UPDATE TO THIS STORY HERE

You would think a middle schooler could ride a school bus to and from school without worry of being abducted. One might think that a 13-year-old boy can surely run away, use clever tactics and fight off an offender and scream his way out of a scary situation, right? For Ben Ownby, the fear must have overtaken him in the small town in Missouri where he vanished, perhaps he was just too naive for his own good, or I’m just plain wrong about my assumptions. Whatever the reason, let this add yet another burden of worry to the tremendous amount of anxiety and fear I already feel on a day-to-day basis. Frozen concern is something that comes naturally to me as it is, but you hear about a young tween being randomly taken and it’s enough to make you grab your chest.

Perhaps details will surface that will suggest that this isn’t what it seems to be after all — an angry relative or a revengeful parent took the boy and he is now watching Yu-Gi-Oh GX, stuffing his face with Pez candies and getting out of homework — I hate to think of the alternative. If not, I have a sinking feeling this isn’t going to turn out well. Not well at all.

From myfoxdc.com:

Boy, 13, Missing And Feared Kidnapped

By CHRISTOPHER LEONARD
Associated Press Writer

BEAUFORT, Mo. — The search resumed Tuesday for a 13-year-old boy feared abducted after getting off a school bus near his rural eastern Missouri home.
William “Ben” Ownby was last seen around 4:15 p.m. Monday near Missouri Route 50 in Beaufort, an unincorporated town about 60 miles southwest of St. Louis. An Amber alert was issued Tuesday as the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department, the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the FBI were joined by dozens of volunteers in the search.

Ben and a friend got off the bus after attending middle school in nearby Union, then separated. Ben’s friend told authorities he looked back minutes later to see a white pickup truck with a camper shell in an apparent hurry, backing into a ditch briefly before speeding away.

Ben’s father, William Ownby, said the abduction came “out of the blue,” and he couldn’t imagine why anyone would be motivated to take his son.

Ownby described Ben as a straight-A student, a Boy Scout who loves to play computer games. He said the boy was dropped off every day at the same bus stop, about 500 feet from their home in a wooded neighborhood.

Picture of William (Ben) Ownby, age 13, abducted off the school bus

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