I just noticed this story about a couple of teenage boys who have been found near St Louis in Missouri. One of them had been missing just a few days but the other has been gone for over four years.

I cannot imagine what his family must be feeling right now. One hears stories of children going missing and usually if they are not found quickly this seems to mean they are dead. Those poor parents, they must have grieved for their eleven year old son, now they have to get to know this fifteen year old.

There doesn't seem to be any follow up story about the condition of the older boy but I assume there will be some psychological problems after this time.

I was following the one boy on the Code Amber site we have here. As the days went on, I thought his chances, at his age of being alive were pretty remote.
But to find one that was missing for almost 5 years, is just amazing. Rare that a story like this has such a happy ending. Thank god for silent observer.

We have been following the story of the lastest kidnapping of Ben, and a couple of days ago my husband said he was afraid that the boy might be dead. This morning when I turned on the TV and saw that he and another boy were found, I yelled out to my husband "he's alive!" and he knew exactly what I was talking about. We were so happy. Can you just imagine what both sets of parents are feeling right now?

I often wonder in hearing about cases like this. In thinking of my own children [ and most others I know] when they were eleven, I know darn well that they would've either found a way to escape or at least dial 911 after being abducted.
Are there more details I'm somehow missing ?

I haven't seen anything else about it. That girl in Germany a few months back (I think it was Germany) had been locked in a cellar.

Confinement might have been used initially until learned helplessness set it. Plus, he might have been told that his family was dead and he had no one to go back to.

He was kept in an apartment. He has just been on tv here, but said nothing.

You're probably right. Chances are that if details are released later, they may include brainwashing , lies and sleep deprivation. [or maybe he got locked away somewhere, like the German girl.]
Otherwise I can't imagine the boy not escaping or somehow picking up the phone. I love children and my usually active imagination fails when I think of somebody locking an innocent child in the dark. My mental machinery just doesn't have those gears in it - therefore it makes my brain smoke to think in that direction. Sort of like turing your car too hard to the left or right -overshooting the turn radius and hearing that screeching noise.

That's the one, they speak the same language.

I shudder when I stop and think what else might have been done to the boy. Why does a 41 year old man keep a young boy confined?
The sudden abduction of a second boy after all these years makes me wonder if the first boy was getting too old for his tastes.
My son is 15, it makes me sick to my stomach.

I'm so happy the boy was found. I keep up with all the stories going on by watching Nancy Grace show on that Headline News Channel we get.
I was also thinking that since that other boy was found after all those years, that maybe it helps other families like Natalee Holloway's family and even that little boy Trenton Ducket(I think thats spelled right?), that they could still be alive too and for police and search teams to never give up the search.

Another story I read about the 15 year old mentioned that a neighbor had seen both the boy and the kidnapper many times and nothing seemed amiss. He (the neighbor) just thought it was a father and son and had seen them even pitching a tent in the yard. I can see where brainwashing might have been used in this case by telling the boy that both parents had been killed, but I can't help but wonder: wouldn't an 11 year old boy try to get in touch with friends even knowing that his parents are gone?

One thing I remember about the brainwashing thing, is that with Elizabeth Smart. The kidnappers say they will go and kill the family if they tell anyone.
So, the boy was probably told that would happen to his family.

Also there is the "Stockholm syndrome" thing that could be going on, where the captive starts to identify with the captor - I can see a child being vulnerable to this. They need to care for someone and if the only person around to bond with is a hateful abuser, well ...

You can see it with abused wives, too. We are such social creatures, and these predators will use our natural instincts against us.

The boy who had been lept for 4+ years apparently knew his family was looking for him - he said he saw bus benches with his picture on them and had told his parents that the first age enhanced photo (where they progress the photo to say what he may look like) was 'an insult'. (Apparently he didn't like the way they thought he might look!

So he knew they were still looking for him...

