On Saturday, the parents of two young boys kidnapped four years apart near St. Louis learned that hope truly does spring eternal.
Ben Ownby, 13, was kidnapped less than a week ago soon after leaving his school bus. Police followed a lead on a truck seen leaving the scene and found more than they bargained for when the truck led them to a home where Ownby was being held along with 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck. Hornbeck had been kidnapped four years ago.
As I read online coverage of the reunion, I couldn't help but recall a case which has baffled my hometown for nearly a decade.
Ricky Thomas was 13 when he disappeared from his Bristow, Ind., home on Nov. 6, 1997. He was last seen by neighbors as he left his home on foot to visit his cousin, who lived nearly a mile away. He walked into the woods and was never seen again.
Though a search was quickly mounted, no sign of Ricky ever materialized.
As often is the case in small towns, word spread quickly that Ricky's stepfather, John Martin, who abusive, could have killed the boy and no one would have ever found the body. That's the angle police apparently found to be most salient. Others suggested Ricky simply ran away and would return on his 21st birthday once he could be free from his stepfather.
Ricky would be 23 now. He still hasn't returned.
Though police admit they suspected the stepfather from the start, there's no evidence they ever looked at any other angles. Though they suspected foul play, they for some reason never fully searched the property where the boy was last seen, saying he could have simply run away.
Once the community made up its collective mind about what had happened to young Ricky Thomas, the police made up its mind and any hope that Thomas would be found went up in smoke.
For the families in Missouri who have their sons back this weekend, it has been reaffirmed that one should truly never give up hope or hope truly will be lost.
For the friends and family of Ricky Thomas, who have never had that chance to discover what truly happened, circumstance will likely prevent them from ever getting that closure.
It's not my place to determine what happened in the case of Ricky Thomas. I'm not an investigator, nor am I privy to all the inside details of the case.
Still, we as students can and should avoid rushing to judgment on matters for which the evidence is still out.
The parents of Shawn Hornbeck never gave up on the search for their son. Surely police did the same, though odds of finding the boy alive became slimmer the longer he'd been missing. But it took a seemingly unrelated break in a different case to find the boy.
Never avoid what seems insignificant when studying the "big picture." Just ask Pam and Craig Akers, Hornbeck's parents, about the value of what you might miss.
Their big picture is they have their son back.
Sourceshttp://mail.justice.com/jump/http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070113/ap_on_re_us/boys_found
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkio1mKpFNS0ASB1XNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2MGQ5bTQ5BGNvbG8DdwRsA1dTMQRwb3MDNQRzZWMDc3IEdnRpZANGODI0Xzk5/SIG=120gjgnnf/EXP=1168894389/**http%3A//www.childsearch.org/ricky_thomas.html
http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=122088&nav=menu54_3_3_3
http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=1643655&nav=menu54_3_3
Write to Jonathan at jonathansanders@justice.com
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