Brown: Potentially The Youngest Person Tried As An Adult For Murder In Recorded History
As Pa. courts wrangle over whether to try an 11-year-old as an adult for murder, Jordan Brown claims innocence in the death of his father’s pregnant fiancee.
By Matt Stroud
innocence[at]pointpark[dot]edu
Published December 2010
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Charged with murdering his father’s pregnant fiancée, 11-year-old Jordan Brown could be the youngest person in United States history to face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors said Jordan shot Kenzie Houk, 26, in the back of the head with a 20-gauge shotgun while she slept in the family’s New Galilee, Pa. farmhouse on Feb. 20, 2009.
Prosecutors and members of Kenzie’s family contend the case is open and shut; they’re convinced of Jordan’s guilt. Kenzie’s mother, Deborah Houk, told the Associated Press in March 2009 that Jordan is “evil” and that he should be tried as an adult for murder.
But Jordan’s lawyers and supporters are convinced not only that he’s innocent of Kenzie’s murder, but that his young age should compel the state to try him as a juvenile.
In support of Jordan’s innocence claim, his lawyers point to a Protection From Abuse (PFA) order filed with the Lawrence County Court of Common Pleas by Kenzie against an ex-boyfriend, Adam Harvey. Filed a year before her death, Kenzie wrote in the PFA that Harvey “threatened to take my whole family out….”
Police interviewed and released Harvey in the days following Kenzie’s death. Prosecutors said his alibi is solid.
Jordan’s attorneys, however, said Harvey was not sufficiently investigated.
These issues and more will be broached in court, but first the state needs to decide how the proceedings will play out.
A judge ruled on Mar. 30, 2010 that Jordan will be tried as an adult.
In that ruling, Judge Dominick A. Motto, president judge in Lawrence County, cited Jordan’s refusal to admit guilt as a primary reason for not decertifying the boy’s case to juvenile court. Both a defense psychologist and a psychiatrist speaking on behalf of the prosecution stated that Jordan’s refusal to take responsibility would hinder his capacity for rehabilitation.
In July 2010, however, the Pa. Superior Court granted a request from Brown’s attorneys, Dennis Elisco and David Acker, to review Motto’s decision.
In September 2010, Jordan’s attorneys, along with representatives and supporters of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia, filed a brief encouraging the court to try him as a juvenile.
Such a decision would be controversial. If the court tries and convicts Jordan as a juvenile, he will be set free at 21.
The Juvenile Law Center does not address Jordan’s potential juvenile release date in its brief but argues that “it is an abuse of discretion for the Trial Court to base a decision … that a child is not amenable to treatment and therefore that the case should not be transferred to the juvenile system, on the fact that the child has not admitted to committing the offense….”
The Superior Court’s decision is pending. Prosecutors have yet to file a response to the appeal from Jordan’s lawyers, and they were granted a 45-day extension to file a response on Oct. 7, 2010.
Did Jordan Brown Commit Murder?
On the morning of Feb. 20, 2009, Kenzie Houk was found murdered, lying in bed with a shotgun wound to the back of her head.
Police told Jordan about Kenzie’s death that day. The boy’s lack of emotion seemed suspicious, they later said. But no arrest was made.
Jordan initially told police he saw a black truck in front of the house before he left for school.
Investigators looked for the truck, following Jordan’s lead. But when Jordan later altered his description of the truck, their suspicions were further piqued.
Later that day,* Kenzie’s 7-year-old daughter, Janessa Houk, told police she heard a gunshot and saw Jordan walking in their family’s house with a shotgun in his hands the morning of her mother’s death. She told police that while the two walked together to catch the school bus, Janessa saw Jordan casually throw something into the bushes by the family’s driveway.
Later, police said they found a spent shotgun shell there. They have not said Jordan’s fingerprints were lifted from the shell, but when tests soon revealed that Jordan’s T-shirt contained gunshot residue on the day of Kenzie’s murder, they felt they had gathered enough incriminating evidence to put Jordan in cuffs. The boy was arrested before dawn on Feb. 21, 2009.
Prosecutors would later argue that Jordan was driven by jealousy to kill. Kenzie and her children caused Jordan and his father to become less connected and further removed from one another. Jordan could not handle these emotional changes, prosecutors said.
But Chris Brown, Jordan’s father, denied this description of events.
Chris and activists including Dan Dailey, the Texas-based juvenile justice advocate and blogger who runs the “Save Jordan Brown” website, have waged a public campaign to discredit the prosecution’s assertions.
Chris did not return phone calls for this story, but Elisco and Dailey said the prosecution’s case is flawed.
