CHILD'S MURDER 3 arrests shed light on slaying from 1992

Three men have been arrested in connection with the 12-year-old case.
OIL CITY, Pa. (AP) -- She should have been safe. Shauna Howe had often walked down the street lined with churches and Victorian-style homes along the Allegheny River.
But on Oct. 27, 1992, the 11-year-old was walking back from a Girl Scout Halloween party when she was abducted from a corner near her home. Her body was found 21/2 days later in a creek beneath an abandoned railroad trestle about 10 miles from town. She was still wearing her Halloween costume -- a bodysuit she wore to be a ballerina.
Still wondering
Last week, three men were arrested on charges they played a role in the girl's rape and murder, providing some answers for the residents in this town. Many still wonder how it could have happened in a town where people leave their doors open and everyone knows everyone.
"You just never forgot about it, for something so brutal to happen to a small child and have it go unsolved," said Jeanne Nairn, a former cafeteria worker at Shauna's elementary school who helped organize a vigil on the anniversary of the girl's slaying. "I've heard people say that this is such a quiet, small town and has so much to offer. You ask, 'How could this happen in a small town?'"
The answers are far from comforting. The three men arrested are all from Oil City.
Who suspects are
James O'Brien, 32, and his brother Timothy O'Brien, 37, both now serving unrelated prison terms, were arrested July 2. Eldred Ted Walker, 45, was arrested a day later.
James O'Brien is serving 41/2 to 20 years for an attempted kidnapping in 1995. Timothy O'Brien is serving a 33-month to five-year sentence and has been labeled a sexually violent predator for his conviction last year on charges of assaulting a girl and a boy.
State police claim the men are linked to the girl's abduction through DNA evidence and a statement Walker allegedly made to authorities two years ago. James O'Brien gave investigators a saliva sample in 2002 that authorities say matched a genetic profile from semen found on Shauna's bodysuit.
Other evidence
Walker allegedly told state police that he and the O'Briens had talked about "grabbing someone off the street just days prior to [Howe's] abduction." Walker also told authorities that he knew Shauna and talked with her and hugged her before Timothy O'Brien pulled her toward a car, state police said. The brothers then allegedly took her to Walker's home.
Investigators believe she was held captive for most of the time she was missing because searchers didn't find her body at the swimming hole a day earlier.
In published reports, Walker has denied involvement in the murder, saying he was coerced by state police investigators. Walker had no listed phone number.
The arrests have brought some solace to Oil City. But along with an 11-year-old girl, the town lost some of its innocence.
"There's a loss of trust, but 12 years ago was a different time," said Susan Price, 54.
Halloween is held only during daylight, and some parents still shepherd their children to and from bus stops. Shopping carts carrying children are seldom left unwatched, let alone unattended, and parents are careful not to let children wander too close to doors.
"I don't think it will be the same as far as the kids. It is just society all over. You can't let them leave your side at all or someone will pick them up or do something crazy," said Don Culp, 59, a sexton at the Second Presbyterian Church, which sits on the corner where Shauna was abducted.
Some in town caution it may have been a matter of time before big-city problems spread to Oil City, the birthplace of the nation's petroleum industry.
Jobs gone
But the oil industry is all but gone; Pennzoil left for Houston in the 1960s and Quaker State moved to Dallas in 1995, taking thousands of jobs with it.
In the past three decades, Oil City has shrunk from about 15,000 people to 11,500. Renters have replaced homeowners.
Shauna's own family has moved outside Camp LeJeune, N.C. Her mother, Lucy Mae Brown, did not have a listed number. She has said she plans to come back to Oil City for the trials.