A Small Town Halloween Murder Changed Everything
A brazen kidnapping, unspeakable abuse, and an enormously horrific murder that would sit unsolved for years.
October 27, 1992, is when small-town Oil City, Pennsylvania, would change forever. No longer were they insular from the crimes seen in other places. As media from around the country descended on the town, it was clear nothing would ever be the same again.
It was around 8 pm when Shauna Melinda Howe 11, was walking home from her Girl Scouts Halloween party. She had made it as far as the corner of Reed and West First Street, only two blocks from home when she was grabbed.
Dan Paden had witnessed the kidnapping and was able to give authorities details about the vehicle and the abductors.
When there wasn’t a ransom call, everyone prepared for the worst. The outlying areas of the town were searched, looking for a body.
Two days after she was taken, a family member out searching found a piece of her costume. It was located in a rural wooded area near an abandoned railroad bed. This area had been searched the day before, and her body had not been there.
Shauna had been thrown alive from the railroad trestle bridge above, into the dry creek bed. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and chest from the fall.