Though psychiatrists hired by both the prosecution and defense argued that Jordan’s unwillingness to admit guilt might indicate that he is incapable of rehabilitation and should be tried as an adult, Dailey said the lack of emotion noted by police does not necessarily imply guilt, and could instead imply that Jordan “is innocent of the charges and is also a boy who had been raised by his father to be careful about showing emotion in front of people he doesn’t know.”
Jordan and his father were recreational hunters, Elisco said. Jordan had received a shotgun for Christmas in 2008, and won a turkey-hunting competition on Valentine’s Day in 2009, just six days before Kenzie Houk’s death. Gunshot residue on Jordan’s clothing does not indicate Jordan is a murderer, Elisco said.
And both men question Janessa’s statements.
In interviews with police the day of Kenzie’s murder – and for two days afterward – Elisco said Janessa told police she had not seen anything unusual the morning of the murder. Elisco said Janessa went to stay with her mother’s family in the days following Kenzie’s murder, and it was only then that Janessa gave a third statement indicating she heard a shotgun blast before she and Jordan left for school on Feb. 20, 2009.
According to a Jan. 7, 2010, report in the New Castle News, Jordan’s attorneys stated in a Lawrence county courtroom that while Janessa Houk did not testify during a March 2009 hearing for Jordan, she was interviewed that day by “members of the district attorney’s office and possibly members of the Pennsylvania state police.” Jordan’s attorneys requested transcripts of any conversations between prosecutors and Janessa, but the district attorney’s office denied the request noting that the interviews with Janessa were not recorded or transcribed.
Thomas P. Sullivan, a former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois who has conducted countless interviews with police, prosecutors, and defense attorneys nationwide during more than 50 years of law enforcement work, has formally recommended in a study for Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions that “all in-custody interviews be recorded from the Miranda warnings to the conclusion” in criminal cases.
Elisco also emphasized the PFA Kenzie filed against her ex-boyfriend, Adam Harvey, a year before her death.
That PFA, dated Feb. 4, 2008, indicated that Kenzie had been threatened repeatedly with harm and death by Harvey, the father of one of her children.
Harvey resided in Harrisburg, NC, at the time the PFA was filed. Kenzie wrote that Harvey
“…has left several messages threatening to hurt me and my family. I am in fear of him hurting me physically or my family. He has a drinking problem that is uncontrollable. He has threatened to hire someone to hurt me several times. I have been talking to Shenango Police and they have listened to the messages on my mother’s cell phone and suggested me to get a PFA.”
A letter sent to Harvey’s address in North Carolina did not receive a reply. Calls made to two phone numbers associated with Harvey were not returned.
Dailey, who runs the “Save Jordan Brown” website, added that a lack of physical evidence points toward Jordan’s innocence.
“If Jordan had discharged the murder weapon, he and his clothing would have been covered with gunshot residue from head to toe,” Dailey wrote on his blog at
www.wandervogeldiary.wordpress.com. “If a shotgun had been used, he and his clothing would also have been covered with blood and brains. But a shotgun was not used, and Jordan wasn’t the shooter. Jordan and his clothing were virtually spotless.”
Elisco said he plans to argue this point when Jordan goes to trial, but that the long delay between the time of the murder and the date of Jordan’s eventual trial will work to his disadvantage.
“Jordan was under five-feet-tall when he was arrested,” Elisco said. “He was a little kid. But his dad’s a big man. And Jordan’s growing fast while he sits in custody.”
Elisco said “by the time this goes to trial, [Jordan] could be taller than I am. And that certainly won’t help any argument we present about Jordan as a young, innocent boy.”
Deborah Houk, the victim’s mother, did not return calls or a letter sent for comment, but Janet Fulkerson, who said she is a close friend of the Houks’ and has been asked to speak on their behalf, dismissed all claims suggesting Jordan did not commit murder.
“The kid had major problems,” she said. “And anyone who thinks he was not responsible for Kenzie’s death just hasn’t been paying attention to the case and the evidence against him.”
The “Kenzie Houk Story and Facts” website also stands by the chain of events described by police and prosecutors.
Kenzie’s ex-boyfriend Harvey “was questioned, [and] his alibi checked out,” according to the site.
“For those of you who did not have the privilege of knowing Kenzie, she was one of a kind. She was always smiling [and] was a free spirit. She was a wonderful mother who adored her daughters [and] could not wait to have her first son, Christopher” – referring to the unborn child.
The site continued: “Two lives were taken [and] we want justice to be served. Nothing will ever bring back Kenzie [and] Christopher but, we all have special memories of her [and] hopefully we can get by on those instead.”
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*The published version of this story indicated that days passed between Kenzie’s murder and Janessa’s statements to police about Jordan. In fact, Janessa’s statements occurred the same day, Feb. 20, and Jordan was arrested early in the morning, around 2:30 a.m., on Feb. 21. We regret the error.
