Pedophile Michael Devlin offered no apologies in court this week but elaborated why his captive Shawn Hornbeck stayed with him more than four years: The terrorized young man cut a deal just as Devlin was beginning to strangle him to death.

“This boy made this contract, this deal with the devil, only to survive,” Washington County prosecutor John Rupp said.

Christopher Leonard, AP reporter who broke the story in January when Shawn and Ben Ownby were found alive has has followed up with mind blowing interview with Devlin’s defense team and their decision to push Devlin to plead guilty. Why did they abandon the standard pedo bargaining chip in the threat of dragging the victims through a trial?  They saw the videotapes he made of the sexual torture.

Here is the article:

Kidnapper’s Lawyer: Sex Tapes Damning

By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD | Associated Press Writer 6:04 PM EDT, October 12, 2007

CLAYTON, Mo. - In the bombastic tradition of any good trial attorney, Michael Kielty bellows and gestures when he talks about defending child kidnapper Michael Devlin. He employs his eyebrows athletically, furrowing and arching them to prove each point.

But it all stops at the mention of the videotapes.

The noise drains out of him. Kielty leans forward like he’s been punched in the stomach. After a long pause he appears close to tears when he recalls watching the tapes Devlin made in his apartment, tapes a prosecutor said show Devlin torturing a boy sexually.
Kielty felt lightheaded during the viewing with his partner Ethan Corlija and had to walk outside for fresh air and a drink of water.

“I saw things that should never be done,” Kielty said during a lengthy interview this week.

Devlin became Kielty and Corlija’s client Jan. 12, hours after authorities found 13-year-old Ben Ownby and 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck in Devlin’s apartment. Ben had been missing for four days — Shawn for four years.

The Associated Press generally does not identify victims of sexual assaults, but the identities of Devlin’s victims became widely known in the coverage of his arrest and prosecution.

A series of guilty pleas this week brought a swift end to the case against Devlin, whose kidnapping and sexual abuse of the boys was revealed in graphic courtroom detail. He was sentenced to a string of consecutive terms of life in prison. 
 
Seeing that video in late August made Kielty and Corlija realize a trial would be impossible to win, Kielty said. The defense team sped up a plea bargaining process that was already well under way.

Corlija said the goal of striking a deal was never to get Devlin a light sentence. They bargained over how much detail of his crimes should come out in court when Devlin pleaded guilty, and how much protection he’d get in prison.

“You try to do as much damage control as you can,” he said. “There’s not room for exoneration here. You’re looking for mitigation.”

Kielty and Corlija described Devlin as remorseful and aware of the strong evidence. While attorney-client privilege prohibits the attorneys from discussing what he told them, it seems he did not push them to prove his innocence.

“Michael Devlin is an intelligent person,” Corlija said. “He made a lot of grossly inhuman decisions, but he is intelligent. He had no illusions about the dire situation he’s in.”

FBI Special Agent Lynn Willett coaxed a lengthy confession out of Devlin while they drove from his apartment to a rural jail 45 minutes away on the day of his arrest, according to Washington County prosecutor John Rupp. He described Willett as a disarming person — a “soccer mom” by all appearances.

“She’s non-threatening and likable. Of course, you talk to her, you’re going to the pen,” Rupp said.

The FBI would not make Willett available for comment.

Willett’s report said Devlin admitted that he wanted to have sex with boys all his life. He used to baby-sit as a teenager, but quit that job because of his disturbing impulses. At the age of 36, Devlin kidnapped Shawn at gunpoint, keeping the boy, 11 at the time, in his apartment and telling neighbors he was his father.

Four years later, Devlin felt Shawn had grown too old to satisfy him, according to his confession, so he kidnapped Ownby in January.

Devlin admitted he had damaged his own life and Shawn’s, but said, “I still love him.”

In the months after Devlin’s arrest, Kielty and Corlija came across as swashbuckling young attorneys, ready to take on the long odds of defending one of Missouri’s most notorious inmates. They repeatedly said they were ready to take the case to trial. They scoffed at any mention of a plea deal.

Both said this week that their bluster was largely strategic; Corlija even called it bluffing. They knew prosecutors dreaded the thought of putting the boys on the stand, so they played that for all they could.

“You have to posture yourself,” Kielty said. “When you’re a defense attorney, you have to go for the jugular. The only trump card we had from the beginning was going to trial.”

The posturing did not seem to concern prosecutors.

“I don’t know who they were bluffing,” St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch said. “We knew what the evidence was and we knew it wasn’t going to trial. I know from experience there is no way on earth that Michael Devlin wants everyone on earth to know the extent of the atrocities that he committed on these boys.”

Prosecutors in three Missouri counties and federal court said they were content with the outcome. But McCulloch and Franklin County prosecutor Robert Parks both said they only regretted that state law did not allow for a greater punishment for Devlin’s crimes.

“Some states allow the death penalty for child abuse cases of this sort. At this point, I wish Missouri was one of them,” McCulloch said.

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I normally struggle with the death penalty, but in this case and if it caused these brave young men no further duress or harm I would certainly need to rethink.

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MICHAEL DEVLIN FACT SHEET

– 41 years old

– former pizza parlor manager

– jailed since Jan. 12

TWO BOYS FOUND

– William “Ben” Ownby, 13

– kidnapped four days before being discovered in Devlin’s Kirkwood apartment by police in January

– Shawn Hornbeck, 16

– disappeared in 2002 while riding his bike

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