NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Sitting in shackles in the Lawrence County Courthouse, staring ahead with no visible reaction, 11-year-old Jordan Brown heard one witness after another describe the shooting death of his father's pregnant fiancee -- the woman Brown once called "Mom."
"He doesn't appreciate the magnitude. He's confused as to what's going on. He's a child," defense attorney Dennis Elisco said Tuesday, after Brown's preliminary hearing on an adult charge of homicide.
State police allege that Brown loaded his youth shotgun before school on Feb. 20, then walked into Kenzie Houk's bedroom in her Wampum farmhome and shot the 26-year-old woman in the back of the head while she slept, taking her life and that of her unborn son.
Houk's father, Jack, wore a band in the woman's memory as he took the witness stand to testify that Brown was a good shot, saying that he and the boy had fired guns together in the past.
A state trooper also testified that the 20-gauge gun in the fifth-grade student's bedroom smelled like it had been freshly fired.
"I have a shotgun blast to the back of the head consistent with a 20-gauge shotgun youth model in his room. It smells like it was recently fired, and he's got gun residue on him. I think, at this point, that's more than enough," District Attorney John Bongivengo said.
A motive for the killing remains unclear. Bongivengo has suggested that Brown was jealous of sharing his father's attention with Kenzie Houk and her two young daughters -- with another baby on the way -- but Elisco and other family members have said there's no evidence of that.
"The biggest thing in the courtroom right now is the gunshot residue on the shirt that he was wearing. The particles obtained are unique to gunshots," Bongivengo said. "Speculation, 'what if' -- well, that was the shirt he was wearing that day."
The defense argues that the gunshot residue is important for a different reason -- to prove Brown often fired his gun.
Defense attorney David Acker said the residue could be from any day, not just the day Houk was killed. He said Houk's 7-year-old daughter is another key to the defense.
"The (girl's) first two statements are nothing unusual happened," Acker said.
Prosecutors say the girl eventually told police that she heard the sound of a gunshot before she and Brown left to catch the school bus.
After hearing the evidence Tuesday, District Justice David Rishell ordered Brown to return to his juvenile detention center in Erie and stand trial at a later date.
Elisco is trying to get the case moved to juvenile court, where the penalty for being found delinquent -- the juvenile version of a conviction -- would be much less severe than the maximum adult sentence of life in prison.
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