Cyber trail pointed to kidnapping

An intriguing cyber trail has emerged concerning the four year kidnapping of Missouri youth Shawn Hornbrook, which showed he was alive and well over two years ago.

Police found Shawn Hornbeck, now 15, alive and seemingly well on Friday when they searched a suburban St. Louis, Missouri apartment for a second kidnapped boy, Ben Ownby, a 13-year-old snatched early last week on his way home from school.

A Yahoo user homepage belonging to "xxdevildevlinxx" was created in April 2004 and shows a partial picture of a boy, strongly resembling recent photos of Hornbeck, with an eyebrow piercing. On Saturday, the boy had a lip ring and three ear piercings.

Another Yahoo profile using the same picture is registered to an "mdevlin" in Kirkwood, Missouri.

A separate profile was taken out under the name Shawn Devlin in November 2005, according to the Yahoo page. It contains a full picture of a young boy similar to pictures of Hornbeck; the page says the user lives in Kirkwood, Missouri.