The Discovery of Shawn Hornbeck

Friday I spent most of the day in bed feeling under the weather. I had not been online very much at all when my cell phone began to ring. It was Karen Jo Smith's mom - Patti Bishop calling me as she does periodically. As the conversation began, Patti says, "Jill where have you been"? I said, "here at home, just resting". Patti says, "you haven't seen the news or been on Court TV have you"? Well no....
Patti then says, "you know they found Shawn Hornbeck, don't you". My responce was oooh nooo, where'd they find his body? Patti said, NO JILL, he's ALIVE!!! I said, "but Patti... Shawn has been gone for four years"!!! I was in complete shock from the news and then Patti went on to tell me that the other young man who had been kidnapped from the bus stop earlier this week was found with Shawn in the same house, being held by a sex offender. Shawn Hornbeck had been missing since early October of 2002.
I really don't recall much of the conversation after that but I told Patti I had to tell my mom and some others because They just were not going to believe this wonderful news.

As I began sending out the email to everyone and my cell phone started ringing off the hook, DID YOU HEAR THE NEWS? SHAWN HORNBECK IS ALIVE...., my thoughts started to go back to this past October when Shawn's age progressed photo was released by National Center for Missing Children and we were passing it around to help circulate it. In the back of my mind, I believed Shawn was not alive when all along he was not dead. Looking back at the age-progressed photo of Shawn, it doesn't really look like him and after seeing him on TV, I would not have recognized him had I seen him out in public. Apparenly some local people had seen him but didn't call the police because they obviously didn't realize it was "Shawn Hornbeck".

There's obviously many unaswered questions surrounding the disappearance of Shawn and hopefully in good time he will talk to the media so those of us who have followed his case since he vanished can learn more about what happened.
(age-progressed photo of Shawn Hornbeck - released Oct. 2006 - Far Left)

In the missing person arena, we seldom have good news of someone being recovered alive and well. Usually the phone calls we receive are those that someone has been found deceased and the search is then on for the person or person who caused their death. It was a great day to have this happen.
Shawn and cases like his, give searchers hope that there are some cases where you have absoletly NOTHING to work with, that there's a possibility that these people are out there and they are being held against their will. Some of the cases, you just don't know. I wish that I could know with all of them and those who are not coming home alive, well, we need to have them back as well.

My thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the family of Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Ownby. Here's one for the good guys. I wish this could happen always with all cases.

See Also:

www.ShawnHornbeck.Com