Friday hearing set for boy charged in killing

The defendant was 11 years old when the woman was shot to death in her bed.

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Jordan Brown

STAFF REPORT

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — A hearing Friday will determine whether Jordan Brown, 12, accused in the shotgun slaying of his father’s pregnant girlfriend, should stand trial as an adult or a juvenile.

The hearing will be at 8:30 a.m. in Courtroom No. 1 at the Lawrence County Government Center. President Judge Dominick Motto of Lawrence County Common Pleas Court is set to hear arguments about why Brown’s case, accused of killing Kenzie Houk, 26, at the family’s rented farmhouse near Wampum, Pa., on Feb. 20, 2009, should be transferred to juvenile court.

Brown’s lawyers will have to show the boy is amenable to rehabilitation before the judge will do that.

Brown has spent most of his incarceration since the shooting at a juvenile center in Erie, Pa., and has undergone psychological evaluation that shows he can be rehabilitated, his lawyers say.

Brown was 11 when Houk was shot in the back of the head as she lay in bed around 7:30 that morning. Her unborn son died from lack of oxygen. Brown has been charged with murdering him as well.

State police who investigated the crime allege that Brown shot her with his youth- model shotgun, then caught the school bus with her 7-year-old daughter. Her 4-year-old daughter was left alone in the house and found her mother’s body. She appealed for help to tree cutters who were in their yard.

Police questioned the children later that day at school, and Brown told them about a strange vehicle parked in the driveway before they left for school. Police said that the lead was a ruse. The 7-year-old told them that she heard a loud bang, like a shotgun blast, in the house before they left for school, police said. They recovered the gun from his bedroom, they said. By late that evening, Brown was the suspect in the murder. The motive, investigators have said, was jealousy over the new baby.

He was charged as an adult. Pennsylvania law requires that anyone over 10 years old who’s charged with criminal homicide go through the adult system first.

The boy’s attorneys petitioned the court in September to have him transferred to the juvenile system, which would allow him to be released when he is 21.

The Lawrence County district attorney objected to a transfer.

Instead of ruling on the request, the judge called for the hearing.