Terry Frauzel has been trying to live life as normally as possible since a 16-year-old boy showed up at his door, wrapped in chains and begging for help the night of Sept. 24.
Frauzel says the boy showed up at his Upper Chelsea home again a week later, but under very different circumstances.
“Sunday he and his mother dropped in. It was like meeting old friends,” says Frauzel. “We hugged. She was very grateful to us for helping her son.”
Frauzel spent more than an hour with the boy, who had some questions about what happened the night he escaped.
“When he came, obviously he didn’t know where he came from. He just went,” says Frauzel. “He wanted to know how he got here and the relationship of where he was held and where this was.”
Frauzel says it also helped him to see the boy again.
“In my mind, I knew he was getting help. But to see him, to actually see him doing well, flourishing you know. He’s strong, obviously.”
The home where the nightmare began is no longer a crime scene but a ‘no trespassing’ sign was placed at the site by the homeowner Tuesday.
Mark Kenney says he doesn’t really know the two men charged in the case. He says he simply rented the home to them, and he wasn’t happy when he heard the stories about what police allege took place there.
The RCMP’s Southwest Nova Major Crimes Unit alleges the boy was held captive at the remote cabin in Upper Chelsea and sexually assaulted for 10 to 14 days by two men.
According to court documents filed by police last week, the boy was abducted while sleeping on the streets of Halifax and forced into the back of a van by two men who took him to the home.
Frauzel says he was surprised to hear the boy had been living on the streets.
“He’s not the type of person that is a street kid,” says Frauzel. “He’s very polite. He’s very outspoken and personable.”
David James LeBlanc, 47, and his partner of 11 years, Wayne Alan Cunningham, 31, are facing charges of forcible confinement and sexual assault in connection with the case.
Nova Scotia police announced last week that Leblanc and Cunningham were believed to be heading for Ontario, sparking a nationwide manhunt for the pair.
Investigators in Longlac, Ont., a community near Thunder Bay, say they received a report on Sunday of a suspicious male in distress, and identified the suspect as Leblanc.
OPP Staff Sgt. Carl Pettigrew said officers were alerted to a man wandering along the road without shoes and wearing only light clothing in near-freezing weather.
Leblanc was arrested and remains in custody but Cunningham is still at large.
Police believe he may be travelling to Calgary in a grey 2003 Hyundai Elantra with Nova Scotia license plate FBP 233.
Frauzel says the boy didn’t say anything about either of the accused when he stopped by for a visit.
He also says the boy is now safe with his mother.
“What I said to him, I said ‘I hope this makes you a stronger person and your ties to your mother will be stronger, and I think it’s going to happen.”
Anyone with information on Cunningham’s whereabouts is being urged to contact police.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kayla Hounsell and CTVNews.ca
