A Miracle In Missouri (Monday's First Hour)

Hello! I hope everyone is with power and not freezing to death. I hate winter in the midwest. We're dealing with massive ice and frigid temperatures and my sister going to school in Florida is sending me pictures...from the beach. Totally not fair. Anyway, the show tonight was pretty bizarre to watch. It's just weird to see something from my area blow up so big on the national stage. Besides the weather, finding the boys is pretty much all anyone is talking about here. I even caught a spot tonight from my local news where they said it might be the biggest story in our area's history. It's hard for me to be objective about the coverage since I'm closer to the story than people in other parts of the country, but I still think 360 went way too far. Sometimes I felt a little sick as I listened to Anderson and experts speculate about people that a week ago they didn't even know existed. It makes you wonder where they were back in 2002 when Shawn disappeared. But then again, I would hate it if 360 started profiling every kid that went missing. One plus in all this coverage is that everyone is pronouncing "Missouri" correctly. I don't know what the deal was during the November election, but they seem to have been cured.

We begin with a background piece from Jonathan Freed on what happened. I'm sure you all know by now that last Monday 13 year old Ben Ownby went missing and thanks to a witness and some quick thinking cops he was found on Friday...along with Shawn Hornbeck who had been missing four years. Michael Devlin is the man accused with kidnapping the boys and right now there are more questions than answers because it appears Shawn had plenty of chances to escape. In fact, he obvious had internet access because he made profiles on several networking sites and there is even a "Shawn Devlin" than posted on the website dedicated to finding him. This has since been taken down but you can view the cache here and scroll down to December 1, 2005. His other internet activity is well researched at The True Crime Blog.

Next up we have a piece from David Mattingly on Michael Devlin. During this piece I notice a "Taken" graphic in the corner. Nice. Not at all in poor taste. Anyway, Devlin worked at Imo's Pizza (Mmm Imo's) for 20 years and almost never missed a day of work until Monday when he took Ben. Some of Devlin's neighbors say he yelled all the time. We then move on to a Sean Callebs piece that speculates as to why Shawn didn't just leave. It is believed it might have something to do with how he adapted to the situation to keep himself alive. Then we're onto a Ted Rowlands piece that is introed with a huge graphic that asks, "Brainwashed?" God that's tacky. Why is 360 always out of control with their visuals? At least it's spelled right. Anyway, this piece recounts a similar incident that occurred years ago to two other boys. Timmy White had been missing for a few weeks and Steven Stayner for seven years when Steven, who had been brainwashed, took it upon himself to save the younger boy because he didn't want him to experience what he went through. Steven ended up having a hard readjustment and then later died in a motorcycle accident. What's interesting about this piece is that they leave out the part about how Steven's brother was so messed up from everything he ended up killing several people. Kind of an important detail there people.

On the commercial bumps they're showing other kids from the area that are still missing. This is awesome, but I'm wondering why they decided to just do the St. Louis area. Obviously they only have time for so many, but still. It's sad looking at all these faces. I know these faces. Heather Kullorn gets me the most because she disappeared only a few blocks from my grandma's house. My grandma had kind of a wooded area behind her backyard and I remember going out there after I heard about Heather, just to make sure there was nothing to find. It was not a fun walk. Unfortunately Heather had diabetes, so her chances of being alive are very slim.

Transitioning now to an interview with clinical psychologist Patricia Farrell, who does not think this was a case of Stockholm Syndrome. Instead, she thinks he was brainwashed, which usually occurs when the child is repeatly told the parents don't want him or something like that. The process can take only a week or two. Patricia speculates that Devlin might have been aging out Shawn. This was just weird to watch because all it was was speculation. Next we move to a Tom Foreman piece on how they do those age progression photos. It's interesting, but I don't know if would have recognized Shawn from that. After this we have officers Gary Wagster and Chris Nelson joining us live to talk about how they basically broke the case. They explain how they noticed the White Nissan while serving an unrelated warrant and then found out Devlin was the owner. When talking to them Devlin was intially friendly, but then turned into a different person, activating their spidey senses. Anderson is in awe of the officers and heck, my hat's off to them too.

On now to some legal talk with Jeffrey Toobin who thinks this is pretty much an open and shut case. However, it's pointed out that the defense has a little leverage in that no one wants to see these boys testify. They're going to be exploiting that and using it to negotiate. After this we have some clips from old pieces with Ben Stuber, who is some kind of safety expert. We learn that children should run the opposite way to get away from a car that is chasing them, disconnect the brake or tail lights if locked in a trunk, and keep hold of their bike if someone tries to snatch them off it and into a car. Not shown is the clip where he urges us all to grab hold of a trashcan if someone tries to push us in a van. Because there's always a big trash can just lying around. Okay I mock, but seriously if I ever get grabbed and I see a trash can? I'm totally grabbing it. The Shot tonight is a poor itty bitty donkey dangling in midair because the cart it was pulling was too heavy. I actually saw this on Olbermann last week. Uh oh, you're slipping with your Shot, 360! The show tonight was meh. If this story didn't happen in my backyard I'd probably be furious at all the coverage. There must be a ton of stuff that went on in the world that they didn't even touch. C-

Your take on the coverage?