OIL CITY, Pa., was known as the town that outlawed Halloween, but in 2008, thanks to the efforts of one little girl, ghosts, goblins, princesses, and ballerinas were allowed to dance through the streets after dark, ringing doorbells and yelling, "Trick or treat!"
It was a sight that had not been seen for 16 years, not since real monsters drained the fun from the holiday and left a ghost haunting the community's 11,000 citizens.
The ghost was of a little girl, Shauna Howe, 11.
On Oct. 27, 1992, the shy, blue-eyed brunette dressed up in a gymnast's costume — a turquoise and black leotard, kissed her mom, Lucy, goodbye and headed out the door.
After school, Shauna joined her Girl Scout troop singing for the residents of an old age home, and then walked to a nearby church where the group had a Halloween party.
By 8 p.m., Shauna was on her way home, but she never made it. Around 10 p.m., her worried mother, Lucy, called police.
They had gotten another call a couple of hours earlier, a report from a witness who said he saw a tall, unkempt man snatch a little girl and force her into a rust-colored car.
After two days of searching by FBI agents, police, and volunteers, the turquoise and black leotard turned up on a hiking trail about 8 miles from town.
Searchers found Shauna's body the next morning.
She was face-down at the bottom of a 30-foot railroad trestle, in a dry streambed, wedged between a rock and log.
Injuries from a fall from the top of the trestle were the likely cause of death, the coroner said. It was impossible to say, however, whether she "was forced or thrown, jumped or fell."
One thing he could say with certainty was that Shauna was alive as she plunged to her death. A broken arm and dislocated shoulder suggested that she had tried to break the fall. She may have lingered, with one of her fractured ribs poking through her chest, for as long as 30 minutes.
Local police and the FBI chased leads as far as Canada, but Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's came and went, and they were no closer to solving the Halloween horror. Rumors swirled through the small town, casting suspicion on members of the dead girl's family.
As months sped by with no arrests, fear gripped Oil City, and locked doors became the norm for the first time in this once peaceful community. Children seldom ventured out alone. Martial arts studios offered kiddie self-defense classes, and posters popped up around town, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles urging children to run, resist, or cry for help if a stranger approached.
Trick or treating on Halloween, 1993, was limited to a couple hours in the afternoon, and stayed that way.
Over the years investigators followed lead after lead, and examined one unsavory individual or another, only to come up empty.
Another Oil City Halloween horror, in 1997, raised hope that there might be a break in the Howe case. Shenee Freeman, 4, went outside to play, and never came home. She was later found dead. Nicholas Bowen, 17, one of the more than 100 volunteers who searched for the little girl, was later arrested for her rape and murder, pleaded guilty, and received a life sentence.
But no evidence could connect Bowen to the earlier slaying, so detectives continued their hunt.
A decade would pass before DNA from semen found on Shauna's leotard got the case moving again. It matched the genetic fingerprint of James O'Brien, who was in prison serving a sentence for attempted kidnap.
Around the same time, police revisited a character they had interviewed back in 1992 — Eldred "Ted" Walker.
Walker eventually confessed to being the man who snatched Shauna off the street, as part of a "prank" he had planned with James O'Brien and his brother, Timothy. Walker told police they were going to kidnap a little boy they knew, a friend of Walker's 8-year-old son, and hold him for a few hours. Later, the trio decided a girl would get more attention.
On the evening of Oct. 27, they spotted Shauna on her way home. Walker approached, asked about Girl Scout cookies, then grabbed her, put his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams, and shoved her in the car. They drove to his home, where the O'Brien brothers took her to a second-floor room.
Walker said he was cooking spaghetti in the kitchen when he heard the girl crying, "Get off me!" Outraged, he insisted that the Walkers leave his house. That was the last he saw of her, he said.
Walker had changed his story at least 15 times since he was first interviewed at the time of the murder, but prosecutors made a deal. For testimony against the brothers, he was allowed to plead guilty to third-degree murder and kidnapping, with a maximum sentence of 40 years.
On Oct. 26, 2005, 13 years after the murder, a jury found James and Timothy O'Brien guilty of murder and sexual assault. Their sentence: Life in prison without parole.
Although Shauna's killers were finally behind bars, nighttime trick or treating stayed on hold for three more years, until fifth-grader Elizabeth Roess, 10, decided enough was enough.
With 175 signatures on a petition, Roess persuaded the City Council to set aside the 16-year tradition of fear and revived Halloween for the children of Oil City.
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