Devlin sentenced to life in first of four jurisdictions

Michael Devlin entered his first guilty plea Monday in the child abduction and assault cases that have stretched across four jurisdictions since two boys were rescued from Devlin’s Kirkwood apartment in January.

He appeared Monday morning before Franklin County Associate Circuit Judge Stanley D. Williams and pleaded guilty to one count each of child kidnapping and armed criminal action.

The judge approved a plea agreement reached by Devlin’s attorneys and the county prosecutor and sentenced the 41-year-old to a life sentence on the kidnapping charge and 20 years on the armed action charge. The sentences are to be served concurrently.

With the three additional guilty pleas Devlin is expected to enter this week in Washington and St. Louis counties and the St. Louis-based federal court, Parks said he does not expect Devlin to ever emerge from behind bars.

“This is the beginning of the end,” Franklin County Prosecutor Robert Parks said.

Devlin’s attorneys, Michael Kielty and Ethan Corlija, told reporters they had been pressing state prosecutors for a plea bargain for months.

Parks said prosecutors from the four jurisdictions held off on a deal as they combed through thousands of pages of discovery and coordinated their cases.

They wanted to ensure the state’s cases were solid and would not come back on appeal, Parks said.

From Devlin’s perspective, a plea agreement was the best deal to make, his attorneys said.

“The facts are overwhelming,” Kielty said. “Nothing good could have come out of a trial.”

Ben Ownby, the Beaufort teenager Devlin kidnapped and held for four days in January, did not attend Monday’s hearing, although his parents, Doris and Don Ownby, sat in the front row of the courtroom. When the judge offered them a chance to make a statement, they declined the offer through Parks.

A clean-shaven Devlin spoke quietly to Williams during the proceeding, answering the judge’s questions about his plea in a soft voice.

The former pizza parlor manager told the judge he was not seeking psychiatric care and was not on any medication. He acknowledged that in changing his plea to guilty he was giving up his right to a trial and the chance to counter the state’s witnesses.

Williams asked twice if Devlin was satisfied with his attorneys and if they had forced him to enter the guilty plea. He said he was satisfied with his representation and had not been pressured into the plea bargain.

Parks presented new information at the hearing that revealed Devlin had been scoping rural bus routes for three months, looking for “a boy he liked.”

Devlin looked for boys who walked alone from the bus stop to their homes, Parks said, and eventually settled on 13-year-old Ben Ownby.

Parks said his information was based on statements Devlin made to FBI agents after police found Ownby and 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck on Jan. 12 in Devlin’s apartment. Hornbeck disappeared in 2002 from Washington County.

The prosecutor gave this account: On Jan. 8, Devlin stopped his white Nissan pickup next to Ownby and asked if he knew where a certain family lived. Devlin later told the FBI he made up the family’s name but could not remember what the name was. Ownby immediately looked wary, and when Devlin showed him a 9 mm handgun, he froze.

When Devlin pushed Ownby into the driver’s side of the pickup, the boy repeatedly asked “why?” and Devlin answered by saying “just because” and “get in the truck.”

Devlin is scheduled to appear before Washington County Circuit Judge Sandy Martinez at 9 a.m. today in Potosi. A employee of the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office said Monday afternoon that Devlin’s St. Louis County hearing also would be held today but that the time hadn’t been set. He’s also scheduled to appear in federal court on Wednesday.