Court overturns then-11-year-old boy’s conviction in slaying
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s highest court is overturning the conviction of a then-11-year-old boy in the 2009 shotgun slaying of his father’s pregnant fiancee, saying prosecutors didn’t provide enough evidence to support it.
The state Supreme Court’s 5-0 ruling Wednesday reversed a finding by a juvenile court judge in Lawrence County, upheld by a state appellate court, that Jordan Brown was guilty of first-degree murder and homicide of an unborn child.
Brown, now 20, was charged in the slaying of 26-year-old Kenzie Houk, who was eight months pregnant.
Justices attacked the evidence as insufficient, saying among other things that trial evidence pointing to a shotgun in Brown’s bedroom as the murder weapon supported an equally reasonable conclusion that it wasn’t the murder weapon.