Many of you have probably been following the murder of 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk, allegedly by Jordan Anthony Brown, an 11-year-old boy. She was a mother of two daughters, ages 4 and 7, pregnant and his father’s fiancee. He allegedly shot her with a 20-gauge shotgun while she slept, before he headed off to school.
PITTSBURGH—A prosecutor says an 11-year-old Pennsylvania boy charged in the shotgun slaying of his father’s pregnant girlfriend must be treated like a premeditated killer even though his age is raising questions about where and how to jail the boy.
Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo says his “hands are tied” about charging Jordan Brown with criminal homicide. That’s because Pennsylvania law doesn’t permit him to file the charge in juvenile court.
While the legal system debates his fate, his age was reminiscent of two brutal murders involving young victims and their assailants. Dateline NBC two years ago ran the story about Amy Yates a murdered child in Carrollton, Georgia.
LIFE AFTER A CHILD GETS MURDERED
On April 26, 2004, Amy was led into the woods of the mobile home park where we lived, by a 16-year-old boy that she knew and considered to be a friend. The boy told her that he wanted her to come listen to the birds with him. After entering the woods and walking far enough so that no one could see what he was going to do, he tried to rape her, and when she screamed for help he strangled her and then dumped her body further in the woods. The events that have unfolded that day seem like they could only happen in a movie, a horror movie for my family.
The abduction and murder of Maddie Clifton is unimagineable even as a plot to a movie.
Families of missing know the fear, pain
Sheila Clifton Delongis understands the devastating worry of not knowing where a child is for several days. Her daughter, Maddie Clifton, was 8 when she didn’t come home from playing outside in her Jacksonville neighborhood in November 1998. She was found a week later stuffed beneath the water bed of her neighbor, 14-year-old Joshua Phillips. He is serving a life sentence in prison.
Recently a 9-year-old Arizona boy plead guilty to negligent homicide.
In the deal with state prosecutors, two charges of premeditated murder in the death of the two men were dropped in exchange for the admission that the boy shot and killed his father’s friend.
Related Posts: Dateline: Amy Yates
When a child goes missing 