FOR THE PEOPLE: Brad Foulk, Successful Co-Prosecutor In Shauna Howe Halloween Murder ‘Cold Case,’ Dies At 61

Brad Foulk

In the days just prior to Halloween in 1992, Shauna Howe was walking home from an early evening  Girl Scout meeting at a church in a small town in Pennsylvania.

Shauna, 11, never made it home. She was abducted, abused and thrown while still alive from a railroad trestle onto a creek bed 33 feet below. The murder, which made national news, went unsolved for 12 years.

Investigators and prosecutors never gave up. Arrests were made in 2004, with the aid of a DNA match.

Brad Foulk, district attorney of Erie County, was brought in to assist local prosecutors because of his special skills.

Brothers James and Timothy O’Brien were convicted of Shauna’s murder on Oct. 26, 2005. The guilty verdicts were recorded almost 13 years to the day of the horrific crimes against the young girl.

Foulk helped secure the verdict in the murder and sex-crime case in which famed FBI profiler Robert K. Ressler also had consulted.

Ressler helped crack the “Son of Sam” case involving David Berkowitz in New York and also was involved in the Jeffrey Dahmer case, but  perhaps is best known as the inspiration behind a character in the movie “The Silence of the Lambs.” It was the movie that introduced the world to the fictional Hannibal Lecter.

In helping to secure convictions in the Shauna Howe 'cold case' after 12 years, Brad Foulk helped restore peace to an an entire community.

Like Ressler, Brad Foulk knew that terrible, terrible things happened to innocent people in real life.

Foulk, 61, died Wednesday of lung cancer.  He is remembered as a hard-working, thoughtful prosecutor and staunch advocate for crime victims.

“The law enforcement community has lost a steadfast supporter and advocate and I have lost a close personal friend,” said Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania’s attorney general. “Brad had a first-rate legal mind and was committed to protecting the people of Erie County and the state. He vigorously pursued justice with a passion and cared deeply about the victims of crime.”

Brad Foulk was a tireless advocate for the people, his colleagues said.

“Brad will be greatly missed both personally and professionally within the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association,” said Gary Dobias, immediate past president of PDAA and Carbon County District Attorney.

“Not only did he serve the people of Erie County well as district attorney, but he served this entire Commonwealth with his thoughtfulness, knowledge and leadership on issues such as drug treatment for offenders to assure public safety, prison reforms and vocal advocacy for crime victims’ rights,” Dobias said.

One of those rights is to feel safe in your own community. Trick-or-Treat in Shauna’s community was moved to daylight hours for more than a decade after her Halloween-season murder. The community held a candlelight vigil for Shauna each fall to keep her memory alive as the crime remained unsolved.

Brad Foulk participated in the vigil and helped restore an entire town’s sense of well-being. With the killers in prison and Shauna’s memory preserved for the ages, the community has restored Trick-or-Treat to the early evening hours.