Jordan Brown, boy accused of murder at age 11, goes on trial in Pennsylvania
(CBS/AP) PITTSBURGH, Pa. - The trial of 14-year-old murder suspect Jordan Brown, charged with killing his father's pregnant fiancee at the age of 11, began on Tuesday.
The judge heard from a tree trimmer who says he called police after the victim's 4-year-old daughter emerged from the house and said, "My mommy's dead," the woman's father said Tuesday.
Jordan Brown is charged in the February 2009 shotgun deaths of Kenzie Houk and her unborn child. The judge closed the trial to media and all but immediate family members because of the boy's age when Houk died.
The only glimpses of testimony were relayed as those relatives emerged from the courtroom in New Castle.
Jack Houk, Kenzie's father, told reporters during a lunch break Tuesday that the first few witnesses helped set the scene on the day of the killings at the family's rural farmhouse in New Galilee. He called the testimony "horrible" and said he felt bad because the tree trimmer broke down in tears. The tree trimmer said he called authorities after Kenzie Houk's younger daughter came outside and told him her mother had been killed, Jack Houk said.
Prosecutors contend that Brown took his 20-gauge, youth-model shotgun and killed Kenzie Houk, 26, moments before he left for school with her 7-year-old daughter. Investigators have suggested Brown was jealous of Houk's unborn son, who died of oxygen deprivation after she was shot, execution-style. Houk was more than eight months pregnant when she died.
Brown's attorneys have promised to contest the criminal homicide charges but how they'll do that remains unclear. The case was moved from Common Pleas Court, where Brown faced up to life in prison, to a juvenile setting, where the court's jurisdiction ends when he turns 21.
The trial is expected to last three or four days.