Child Sexual Predators are Premeditated, Not Opportunistic

By Dr. Duane Dobbert

The 2007 abduction of then 13-year-old Ben Ownby from his bus stop in Missouri suggests that child sexual predators "cruise" bus stops looking for any child that is unescorted. While this appears to be an opportunistic behavior, it is not.

Michael Devlin, arrested and convicted for the abduction of Ownby, was also convicted of abducting, sexually assaulting, and holding Shawn Hornbeck captive for a few years.

Both Ben and Shawn were abducted at the time of their puberty thus suggesting that Michael Devlin is afflicted with hebephilia. In contrast to pedophilia, in which the afflicted person's fantasy love group is prepubescent children, a person afflicted with hebephilia's fantasy love group is youth who have arrived at sexual maturity. Further, there is a gender preference.

Michael Devlin's fantasy love group is boys who are at sexual maturity, yet sexually inexperienced. It is this "virgin" quality that precipitates recurrent, intense, sexual arousal in the hebephile. Michael Devlin possessed the delusion that these boys, once they had their sexual encounter with him, would love him equally in return.

The abduction of Ben, the second boy, lends credibility to the diagnosis. Shawn was no longer "just" arriving at puberty and had been sexually assaulted by Devlin for years. Devlin was no longer intensely sexually aroused by Shawn and needed a new young man who was just reaching puberty and was a virgin.

Devlin was not opportunistic; he was premeditated. He was locating a specific age and gender. He is not aroused by girls or women, nor prepubescent or post-adolescent males. His fantasy love group is middle school age boys.

Consequently to meet his intrinsic psycho/sexual needs, he had to search out a specific fantasy lover from his fantasy love group. It just happens that Ben was his victim. Devlin could have found an unescorted pubescent boy at age group soccer practice, little league baseball, boy scouts, etc.Devlin abducted Shawn and Ben because they met his intrinsic psycho/sexual needs, not because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Dr. Dobbert presented the accredited seminar "The First Line of Defense Against Sexual Predators" and the workshop "Law Enforcement & School Transportation Collaboration on Amber Alerts" during the 2009 STN EXPO in Reno, Nev.