An 11-year-old boy shot his father’s pregnant girlfriend in the back of the head while she was lying in bed in their western Pennsylvania farmhouse, then got on the school bus and went to school, authorities said on Saturday.
Jordan Brown was charged on Saturday as an adult in the shooting death of 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk, who was eight months pregnant, Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said at a news conference.
Houk’s family and friends, who gathered at her parents’ house on Saturday night, said Houk had experienced problems with the boy in the past.
PHOTO: AP
“There was an issue with jealousy. He told my son stuff,” said Houk’s brother-in-law, Jason Kraner, 34. “He actually told my son that he wanted to do that to her.”
Brown, the son of Houk’s live-in boyfriend, was charged with criminal homicide and criminal homicide of an unborn child, Bongivengo said. He was being held in Lawrence County Jail. A preliminary hearing is set for Thursday.
The fifth-grader was picked up from school on Friday by Pennsylvania State Police, who found Houk’s body after her four-year-old daughter told tree cutters on the property that she thought her mother was dead, Bongivengo said.
The murder follows another shocking killing linked to a boy. On Thursday, a nine-year-old Arizona boy reached a plea deal with authorities who accused him of the fatal shootings of his father and his father’s roommate. The boy pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in the death of his father’s roommate while the murder charge in his father’s death was dropped.
On Saturday, the Pennsylvania boy told police there was a suspicious black truck on the property that morning, causing investigators to look into a false lead for about five hours, he said.
Inconsistencies in Brown’s description of the vehicle led police to reinterview the victim’s seven-year-old daughter, who implicated the boy in the killing, Bongivengo said.
“She didn’t actually eyewitness the shooting. She saw him with what she believed to be a shotgun and heard a loud bang,” Bongivengo said, adding that the weapon, a youth model 20-gauge shotgun, was found in what police believed was the boy’s bedroom.
The shotgun, which apparently belonged to Brown, is designed for children and such weapons do not have to be registered, Bongivengo said.
Brown’s attorney, Dennis Elisco, said the evidence points to the gunshot wound being “consistent” with the boy’s hunting gun, but he wanted to see stronger proof.
“I believe Jordan did not do this and I’m looking forward to seeing the physical evidence to see if it matches with what I think happened,” he said on Saturday after meeting with the boy in jail.
The attorney also said he met with the boy’s father, Christopher Brown, and would file a motion to have the boy released on bail and move the case to juvenile court.
The attorney said Christopher Brown was “in a state of actual shock and disbelief.”
Police said they had no motive for the shooting and Bongivengo would not say whether the boy had confessed.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia