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For all that time, it now appears, Shawn was 50 miles away, hidden in plain sight. His alleged captor Devlin – an imposing figure at 6'4" and 300 lbs. – was raised in Webster Groves, a St. Louis suburb near Kirkwood, and worked at Imo's Pizza for more than 20 years (he also answered phones at a funeral parlor a couple of nights a week). His only brush with the law: two minor traffic violations in the late '80s. "He was a gentle guy, completely under the radar," says Imo's owner Mike Prosperi, who has known him for 25 years and says he was a reliable worker who got along well with police officers who often ate at the parlor.
His neighbors, though, say Devlin had a nasty temper. "Everyone had a conflict with him," says Krista Jones, who lived across from him. "I just thought he was a weirdo." Harry Reichard, who lived directly above him, says Devlin once tussled with his roommate. "He literally got right up in his face," says Reichard. "Devlin was about intimidation." Those who saw Shawn around the apartment complex assumed he was Devlin's son; some who noticed he never went to school figured he'd dropped out. "Sometimes when Mike was working, [Shawn] would have the door open, and he'd be playing video games and talking on the phone," says Jones. "We saw Devlin teaching him how to drive." Shawn could often be seen tossing a football with a friend, or riding his bike or skateboard around. If anything, some neighbors felt that Shawn, who seemed to come and go as he pleased, had too much freedom. "We just thought he was a kid whose dad didn't care when he came home," says Eguana Boykin, who lives in the complex. "We never saw any bruises or abuse."