The picture of the suspect is what amazes me most about this case. I looked long and hard at his face and really didn`t see someone that I would consider "bad" or "evil". He looked so average, even gentle to me. That worries me more than anything.

I`m so very happy that both these poor boys have been found alive, I`m hoping that they both recover to lead happy normal lives. Naive hoping by me perhaps.

I didn't care for his eyes Roos.

When I was in the newsagent one of the daily tabloids has a reference on the front page so I bought it and asked for a bag in which to hide it!

They are alleging that the boy had a mobile phone, went on sleepovers, called the man Dad and more bizarrely, he is alleged to have posted on a website set up by his parents regarding him and asked them how long they will continue looking for their son.

Now I take anything written in that tabloid with a a strong pinch of salt, but if there is any truth in it at all it is very strange and perhaps there is more to this than meets the eye.

I have to agree, Sue. There's just something more to this story, at least in regards to the oldest boy. I can't think of 'what' it could be, but there's some odd loops in the details. At least the ones I'm hearing. I'm not excusing this pig-like kidnapper, not by any stretch. But I'm mighty confused on that older victim. I'm so glad the younger child was found and returned before God-knows-what might have happened to him. Either physically or emotionally. I'm glad the older one was rescued, too, of course. But there's something more complicated/twisted about that whole thing.
That's just my suspicion, though. Based on just the reports as they continue filtering in....

I just Googled his name and came up with this story. It also refers to him having posted on a website which was looking for news of him.

I'm not sure that I see anything more twisted than a very twisted person warping the mind of a child. The age at which he was taken, and kept, is so very vulnerable to outside influences, peer pressure and such, that it'd be awfully easy to say something like, "Look, I'm getting you away from your parents for your own good, they're horrible people," etc and convince the child he's better off. Even older people are vulnerable to that kind of brainwashing--look at how many people are coerced into cults. The common idea being that the leader says that they can take better care of the person than their family or friends and they don't need anyone else.
It's not easy to reintegrate these people into their former lives if the oppportunity arises, either.

I'm just not willing to assume anything sinister on the child's part, really. I used to work at a shelter for runaway youth and it is startling how easily they are manipulated.

I just heard on the news from one of the neighbors that the older boy would be home with the door open playing games and all while the guy was at work at the Pizza place. They also said the boy even drove the guys car.

My husband says that he read in the papers that the boy was controlled by threats of violence made against his family.

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I'm just not willing to assume anything sinister on the child's part, really. I used to work at a shelter for runaway youth and it is startling how easily they are manipulated.

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Yes, this is what I was trying to say. A kdi that age has ambivelent feelings towards his family, and can be manipulated very easily. Not much different from all the silly little girls who fall in love over the internet and run away to meet their seducers.

They look and act so grown up, and yet often emotionally are just children.

First to say, I don't think this older child did anything 'wrong' in the least - I'm just confused by (mostly) that there has always seemed a large element of "environmental" control in these cases. Elizabeth Smart, for example, WAS seen in public - but only with her captors. I'm no expert [or even close] but it seems that the 'Stockholm Syndrome' happens with a large dose of restrictions on more levels than just a few. That's what puzzles me here. This young man had a life largely outside and very socialized away from the kidnapper. Do I understand the powers his keeper might have had over his mind? No, I can't even partly say that I do ~ but it DOES seem to me that there should have been some outside stimulus when he was at school, with friends, interacting with his girlfriend (which I just heard that he had one of) that would have triggered something in him - if nothing else a remark made that sounded of his "former" life that would have raised some curiosity somewhere. But, again, I can't fathom how complete this mind control he suffered may or may not have been. Quite frankly, I have no interest in understanding how an adult can find some sort of sport in controlling the mind of another human being (child or otherwise). But I look forward to learning more about how it can happen with so little safeguards to regulate it as this incident seems to present. All the profilers/psychologists I've heard say it's not unlikely or remotely odd. I find that part of it (not the details of the crime, really) most enigmatic.