2008 GoErie archive: Finally, Oil City is ready to come out after dark for Halloween

Editor's note: This story was originally published on Oct. 26, 2008.

Jack-o'-lanterns with carved crooked teeth and plastic pumpkins flashing goofy painted grins dot the city's quaint, quiet neighborhoods.

Witches and ghosts float from front-porch hooks, blown about by winds that send fallen leaves scratching against cobweb-covered fences and into bushes littered with little orange lights.

The images paint an attractive holiday landscape when the sun shines bright on an autumn afternoon.

But the scenery becomes even more eye-catching when the sun sets and the jack-o'-lantern candles and the orange lights are lit.

"It's more exciting, spooky," 18-year-old Stephanie Beatty said as she painted a cardboard pumpkin cutout while working the checkout desk at Film Fest Video on a recent afternoon.

The scene has been foreign to Oil City trick-or-treaters since 1992, when a ballerina-costumed 11-year-old girl on her way home from a Girl Scout Halloween party was snatched from a lonely street corner, raped and killed.

The shock of the attack on Shauna Howe drove city leaders to move trick-or-treating to Saturday afternoon. It stayed there as the years ticked by without any resolution to the case.

Beatty, who was 2 years old at the time of Howe's murder, would later do her nighttime trick-or-treating in neighboring Cranberry Township. In Oil City, children and adults would only gather en masse after dark at Halloween for a vigil to mark each anniversary of Howe's death.

That changed in 2004, when the Pennsylvania State Police charged brothers James E. and Timothy M. O'Brien with sexually assaulting and killing Howe, and charged Eldred "Ted" Walker with participating in her kidnapping and killing.

Nearly two years after the last of Shauna Howe's accused killers was sentenced to a lengthy prison term -- the O'Briens to life terms and Walker to 20 to 40 years -- Oil City's trick-or-treaters are ready to once again hit the streets after dark.

2006 GoErie.com archive: Shauna Howe's killers have 15-30 years added to life sentences

The city's five-member council, driven by a 10-year-old girl's plea and some signature-filled petitions, voted in September to set this year's trick-or-treat hours for 6 to 8 p.m. on Oct. 31.

"I think this year was just the culmination of the public's attitude on going back," said Oil City Manager Tom Rockovich, noting that city leaders had discussed the idea for several years before Elizabeth Roess' appearance before council at their Aug. 25 meeting.

Roess, whose West First Street home is eight blocks from where Howe had lived and three-quarters-of-a-mile from the corner where Howe was abducted, said she always felt like the kids of Oil City were missing out by having to trick-or-treat during the day.

A lot of people weren't home on Saturday afternoons, so the children had fewer places to collect candy from, Roess said. The decorations also aren't as attractive, or spooky, in the daylight, she added.

"Oil City used to be big on decorating for Halloween. But no one really decorated anymore," said Roess' father, Kevin, who grew up in the city.

After getting some encouragement from her fifth-grade teacher and fellow students at Seventh Street Elementary School, Elizabeth Roess and her mother, Lisa, pitched the idea to Oil City Mayor Sonja Hawkins. After another City Council member suggested that they do more to advance the idea, Roess' family made up some petitions and filled four pages with signatures from residents who also favored moving trick-or-treat back to nighttime, Lisa Roess said.

The support didn't stop there. The Roesses said they heard from many more people who felt that the time was right for Oil City to recapture some Halloween tradition.

"Only about four people in my class disagreed, and said they didn't like it for safety reasons. Probably their parents knocked it into their heads," Elizabeth Roess said.

The Look Back:Oct. 28, 1992 front page of local section of Erie Daily Times

Lynda Noble, of Oil City, said she was thrilled that council decided to make the change, because "Halloween is definitely a nighttime activity." City resident Wesley Watson agreed, but said that it will be a big adjustment for children like his daughter, 2-year-old Tameika Watson, because they never went trick-or-treating at night before.

Oil City Police Chief Robert Wenner was a young patrol officer when he said city leaders made "a good, common-sense decision" to cancel nighttime trick-or-treating after Howe's murder. He admits to being a little concerned over the change back to the old way, because kids and parents in town haven't experienced trick-or-treating after dark.

Howe's mother, Lucy Howe Brown, and Howe's siblings moved from Oil City to North Carolina several years after the murder.

City officials will take steps to ensure the safety of children on Friday by putting out additional police officers and calling in school security officers and school crossing guards for assistance. They are also preparing the community for the upcoming event by running public service announcements on local radio this week, and by encouraging parents to be active participants in a safe holiday celebration.

"We're encouraging parents to go out and relive some old Halloween memories with their children and create some new ones," Wenner said.

Tim Hahn can be reached at thahn@timesnews.com or on Twitter at @ETNHahn.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Shauna Howe murder: Oil City and night trick-or-treating for Halloween