very well be a resource for a predator who elects to “get rid of grown children” who are no longer attractive to his perverted uses.
Hope that LE is investigating this for I very much fear that it is somehow involved with the MO of this predator.
I really have a tough time that adults don’t get how fearful an entrapped individual would be. There is no way that an entrapped person has ANY GUARANTEE that if they identified themselves that they WOULD BE PROTECTED from their captor. Doesn’t anybody remember the young boy that had escaped DAHMER was then handed back to DAHMER by the police officer’s. FEAR can freeze a person & the calm & collected can BS their way very easily leaving the entrapped to be tortured & worse. People really should think before they speak & pass judgement on what they truly do not understand for they have been lucky enough to have remained free of predator’s.
Odds are he had something to do with it.
I did watch the entire Oprah show.
Well done and tasteful. Moving.
Clint Van Zandt commented on the why. Sheer terror.
Also that even asking the WHY question is a blame type question.
Oprah is going to take on the lawmakers.
Who Hoooo.
I hope that the families do not make any more appearances.
No details are going to be disclosed. Both sets of parents are not asking any questions of the boys and are seeking advice and therapy.
These pepole are heros.
So are the policemen .
To me, Shawn seemed slightly depressed and unsure of himself. No wonder ! ! But the sparkle came into him with the Step Dad Craig Akers and talking about CARS.
The sparkle and Shawn and his parents holding hands was an uplifting thing to see.
Does anyone wonder how Michael Devlin’s family could possibly have had no knowledge, or at least suspicion, of his deviant behavior? How could they have been oblivious to his lifestyle? Surely, they KNEW that he had a young boy living with him. How did he explain this?
No media that i know of has even asked devlin’s family that very pressing question. We’re talking 4 years folks,
thats a long time & he has family he see’s regularly.
Well, from their press release on Oprah, they might be in denial. Michael Devlin was adopted, I read.Wonder what his childhood was like ?
I haven’t seen or heard a peep other than the press release outta those folks ( the Devlins ).
hey will not do anything to this man just like so many other cases They let one man go he reapetly raped this litte
girl but she didn’t suffer to long be fore she died what.
I hope they also see if this guy has any connection to the Johnny Gosch case, the paperboy in Iowa who vanished while doing his job. I think that was around 1980.
Obviously this Devlin animal … oops, I mean SUSPECT … isn’t the only one of its kind. But there is a possibility.
We should also keep in mind that (assuming that Devlin is accomplished at manipulating people, especially kids) he might also have told Shawn the story that so many kidnap victims have been told: if you try to escape, I’ll hunt you down and kill you AND YOUR FAMILY.
There was a story out last night that Shawn’s family suspect the kidnapper abused him. Seems too obvious to be worth posting.
Here’s a story today that has an important point in it. The comment at the end suggests that this guy may have done this before, but just as many of us learn how to be lawyers, doctors, plumbers, accountants, etc., this guy may have done what a serial killer does: acquire expertise.
I’m not trying to make a joke here. There’s a reference above to Dahmer, but Dahmer didn’t become a practiced killer, cannibal, etc. from day one. He learned his trade.
Maybe this guy did the same, and maybe the fact that Shawn is still alive reflects Devlin’s improving his skills of manipulating and coercing people. In other words, maybe there were previous victims whom he felt forced to kill because they tried to escape or were intractably hostile.
(Come to think of it, Dahmer met his victims in bars and tried to sweet-talk people, right? Sounds like Joran ….)
Jan 19, 6:17 AM EST
Kidnapped Mo. Boy Hints at His Ordeal
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A kidnapped Missouri boy gave a hint as to the ordeal he suffered when he told a national TV audience he “never wanted any kid to go through what I went through.”
Family members of 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck said Thursday they believe he was molested during the four years he was missing and, at times, his captor woke him every 45 minutes in an apparent attempt to control him.
The comments came the same day the man suspected of snatching Shawn in 2002 pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping another boy on Jan. 8.
Michael Devlin, a 41-year-old pizzeria manager, is accused of taking 13-year-old Ben Ownby just after the boy got off a school bus in Beaufort, about 50 miles southwest of St. Louis. A schoolmate’s tip about a white pickup helped lead authorities to Devlin’s apartment in a St. Louis suburb, where they found Ben and Shawn on Jan. 12.
Prosecutors said Devlin, who also is charged with kidnapping Shawn but has not yet entered a plea in that case, terrorized Shawn with a handgun to get him to cooperate.
The case has prompted authorities to investigate Devlin in at least one other missing child case.
During an interview with Oprah Winfrey on a TV show that aired Thursday, Shawn’s parents said they have not asked their son about his ordeal on the advice of child advocacy experts.
“OK, I’m gonna go there and ask you, what do you think happened? Do you think he was sexually abused?” Winfrey asked Shawn’s parents, Craig and Pam Akers.
Both nodded and said, “Yes.”
While it is The Associated Press’ policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual abuse in most cases, Shawn’s case has been widely publicized and his name is well-known. Also, the family has gone public, conducting several national interviews.
Shawn’s grandmother, Anna Quinn, told the AP on Thursday that the boy has not spoken Devlin’s name, and that he has said little to relatives about what he went through. She said Shawn did say that at times during the last four years, Devlin would wake him every 45 minutes.
“Think to yourself when you don’t get enough sleep,” Quinn said. “He had to do something to get his cooperation.”
