BEAVER COUNTY TIMES: NEW CASTLE, PA — Jordan Anthony Brown doesn’t mesh with his new surroundings. He’s swimming in his jail-issued shirt, and his pant legs are cuffed six times to keep them off the floor. He cries and is scared. He misses his dad. He wants to go back to school. He wants to go home. Jail isn’t a place for an 11-year-old, his attorney said. “It’s surreal, just surreal,” said New Castle attorney Dennis Elisco, who is representing the boy. “Bizarre, really.”
Jordan Brown is accused of shooting and killing 26-year-old Kenzie Houk and her unborn son Friday morning. He was charged as an adult Saturday morning with criminal homicide and criminal homicide of an unborn child and is being held in isolation at the Lawrence County Jail. Jordan Brown is the son of Houk’s live-in boyfriend, Chris Brown. The couple lived at 1146 Wampum-New Galilee Road, New Beaver, with the boy and her two daughters. Chris Brown is the father of the child Houk carried.
“This is a typical 11-year-old. He’s crying. He’s scared. He’s worried. He’s just sitting in there alone, thinking about stuff,” Elisco said. “And I don’t believe this kid did this. I am most interested in seeing the physical evidence. The physical evidence will be shedding some light on this kid’s innocence. “He doesn’t even know what is a dream and what is real.” MORE
WPXI: The 11-year-old boy accused of killing Kenzie Houk [pictured, right, with daughters] sits in the Lawrence County Jail. Pennsylvania law requires that any child 10 and older accused in a homicide must be charged as an adult. It’s a rule that puts prosecutors at odds with mental health experts. MORE
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A prosecutor said Monday that he had no choice but to file adult charges against an 11-year-old boy accused of killing his father’s pregnant girlfriend, even though the child’s age raises questions about where and how to jail him. Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said Pennsylvania state law prohibits him from filing criminal homicide charges against Jordan Brown in juvenile court. As such, he had to charge the boy with homicide as an adult or with a lesser charge. MORE
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A jail warden said Sunday he will ask a judge to move an 11-year-old boy accused of killing his father’s pregnant girlfriend from an adult lockup to a juvenile detention center because the jail cannot accommodate the boy. Lawrence County Warden Charles Adamo said his 300-inmate jail cannot offer proper long-term care for Jordan Brown. Adamo said the boy was being held in one of four 10-by-8-foot cells in the jail’s booking area, where officials check on him every 15 minutes. He said the boy cannot receive visitors — except for his attorney — because doing so would require him to mingle with adult inmates. Even something as simple as letting the boy shower would require locking down a cellblock, most of which hold up to 63 inmates, Adamo said. Elisco said jail officials couldn’t even find clothes to fit the 4-foot-8-inch boy. MORE