From staff reports
A new television show that has been airing over the last week and a half on the A&E network is taking another look at the Shauna Howe kidnapping and murder case.
The show, which was the debut episode of the new season of A&E’s “City Confidential” series, premiered Thursday, Oct. 28, one day after the anniversary of Shauna’s Oct. 27, 1992, abduction on West First Street in Oil City while she was walking home from a Girl Scout Halloween party.
Shauna’s body was found three days later on Oct. 30, 1992.
More than a half dozen people were interviewed for the show, including members of Shauna’s family, local law enforcement personnel, and longtime newspaper and political figures in the community who are familiar with Shauna and Oil City’s story.
The broadcast, titled “Monsters on Main Street,” traces the 12 years that started with Shauna’s death and continued until the October 2004 trial of brothers Michael and Timothy O’Brien, who were convicted of killing Shauna.
The program also focuses on the 1997 murder of another Oil City girl, four-year-old Shenee Freeman. Shenee was killed Oct. 29, 1997, and her body was found the next day, five years to the day that Shauna’s body was found.
The show documents how that case triggered more fears in the city since there had been no arrests for Shauna’s death at that time. As it turned out, there was no connection between the two cases.
