Court Overturns Boy's Conviction In 2009 Murder Of Father's Pregnant Fiancée
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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP/KDKA) - Pennsylvania's highest court is overturning the conviction of a then-11-year-old boy in the 2009 shotgun slaying of his father's pregnant fiancée, saying prosecutors didn't provide enough evidence to support it.
The state Supreme Court's 5-0 ruling Wednesday reversed a finding by a juvenile court judge in Lawrence County, upheld by a state appellate court, that Jordan Brown was guilty of first-degree murder and homicide of an unborn child.
Brown, now 20, was charged in the slaying of 26-year-old Kenzie Houk, who was eight months pregnant.
Brown was originally charged as an adult in the case, accused of first-degree murder and homicide of an unborn child. But he ended up being tried in juvenile court, and the proceeding was not open to the press or the public.
Justices attacked the evidence as insufficient, saying among other things that trial evidence pointing to a shotgun in Brown's bedroom as the murder weapon supported an equally reasonable conclusion that it wasn't the murder weapon.
Brown spent several years in a juvenile detention facility. He is believed to be living in Ohio.
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