CNHI News Service
New Castle, PA, News
Feb 23, 2009
This undated photo released by the Houk family shows Kenzie Marie Houk with her daughters Jenessa, left, and Adalynn in Wampum, Pa.
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Jordan Brown, 11, is charged in the shooting death of the 26-year-old pregnant mother of two. (AP Photo/The Houk Family)
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NEW BEAVER BOROUGH, Pa. - Jenessa Houk told police Jordan Anthony Brown, 11, “went upstairs and got the guns,” put on his socks and then she heard a boom that sounded like a gunshot, like when her dad was shooting outside.
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Brown, a fifth-grader, had received the youth-sized 20-gauge shotgun for Christmas. He won a turkey shoot with it on Valentine’s Day. Six days later he was accused of killing Kenzie Houk, 26, and her unborn son – his father Christopher Brown’s son – in the rented Pennsylvania farmhouse where the merged families lived.
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A criminal complaint filed against Jordan Brown quoted Jenessa Houk has saying, “He went upstairs and got the guns. Then he came downstairs ... and then, and then he was still in there getting his socks on. Then I went and got my shoes on and then I was standing there and I heard a big boom ... I asked him what it was and he didn’t tell me.”The girl said the boom sounded like a “gun,” explaining she recognized it “because I’ve heard a gun before ... when my dad and mom, when my dad and brother were shooting outside.”
Then, investigators say, Jenessa Houk and Jordan Brown walked down their driveway, climbed into a school bus and went off to school, leaving behind her 4-year-old sister.
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Tree trimmer Steve Cable says he and a half-dozen workers were picking up wood at the rented farmhouse later that morning when Houk’s younger daughter came, crying, out of the house.“She told me, ‘My mommy is dead,’” Cable said.He asked the 4-year-old if she was sure her mother wasn’t just sleeping, and “she said no, she was dead,” said Cable, who gave the child a lollipop and called 911.
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The two girls later went home with their grandmother and the boy went to jail.
Prosecutors have charged Jordan Anthony Brown with criminal homicide and homicide of an unborn child. Kenzie Houk was shot once in the back of the head. She was two weeks from giving birth.
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Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo — noting that under Pennsylvania law he had no choice — has charged the boy as an adult. He called the situation “tragic in every sense of the word.” Jordan Brown was being held without bond in the county jail, segregated from the 185 or adult prisoners also housed there. The boy’s preliminary hearing is set for Thursday morning.
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Bongivengo described Houk’s older daughter — who will be 8 next month — as the main witness. Although not an eyewitness, the district attorney said, she “was there at the time of the shooting,” she heard it and she saw Jordan with the shotgun.
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He has described the gun as a lighter, shorter-stocked model made for younger shooters. Investigators found it in the boy’s bedroom. According to Bongivengo, there were initial reports from the boy about a black truck in the area that the children didn’t recognize. But eventually, he said, “the 7-year-old implicated him. Her statement was very credible. “I think the 7-year-old was fearful,” Bongivengo said, “but when she started talking, her story was consistent” with the circumstances. He said there was no forced entry, no sign of a struggle and no money missing.
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Christopher Brown, employed by a company that makes home furnishings, had already gone to work when his wife and unborn son died. Bongivengo said the 4-year-old didn’t hear the shooting. After the older two children left for school, he said, she turned on the television and got herself something to eat. Then, at some point, she went looking for her mother, found her body and called out to the tree trimmers.
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Now, as law enforcement agents piece together what happened at the farmhouse on Wampum-New Galilee Road, they also struggle to deal with the issue of housing a child in a grownup jail.
“We’re keeping him in a holding cell, separate from the population,” Warden Charles Adamo said. “That’s been all right for now, but if we get an influx of prisoners there could be problems.”
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Generally, he said, new prisoners remain in the booking cells — where Brown is — for 24 hours, then are moved on to the general population. “With him, we can’t do that,” Adamo said. “He can’t be placed with the jail population. He gets no yard time. All he can do is sit there.”
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Adamo said adapting to the young prisoner has been tough.“We have to check on him, visually, every 15 minutes to see how he is doing,” he said. “Holding cells have no television for distraction. As I said, he can’t go into the yard, can’t even take a shower.” The warden said someone on staff offered Brown a Bible, but other than that and meeting several times with his public defender attorney and eating three meals a day since his arrival, that has been the extent of his activity.
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“He’s had no visitors,” the warden said. “There is no place to visit in the holding cells. For a regular visit, we’d have to put him with the regular population and we can’t do that.” Adamo said the only accommodation for the youngster has been by the dietary department. “The cook has been providing more dairy items” he said, “since he needs that.” There’s been talk of moving the boy at a juvenile detention center but, because he is considered an adult in light of the criminal charges, there are issues with doing so.
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Adamo doesn’t expect Jordan Brown will be leaving his jail before Thursday’s hearing. If Brown is found guilty of killing Houk and her baby, the boy could be handed a life sentence, but he’s too young to be considered for the death penalty.“If he lives to his 80s, he’d spend more than 70 years in jail,” Adamo said. “That’s hard to fathom.”
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Relatives have said that Jordan Brown was consumed with jealousy over Kenzie Houk's unborn baby boy and allegedly shot her dead as she lay in bed in the family's Wampum, Pa., farmhouse Friday morning. Houk was two weeks from giving birth. Jordan was charged as an adult with two counts of criminal homicide, including one for the fetus, state police said. "It's tragic," said a relative who did not want to be named. "They were getting married. He was jealous."
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Houk's family and friends, who gathered at her parents' house Saturday night, told The Associated Press that Houk had had problems with the boy in the past.
"There was an issue with jealousy. He told my son stuff," said Houk's brother-in-law, Jason Kraner, 34. "He actually told my son that he wanted to do that to her." His actual words were, "I'm gonna pop her in the head."
...The boy had told police there was a suspicious black truck on the property that morning, causing investigators to look into a false lead for about five hours, he said.
Inconsistencies in Brown's description of the vehicle led police to re-interview the victim's 7-year-old daughter, who implicated the boy in the killing, Bongivengo said.
...Jack Houk, Kenzie's father, said the boy and his father used to practice shooting behind their farmhouse, and the two enjoyed hunting together. He didn't know of any recent problems between the boy and his daughter, but said there had been "some tension" in the beginning. Houk said his daughter had been working hard to forge a relationship with the boy.
Kraner, Houk's brother-in-law, said Jordan could be a "rough kid." He said his son was interviewed by police about the boy. Kenzie Houk had been renting the farmhouse in Wampum, a rural community about 35 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, for no more than a year, neighbor Cameron Tucker said.
Tucker's wife sometimes drove Houk's younger daughter to the bus stop because she went to preschool with the Tuckers' 5-year-old. "She was very protective of her kids," he said...
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