Housing bills are questioned by official

The boy has been moved to a center in Erie.

STAFF REPORT

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — The Lawrence County controller is questioning bills for housing Jordan Brown, the boy accused in the shooting death of his father’s pregnant girlfriend.

Controller David Gettings notified county commissioners Tuesday that he is refusing payment of bills regarding the 11-year-old murder suspect’s stay at the Allencrest Juvenile Detention Center in Beaver County. He said he’s required under the county code to give such notice.

He also said he hasn’t received a copy of the contract or purchase orders for the charges. He’s waiting for those documents, which he’ll refer to his solicitor.

Jordan was housed in the Lawrence County Jail after the Feb. 20 shotgun slaying of Kenzie Houk, 26, at the rural farmhouse she shared with the boy and his father, Christopher Brown, near Wampum, Pa.

He was moved to Allencrest on Feb. 25 after jail personnel said it wasn’t a good environment for an 11-year-old, said Gettings, who is also the chairman of the county prison board.

Gettings said he asked county President Judge Dominick Motto of common pleas court to find a better place to house the boy, and Judge Motto ordered him sent to Allencrest. But that did not work out, Gettings said, because the daily rate there was “crazy.”

Commissioners had passed a resolution for payment of $300 a day while the normal per diem rate is $200, with the understanding that the extra $100 was for added security in the high-profile case, he said.

But then he received a bill from the Beaver sheriff’s office totaling $2,786 for security detail, pushing the per diem rate to $900 for the five days the boy spent there, he said. Allencrest is actually charging for six days, and he also questions that.

Gettings asked Judge Motto to move the boy again, and he was sent to the Edmund L. Thomas Adolescent Center in Erie. There, the per diem rate is $239 a day, he said — $1,196 for five days vs. $4,500 at Allencrest.

“He’s going to be there awhile. We don’t want to pay $900 a day,” Gettings said, adding that the center in Erie is “first-class.”

The boy is accused of shooting Houk in the back of her head as she lay in bed. Her 9-month-old fetus, a boy, also died.

Authorities say Jordan then caught the bus to school, along with Houk’s 7-year-old daughter. Her 4-year-old daughter found her body.

The Lawrence County district attorney is charging Jordan as an adult. Pennsylvania requires that anyone age 10 and up who is charged with a homicide go through the adult system first.

A preliminary hearing is set for March 24 in county Central Court.

The boy’s public defender, Dennis Elisco, said there will be a hearing to petition for bail March 27.

Elisco said he still plans to petition to move the boy to juvenile court once a psychological evaluation is completed. The law requires a show of amenability to rehabilitation before a child can be decertified for adult prosecution, he said.

Elisco said Jordan does not have a history of discipline problems and is thriving at the Erie center.