A memorial walk has been planned in Oil City to mark 30 years to the day that Shauna Howe was abducted on a South Side street and to honor the 11-year-old girl’s lasting legacy in the community.
The Shauna Howe 30th Anniversary Memorial Walk will take place Thursday, Oct. 27, and participants will retrace Shauna’s steps as she walked home the night of Oct. 27, 1992, from a Girl Scout Halloween party.
The walkers will start at 7 p.m. at Calvary United Methodist Church at 115 East First St. and end at the corner of West First and Reed streets where Shauna was abducted less than two blocks from her home.
The walk is being organized by Shauna’s mother, Lucy Brown; and Shauna’s younger sisters, Emily Krebs and Jennifer Makin.
Participants are asked to bring a stone painted purple with “In Memory of Shauna” written on it.
“Purple was her favorite color. We’re asking people who knew Shauna to bring a rock painted purple with their name and how they knew Shauna in memory of her,” Brown said. “There is something I want to do with them but I’m not going to say what. There are people I’ll need to talk to,” Brown added.
Remembering Shauna 30 years later and also reminding people about how unsafe the world is for children motivated Brown and her daughters to organize the walk.
“There are kids out there running around after dark. I want people to remember Shauna and what happened to her,” Brown said. “Those three (who abducted and murdered Shauna) are locked up but there are others who would do something like that.”
It took nearly a dozen years after Shauna’s death before police were able to charge brothers James E. O’Brien, 32 at the time, and Timothy M. O’Brien, 37 at the time, with kidnapping, raping and murdering Shauna.
They were convicted after a 2005 trial and received life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Eldred “Ted” Walker, 47 at the time of the arrests, was charged with kidnapping and murder in the case. He reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and was given a 40-year sentence in exchange for his testimony against the O’Briens.
Brown noted that Walker will be up for parole in 2025.
“As far as I’m concerned, 20 years isn’t enough time for my daughter’s life. As far as I’m concerned, 40 years isn’t enough time for my daughter’s life, but I can’t get more than that because that is what he was sentenced to,” Brown said of Walker.
At the walk, Brown plans to ask people who attend to write the parole board and ask them to not release Walker on parole. Brown said she will distribute cards with Walker’s name and where he is in prison to aid people in writing to the board.
Shauna’s disappearance and murder haunted the area as trick-or-treat hours were moved to the daytime when children would be safer. Nighttime hours weren’t brought back in the city until 2008.
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