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Hearing for boy will be closed to public
NEW CASTLE, Pa.
Jordan Brown, now 13, who stands accused of the shotgun slaying of his father’s girlfriend two years ago, will have a bench trial in Lawrence County Juvenile Court at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday before Judge John Hodge.
The hearing will be closed to the public although the outcome will be announced because of the widespread attention the case has attracted.
Jordan was 11 at the time of the 2009 murder of Kenzie Marie Houk, 26, and her unborn child at the New Galilee farmhouse where Houk and her two daughters lived with Jordan and his father.
Judge Dominick Motto of Lawrence County Common Pleas Court had initially ruled Jordan would be tried as an adult in the case, but was overruled by an appeals court, which said the boy’s failure to admit guilt to a psychiatrist could not be used against him.
Judge Motto was ordered to reconsider the case without the psychiatrist’s testimony and last month, the judge issued another decision, sending the case to juvenile court. Jordan is in a juvenile facility in Erie.
If convicted, he faces incarceration until he is 21.