Boy May Be Tried as Adult in Killing of Dad's Fiancee

(March 12) -- A 12-year-old Pennsylvania boy charged with murdering his father's pregnant fiancee is "an all-around good kid" who is "too young" to understand the magnitude of the potential life sentence he is facing, the boy's father says.

Jordan Brown is charged as an adult in the Feb. 20, 2009, shooting death of 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, and her unborn child. A hearing will resume this morning in the Lawrence County Court of Common Pleas to determine whether the case should be moved to juvenile court, as the defense wants.

Legal experts say Jordan, who was 11 at the time of the shooting, is one of the youngest suspects in the country to be charged with homicide. If tried and convicted as an adult, he faces a life sentence without possibility of parole. If convicted as a juvenile, he would be released by the age of 21 and the crimes would not appear on his permanent record.

Jordan's father, Chris Brown, told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday that Jordan seems to understand the charges against him but "doesn't appreciate the magnitude of it. He's simply too young."

Brown believes his son is innocent.

"[He's] just an all-around good kid, big into sports, a lot of friends in school," Brown said.

He said his son was "scared, frightened, [and] crying" when police arrested him.

Prosecutors said Jordan was jealous of his father's relationship with Houk and angry that she was about to have a son, whom she planned to name after Jordan's dad.

That anger, prosecutors allege, caused Jordan to take a youth-model 20-gauge shotgun -- a gift from his father -- and shoot Houk in the back of head while she slept in their western Pennsylvania farmhouse. After the shooting, authorities said, Jordan boarded a school bus and went to school.

In an interview with The Associated Press shortly after the shooting, then Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said Houk's 7-year-old daughter had implicated Jordan in the killing.

"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.

Prosecutors also allege that a blanket found at the scene with a hole in it was used to muffle the sound of the shotgun being fired -- an act that demonstrated premeditation.

But Dan Dailey, a Texas man who has been involved in youth justice issues since 2005, told AOL News the hole was actually "a 10-year-old cigarette burn."

"The police and prosecution from the beginning have been trying to paint this nice, polite little boy, this happy little boy, as some kind of 'Addams Family' monster, a psychopath," said Dailey, who says he is doing volunteer work for Jordan's defense. He has created a Web site to support the Brown family and raise money for Jordan's defense.

At the conclusion of today's hearing, Judge Dominick Motto will have 20 days to issue a final ruling on whether the case should be moved to juvenile court.

Houk's parents were unavailable for comment Thursday. But in a February interview with CNN, her mother pointed out that the shooting had left Houk's two young daughters without a mother.

"The day Kenzie was murdered, the whole family was served with a life sentence," Debbie Houk said. "There are a 4-year-old and 7-year-old who are serving life right now. They are never going to see their mom."