ST. LOUIS - In a speech downtown yesterday, news commentator Bill O’Reilly called the alleged sexual abuse of two kidnapped Missouri boys "one of the worst crimes in America" and predicted that if the case goes to trial, "it’s going to be real grisly."

O’Reilly, host of the Fox News network’s "O’Reilly Factor," spoke about the Iraq war and American politics to about 800 people at a luncheon sponsored by KFTK Radio, a conservative talk show station that runs his radio show.

When he turned for a few minutes to charges against Michael Devlin, he said he has a source in St. Louis who described the allegations to him in detail. He also attacked the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for "trying to make me into a monster."

Devlin, 41, of Kirkwood, was arrested Jan. 12, when police rescued the two boys from his apartment. Officers had gone there in search of William "Ben" Ownby, 13, who had been kidnapped four days earlier. They also found Shawn Hornbeck, now 15, who had been kidnapped in 2002.

O’Reilly did not refer directly to comments he made on his show on Jan. 15, when he wondered why Shawn didn’t escape from captivity. He said then: "The situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents. He didn’t have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted. And I think when it all comes down, what’s going to happen is there was an element here that this kid liked about his circumstances."

The comments resulted in a torrent of criticism against O’Reilly, and Lowe’s Home Improvement pulled its advertising from his show.

Last week, the Post-Dispatch published an article outlining O’Reilly’s comments on the case, including those he made in subsequent shows.

Yesterday, he mocked news media reports suggesting that Shawn had experienced "Stockholm Syndrome," or a captive’s sympathy with captors.

"That’s not even close," O’Reilly said. "This has to do with torturing a human being to the extent that you bring the kid down to where the kid will do anything."

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