OIL CITY -- Nearly a decade after Shauna Howe disappeared while walking home from a Halloween party, state police said a Venango County man told them he'd seen two brothers carry the girl into his home and up the stairs.

Investigators said Eldred "Ted" Walker, 45, of Cranberry, also told them that he and the brothers, James and Timothy O'Brien, spoke about snatching someone from a street before Shauna's abduction.

Walker told investigators he knew Shauna, and that he spoke to her and hugged her on the street before Timothy O'Brien pulled her toward a car.

State police said that statement -- which Walker yesterday denied making -- as well as a DNA match with James O'Brien led them to accuse the O'Brien brothers of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing the 11-year-old Girl Scout in 1992.

James O'Brien, 32, and Timothy O'Brien, 37, were charged yesterday with first-degree murder, second-degree murder, rape, kidnapping and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. The O'Briens, formerly of Oil City, are serving time in state prisons -- James in Greensburg, Timothy in Waynesburg -- for unrelated attacks.

Shauna's mother, Lucy Mae Brown, said she does not know the suspects and cannot understand why they targeted her daughter. Yesterday's arrests left her "numb," she said, but her longing for her slain child is as overwhelming as ever.

"My daughter never did anything to anybody, especially these two people," she said. "I would hope that when people remember her, they turn to their own children and hug them and love them."

The mother of three other grown children, Brown now lives in another state but plans to attend court proceedings for the O'Briens and to push prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

"You won't get me out of Oil City until the day [the court] finds them guilty and sentences them for killing my daughter," she said. "I guess I'm glad [the arrests] are a beginning of the end.''

Shauna's slaying terrified residents of this community about 70 miles north of Pittsburgh, prompting them to hold annual memorials and permanently shift trick-or-treating to daylight hours. As word spread of the arrests, people spoke of little else in restaurants, bars and street-corner encounters.

"Over the years, you'd wonder -- will they ever get somebody?'' said Jeanne Nairn, a former cafeteria worker at Shauna's elementary school who helped to organize a candlelight vigil after her death.

"So this is fantastic [news],'' she said. "Nobody should have to suffer like that.''

A shy brunette with a pageboy haircut, Shauna was abducted Oct. 27, 1992, near the busy intersection of West First and Reed Streets while walking home from a Girl Scout Halloween party at a church. Her mother reported her missing about three hours after a witness called Oil City police to report that he'd seen a thin, disheveled white man force a young girl into a red Oldsmobile.

Widespread searches over the next three days led to the discovery of her battered body about six miles away in Rockland, under an abandoned railroad trestle near a remote swimming area known as Coulter's Hole. An autopsy determined she died of head and chest injuries.

Timothy O'Brien already is serving a 33-month-to-5-year sentence in the State Correctional Institution Greene following his conviction in 2003 for indecent assault of a girl and a boy. He was deemed a sexually violent predator under the state's Megan's Law.

In 1994, he was convicted of corruption of minors for having sex with a 16-year-old girl, taking nude photographs of her and plying her with alcohol. He was sentenced to one to two years in prison.

James O'Brien is serving a 4¹/₂-to-20-year sentence at SCI Greensburg following his conviction in 1995 for abducting a woman, knocking her to the ground and trying to force her into his car. He previously was sentenced to 11¹/₂ to 24 months in jail in 1994 for receiving stolen property.

State police yesterday refused to comment on the arrests or the evidence that led them to the O'Briens. Nor would they comment on why more than two years have passed since they matched a DNA sample from James O'Brien with DNA samples found on Shauna's body and on the bodysuit she'd worn as a gymnast's costume to the Halloween party.

James O'Brien's mother, Linda O'Brien, told The Associated Press in March 2002 that investigators had told her they'd matched James O'Brien's DNA with samples taken from the body. He later denied his involvement in interviews with reporters.

In affidavits filed to support yesterday's arrests, Trooper Brian K. O'Toole said the FBI Laboratory in Washington, D.C., concluded on Feb. 8, 2002, that James O'Brien's DNA matched DNA in semen on Shauna's clothing. Brown said state police notified her of that match more than two years ago, but said she did not know what led them to seek O'Brien's DNA.

"Over the years, they had a list of God knows how many names of people to check,'' she said. "The wait was frustrating. But there was much that had to be done to make sure there was a strong case.''

In the affidavits, state police also said that Walker, in a statement given on June 28, 2002, admitted that he and the O'Briens had talked of abducting someone days before the kidnapping. Police also said Walker told them he was there when Timothy O'Brien pulled Shauna into a car and that he saw the O'Brien brothers carry her upstairs in his home a short time later.

Walker, who is not charged, yesterday denied involvement in the case during an interview at his home. He complained that state police used coercive tactics on him in 2002. He acknowledged he'd told police he was at the scene because "they threatened to take my [son] out of my house if I didn't say what they wanted me to say."

"I've never seen Shauna Howe in my whole life," he said, adding that he'd permitted police to search his home after his name cropped up in the investigation.

Walker said Timothy O'Brien lived with him for a short time, but contended that police took comments he'd made about "grabbing someone off the street'' out of context. He also said he never told investigators he'd seen the O'Briens carrying Shauna in his house.

"I told them the O'Briens carried something up the steps. I don't know what it was," he said. "As God is my witness, I had nothing to do with this."

Over the years, the case has involved dozens of state and local police, FBI agents and private investigators. Criminal profilers, behavioral experts and a federal grand jury reviewed the evidence. A telephone tip line and reward fund were established.

Oil City Police Chief Robert J. Wenner hopes the arrests will bring peace to the Howe family and a community that can not help but remember her each Oct. 31.

"We're very glad. These individuals were known to us over the past,'' he said, although he would not elaborate on his department's dealings with the O'Briens.

"It almost became synonymous, the Shauna Howe abduction, with the daylight Halloween," Wenner said. "I think it was a wake-up call for a lot of people in the community that these things happen everywhere."