OIL CITY MURDER Jury to deliberate in rape, killing of girl

One man kidnapped her and says two brothers raped and killed her.
FRANKLIN, Pa. (AP) -- Nearly 13 years after an Oil City Girl Scout disappeared on her way home from a Halloween party, a jury will begin deciding whether two brothers killed and raped the girl after a friend kidnapped her as a prank.
The jury is expected to deliberate the fate of Timothy O'Brien, 39, and James O'Brien, 33, outside Venango County Judge Oliver Lobaugh's courtroom starting today. The jurors had to be picked in Indiana County and bused in because of the publicity the case has had in Venango County.
Officials in Oil City still hold trick-or-treating during daylight hours because of Shauna Howe's disappearance Oct. 27, 1992, and the name of the 11-year-old girl is synonymous with missing children's cases throughout western Pennsylvania.
The jury will begin deliberating after closing arguments that were slated to begin this morning.
Kidnapper testified
The key witness against the O'Briens was Eldred Walker, known as Ted, who will serve 20 to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping Shauna in what he said was a prank designed to make the Oil City police look bad.
But Walker has testified the O'Briens raped the girl then tossed her -- still alive -- from a 33-foot-high railroad trestle into a creek, where she was found dead Oct. 30, 1992. The O'Briens face life in prison without parole if they're convicted of first-degree murder and other charges.
Blaming Walker
On Saturday, the last day of testimony, defense attorneys tried one last time to convince the jury that Walker raped and killed the girl himself.
They called Fiona Walker, Walker's sister-in-law, to testify that he gave her a stained, stinking Chevy Nova to pay off a debt just days after Shauna's death. The woman said the water she used to scrub the car's interior turned red, which the attorneys suggested was because Walker had transported the girl's bloody body in the car.
Prosecutors then presented insurance records, a state title search and a handwritten receipt to show that Walker didn't even own the car until June 1993, and didn't give it to his sister-in-law until November 1994.