Kidnapped Shawn Hornbeck's Incredible Story and Being Found

(CBS) 48 Hours Mystery kicks off its new season with the harrowing story of Shawn Hornbeck, who was kidnapped in October 2002 at the age of 11. Over the course of the next four and a half years, Hornbeck suffered horrific abuses at the hands of his abductor, Michael Devlin, until he was rescued by FBI agents in January 2007. Hornbeck has refused to publicly discuss what happened during the time he was missing until now.

"Nobody knows the real story except for me," says Hornbeck in an exclusive interview with 48 Hours Mystery. "There wasn't a day when I didn’t think he was just gonna kill me…[sometimes] it seemed I was better off dead than living through that."

During the interview, Hornbeck describes what he endured during the years that he was missing - from the instant Devlin knocked him off his bike to the moment he was rescued. "The thing that sticks out the most is [Devlin] said, 'You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,'" recounts Hornbeck.

For years, Hornbeck lived every day fearing for his life. "From day one, he had the gun, he had the power," Hornbeck tells 48 Hours. Threatened with death and the death of his parents, Hornbeck made a deal with the devil, in this case Devlin. He took on the life Devlin dictated, posing as his son and even making friends. Devlin wielded such terror that Hornbeck never revealed his real identity to anybody, despite numerous opportunities to ask for help. Hornbeck even expresses the trepidation he felt when he first saw the FBI enter Devlin's front door. "I knew when they came in the door, it was either going to be something very good or very bad," he recalls. "It was a new feeling for me to say who I really was."

Additionally, 48 Hours Mystery speaks with FBI agent Lynn Willett, who’s been called a human polygraph machine. In her first, in-depth national interview about this case, Willet describes her conversation with Devlin, which led to Shawn’s rescue. Friends, family and a child psychologist also discuss Hornbeck’s remarkable journey to hell and back. Most chilling is Shawn’s first-hand account of what happened. It is a compelling hour of survival.

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