DA: Boy who shot father's pregnant girlfriend was jealous - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

An 11-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting his father's pregnant girlfriend was having trouble adjusting to his new family, Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said this morning.

Jordan Anthony Brown was "the center of attention in his father's life" until recently, when Kenzie Marie Houk, 26, moved into the Brown family farmhouse in Wampum with her daughters, ages 7 and 4. Houk was due to give birth to a baby boy the first week of March, Bongivengo said.

"This child was the center of everything for a very long time, and suddenly there's a girlfriend and other children in the house and another son on the way," Bongivengo said. "So he was no longer the center of things. We're looking into reports that he might have made threats to the girlfriend before and was very jealous of her."

Bongivengo described the slaying as "callous, cold and calculating."

The victim's 7-year-old daughter is the "main witness" in the case, Bongivengo said. The girl told authorities that Brown came downstairs early Friday morning holding two guns. She asked him what he was doing and he ran back upstairs, Bongivengo said. Brown then came back downstairs holding a shotgun covered with a blanket.

The boy walked into a room where Houk was lying down, put a 20-gauge shotgun to the back of her head and fired one time, Bongivengo said. He then ran back upstairs, put away the gun — a Christmas present from his father — and walked outside to catch the school bus, the prosecutor said.

While walking down the long driveway to the bus, the girl saw him casually toss something from his pocket to the ground, Bongivengo said.

"It was a spent 20-gauge shotgun shell," Bongivengo said. "The boy then got onto the bus and went to school like nothing ever happened."

The victim's younger daughter found her mother's body. When Brown was questioned by police, he at first said he saw a black truck parked near the family's garage behind the house when he was leaving for school.
His description of the truck changed several times and the boy told police he thought the vehicle belonged to a man who comes to feed the cows housed on the property.

But police talked to the man who owns the home — Brown's father rents the house — who said the man who feeds the livestock drives a white truck and comes in the afternoon.

Defense lawyer Dennis Elisco said the boy has not confessed to the shooting, and he doesn't believe the physical evidence will support the police contention that the boy killed Houk execution-style, with one shot to the back of her head. Bongivengo said the child knew how to load and handle a shotgun and recently won a turkey shooting contest in Lawrence County.

"This child was comfortable with guns, and he knew what he was doing with them," Bongivengo said. "In this area, in Lawrence County, it's not unusual for a boy that age to have a gun and know how to shoot it. This is a hunting and fishing community."

Bongivengo said he plans to move forward with plans to try the child as an adult and the judge assigned to his case will make the final decision on whether the boy is instead charged in juvenile court.

Bongivengo said Brown is being housed in the Lawrence County Jail but the district attorney's office is looking into possibly moving the boy to another county jail in the state which "might have more experience than we do in dealing with juveniles who are charged as adults."

Pennsylvania law allows prosecutors to charge children as young as 10 with criminal homicide. Elisco planned to file motions today asking a judge to move the case to juvenile court and let the boy's father post bail.

"I don't think anybody wants him there," Elisco said, referring to the county jail.

Until a judge hears his motions, Elisco hopes to get the fifth-grader's school to send him assignments in jail.
"I want him to be occupied and busy and back, essentially, in school," Elisco said. "I wouldn't say he's in good spirits. He's confused. He looks and acts like a typical 11-year-old."