Hornbeck parents react to found girl

The mother of Shawn Hornbeck, the boy who was abducted near his Richwoods, Mo., home and found in a Kirkwood man's apartment more than four years later, said she was delighted by the news that Jaycee Dugard had apparently walked into a police station 18 years after her abduction."I was just as surprised as the rest of the world," said Pam Akers, whose son disappeared in 2002, when he was 11. "It had to be pure hell for them. I only had to go through four and a half years. I don't know how it would have been to go 18 years."
Akers runs the Shawn Hornbeck Foundation, which aims to prevent child abduction and help families of missing children. She said Dugard's appearance after so long a time proved that even if the chances are small, parents of missing children should remain hopeful."This just goes to show you can't give up hope," Akers said. "She proved to everybody that miracles happen. They don't all come home alive, but some do."And she had this advice for Dugard's parents:"Sit back. Listen. Don't ask the questions. I know they've got so many questions, but in time the answers will come."Hornbeck and another boy, Ben Ownby, were found in the apartment of Michael Devlin, who is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to multiple criminal counts related to the kidnappings of the boys.