Career
Howe was walking home from a Girl Scouts Halloween party in Oil City, Pennsylvania and was two blocks from home when she was abducted at the corner of West First and Reed streets. Despite a search of the area the day before, Howe"s body was found about 200 yards from where the clothing was found the next morning. Howe"s abductors had thrown her from a railroad trestle into a dry, rocky creek bed near Coulter"s Hole in Rockland.
She died of blunt force trauma to the head and chest resulting from the fall.
The mystery of Howe"s disappearance and murder continued for nearly ten years until the investigation had a major break. In 2002, a deoxyribonucleic acid sample taken from Oil City resident James O"Brien, who was serving a prison sentence for attempting to kidnap an Oil City woman in 1995, matched a sample of deoxyribonucleic acid found on Howe"s body in tests run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation lab in Washington, District of Columbia. The revelation intensified the investigation, with increased presence in the area by state police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The state police searched the home of Eldred "Ted" Walker, who said he may have opened his home to some "really bad" people once who may have done "a disgusting thing."
In October that same year the brothers were found guilty of kidnapping, conspiracy and second and third degree murder, but were acquitted on charges of first degree murder and rape.
Following Howe"s murder, the Oil City Council voted to prohibit night-time trick-or-treating. The ban remained in place for 15 years, before being lifted in time for Halloween 2008.