Shawn, who had dark floppy hair and piercings in his face when he was found, had a cleaner look in a taped interview with Winfrey. He said he always hoped for a reunion with his family.
“If it wasn’t for Ben, I might not be here right now,” Shawn said. “I’m thankful that he held in there for those few days. I told myself a long time ago I never wanted any kid to go through what I went through.”
Shawn said he was not ready to discuss details of his abduction and the subsequent 51 months he spent living with Devlin. Winfrey said the boy told her off-camera that he was “terrified” to contact his parents during the last four years.
Devlin’s attorney, Michael Kielty, declined to respond to the claim of sexual abuse, saying he hasn’t seen evidence in the case. “The only thing I have is an allegation,” he said.
N.G. Berrill, a psychologist and director of the consulting firm New York Forensic and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said it makes sense to look into old cases now that a suspect is in custody.
Devlin “may have tried this before and not known how to pull it off,” Berrill said.
He said a serial kidnapper tends to be “an isolated, socially awkward individual … the kind of person people say that seemed OK and people didn’t get to know them.
“He looks like an average Joe,” Berrill said. “I suspect he has this need to keep kids. He’s sort of collecting children.”
Lincoln County, Mo., authorities have called Devlin the “most viable lead” in the case of Charles Arlin Henderson, who was 11 when he disappeared while riding his bike in 1991 and has never been found.
The boy, known as Arlin, was, like Ben and Shawn, about 100 pounds and from a rural town about an hour from St. Louis.
“We can’t discount him in an investigation into any missing child,” Lt. Rick Harrell said.
We’re moving right along here … remember this case?
I can hardly think of two people … well, organisms … better suited to each other’s company. Let’s put these suspects in the same cell.
And then let the rest of the prison’s population pay them a visit. From what I read, child abusers are the lowest of the low in prison, where presumably the residents are not of the highest caliber to start with.
Gee whiz, if you did this something nasty might happen to these two.
Couldn’t think of people better suited to it.
(By the way, Shasta Groene is another person who was missing for some time, written off as dead … but she wasn’t. Cautionary tale.)
——————————————————————————–
Killer indicted in Idaho abductions
Associated Press
1 hour, 20 minutes ago
BOISE, Idaho – A man who already pleaded guilty to killing three members of an Idaho family in a 2005 attack has been charged in federal court with kidnapping the family’s two youngest children and killing one of them.
The indictment against Joseph Edward Duncan III, issued Thursday by a federal grand jury in Coeur d’Alene, will allow the government to seek the death penalty, U.S. Attorney Tom Moss said.
It accuses Duncan of kidnapping Dylan Groene, 9, and his sister Shasta, then 8, and taking them to the mountains of Montana, where he sexually abused them for weeks before killing Dylan. The boy’s body was found at a remote campsite.
Duncan’s lawyer, Roger Peven, said his client would plead not guilty at a scheduled court appearance Friday.
“This will get the process going,” Peven said. “We’ve been anticipating it for quite some time.”
Shasta Groene was rescued as she and Duncan ate at a Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, restaurant in July 2005, about seven weeks after the family was attacked. Duncan has been quoted in court documents as saying he was trying to return the girl to her father.
Among the charges against Duncan, 43, are kidnapping resulting in death, sexual abuse of both children and firearms counts.
The grand jury alleged Duncan killed Dylan in an “especially heinous, cruel, and depraved manner,” according to federal prosecutors. “The grand jury also found that the child’s killing involved torture and serious physical abuse.”
Shasta has been living with her father, Steve Groene, who did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment on the federal charges. He is unable to speak because of throat cancer surgery last year.
Duncan was also charged Thursday in a California state court in the 1997 abduction and slaying of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez, whose bound, nude body was buried under a rock pile in the desert.
He is also considered the prime suspect in the slayings of two children near Seattle.
Peven told The Associated Press the federal case will be resolved before any additional cases are tried in state court.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors in Idaho charged Duncan with driving a stolen vehicle across state lines. The charge was considered a placeholder to make sure Duncan was not extradited for crimes in other states before the federal case was completed.
Duncan pleaded guilty last October in Idaho state court to first-degree murder and kidnapping for the May 16, 2005, hammer slayings of Dylan and Shasta’s mother, Brenda Groene; her fiance, Mark McKenzie, and Groene’s 13-year-old son, Slade.
Duncan stalked the Groene family for several days, then entered the home and bound and fatally bludgeoned the two adults and the teen.
A state judge sentenced Duncan to life in prison without parole for the kidnappings, but sentencing on the murder counts was deferred while the federal government prepared its charges.
If federal prosecutors fail to win a death sentence, Duncan will be returned to the Idaho state court, where a jury will be impaneled for a death penalty hearing on the murder confessions.
My daughter said that since he saw all the posters and had access to the net that it was better to not cause trouble so Devlin would not move him farther away.I am just glad those boys are home and that it is got more people talking so maybe their will be more children found.
I read that Devlin has a brother Jamie. Is this teacher in Webster Woods, very near Kirkwood, MO Michael Devlin’s brother? Knowing that pedophiles seek out occupations in which they have easy access to kids, this is scary.
http://schools.webster.k12.mo.us/education/staff/staff.php?sectionid=2766&PHPSESSID=81c406b02728df2396313dd0b69fd749