Judge: Pa. Boy, 11, Killed Dad’s Pregnant Fiancee - USATODAY.com
A boy who was 11 when he was accused of killing his father’s pregnant fiance and her unborn son was found guilty Friday of their 2009 shotgun slayings.
Lawrence County Judge John Hodge found the now-14-year-old Jordan Brown delinquent, the juvenile court equivalent of a guilty verdict, in the deaths of Kenzie Houk and her unborn child. The judge closed the trial to the media and all but immediately family members because of the boy’s age when the 26-year-old Houk died.
The verdict on the criminal homicide charges means Brown could remain in juvenile court custody until he’s 21. Whether he remains incarcerated in a juvenile facility that entire time or is eventually released on probation will be subject to future hearings on the state of his rehabilitation. He’s been held in a facility about 80 miles from his home for most of the three years since he’s been charged with criminal homicide.
Brown had faced the potential of life in prison without parole if convicted in Common Pleas, or adult court, which is where state officials initially filed the charges because that’s required in Pennsylvania homicide cases regardless of a defendant’s age.
The case grabbed headlines as much due to the chilling nature of the crimes as the ill-fitting Pennsylvania laws governing juvenile homicide suspects, which prompted two Superior Court appeals. The first resulted in the case being moved to juvenile court and the second was an unsuccessful attempt by three western Pennsylvania newspapers to open the trial to the public even though Hodge had the discretion to close the case because Brown was under 12 when the killings occurred.
Jordan Brown: Found delinquent (guilty) in the deaths of Kenzie Houk and her unborn child. He was 11 at the time of the shootings.
Another judge, Dominick Motto, initially refused to move the case to juvenile court. Motto acknowledged finding no evidence connecting anyone else to the crimes on Feb. 20, 2009, and agreed with state prosecutors that as long as Brown refused to admit committing the crimes, his chance of rehabilitation in juvenile court was remote.
Both the boy and his supporters, including his father, have insisted he’s innocent.
Houk, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, was shot in the back of the head with Brown’s .20-gauge youth model shotgun while lying in bed. The shooting occurred after the boy’s father, Christopher Brown, left for work, with only Jordan Brown and Houk’s two daughters, ages 7 and 4, also in the house.