Shawn was 11 and riding his bike alone on Oct. 6, 2002, when Devlin, who had been patrolling quiet roads for months in search of a young victim, spotted him. Devlin, driving his white pickup, knocked Shawn off his bike and drove off with him.

Devlin kept Shawn tied up for a month in his Kirkwood apartment. At one point, he tried to strangle the boy but stopped after Shawn promised he would never tell anyone.

For the next four years, with Shawn believing his family would be harmed if he fled, the two lived alternately as father and son or just family friends.

Devlin eventually let Shawn hang out with buddies, get a cellphone and go on dates. He didn’t go to school. Shawn said nothing, and nobody in Kirkwood noticed he was the missing boy from Richwoods, 50 miles away. Inside the apartment was a child’s hell of sexual abuse.

His parents created the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation to help search for missing children. On Oct. 6, 2006, the fourth anniversary of their son’s disappearance, they circulated a computer-generated photo of what an older Shawn might look like.