Boy, Now 12, Will Be Tried as Adult in Murder of Dad's Pregnant Girlfriend
An 11-year-old boy who police say shot and killed his father’s eight-months-pregnant girlfriend in the family home early last year will be tried as an adult in the homicides of the Pennsylvania woman and her unborn baby.
Jordan Brown, now 12, has been charged with criminal homicide and homicide of an unborn child in the death of Kenzie Marie Houk, 26, and Brown’s half-brother, according to Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo. Meanwhile, a judge has ruled against a petition that Brown be tried in juvenile court, reports CNN.
“This is something that you wouldn’t even think of in your worst nightmare, that you’d have to charge an 11-year-old with homicide,” Bongivengo told a local CNN affiliate in Pittsburgh when Houk was killed in February 2009. “It’s heinous, the whole situation.”
Under Pennsylvania law, individuals who are 10 or older can be tried as adults in such cases. If convicted, Brown faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, the DA says.
An earlier article in the Beaver County Times details the arguments made for and against trying Brown as an adult.
He was identified by authorities as a suspect in the killings in part because the only tracks in the snow around Houk’s farmhouse were made by Brown and Houk’s 7-year-old daughter, the newspaper reports.
