Presiding Judge Dominick Motto of the Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, Common Pleas Court initially denied decertification and transfer to juvenile court because Jordan would not admit his involvement in the crime. The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office then took over prosecution of the case. Until now. The 20/20 interview also gave me the hunch he was guilty. Lawsuit claims evidence fabricated in case of man exonerated in pregnant stepmothers murder Lawsuit claims evidence fabricated in case of man exonerated in pregnant stepmothers murder. I just watched the 20/20 episode. And he told me everything was going to be all right, and I just sat there and cried.. Jordan battled the fear that she would turn out to be like her mother. Cinnamon Brown, whose sensational 1985 murder of her stepmother at her father's urging was the subject of two books and a television miniseries, is free after serving seven years in a California . As the years passed, Jordan Brown said he spent much of his time absorbed in the books his father brought him, reading with a dictionary next to him. I believe that testimony, further more with: "She told officers she asked Jordan Brown about the source of the sound, but he would not answer. Went to school.. He shot his father's fiancee in the back of her head, killing her and her unborn child. "Homicide, something of this magnitude was very, very uncommon," Martin said. After Pennsylvania's Superior Court ruled that Judge Motto violated Brown's Fifth Amendment rights, Judge Motto recused himself from the case, and Judge John W. Hodge granted the decertification petition and ruled that Brown should be tried as a juvenile.[6]. When asked what message he had for the police troopers who'd arrested his son, Chris Brown said, Shame on you, is probably the most polite way to put it.. I still love her. Chris Brown said he drove every day, 230 miles round trip, to see his son in detention. At 9 a.m., tree trimming workers arrived to work around the house. In July 2018, the court sided with Jordan Brown, writing that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had failed to prove Jordan Brown guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm never not going to be your dad. Emma Tustin, 32, murdered the boy by . Pregnant Mother's Murder Leads Police to Arrest Her Step-Son Chris Brown and Kenzie Houk had been friends since they were teenagers. It also mentions that he had a significant motive. Houks father, Jack Houk, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he and his wife Debbie, who have raised Houks two daughters since her death, are distraught. They are also not smart enough to leave no traces. In statements to the police, Jordan Brown claimed to have seen a black pickup truck parked by his home, resembling the one owned by the ex-boyfriend, on the morning of the murder. This is final piece of the puzzle really providing him of his true feeling of innocent, closure put this behind me, Wright said. But as far as his guiltiness, I know he is. The blow back argument is hard, but he may have shot her from an angel and spot (door entrance) that may have hid it. In another allegation, the lawsuit provides a transcript of an interview with a former girlfriend of Browns father, a woman who said at least twice that she was absolutely not afraid of Jordan Brown. Brown said his fiance Kenzie Houk, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time, had asked him to stay home with her that day, but he decided to go to work. Cinnamon Brown, who at age 14 carried out her father's command to kill her stepmother, was denied early release Tuesday by the state youth parole board despite her cooperation with authorities in . As an investigator, you have to look at everything.. 2023byTango Publishing Corporation All Rights Reserved. They couldn't prove that the shotgun found in the house was the one used in the murder, other than a sniff-test (smelling of the gun barrel). The 4 year old who is speaking now; she sure does remember some details from a tragic event. She wanted financial support payments for Adalynn but he had refused, saying he first wanted proof that the child was his. Thanks! As time went on they completely abandoned that statement, which would have been the strongest evidence in the case, and rather tried to pursue a prosecution based upon this forensic evidence.. Jordan. The decertification ruling transferred Brown's case from adult court to Lawrence County's family court division regularly presided over by Judge Hodge, who handled the subsequent juvenile adjudication and dispositional hearings. On May 1, 2011, hours after a meeting of the neo-Nazi group at Hall's house in Southern California, the boy took his father's revolver from the upstairs bedroom where his stepmother was sleeping. It's the totality of the circumstances. If I would read something and come across a word I didnt know, [I would] look it up. Chris Brown said he drove every day, 230 miles roundtrip, to see his son at the center. I just read about this and came to this subreddit looking to see if anyone posted anything about it. A week has passed since Roy Oliver, a Balch Springs police officer, shot his rifle through the window of a car and killed 15-year-old Jordan. You can customize your WPXI News App to receive breaking news alerts. Officers responded to a report of a person shot in the 3600 block of Vine Street at 9:16. Its not a weapon that someone's going to carry across the field or carry up a driveway. The farmhouse in Wampum where Chris Brown lived with his fiance Kenzie Houk, his son Jordan Brown and her two daughters, Janessa and Adalynn. PROVO A Provo man who police say "groomed" a 13-year-old girl for sex has been charged with multiple counts of rape. Pennsylvania State Police found a spent shotgun shell near the path Brown walked with Houk's older daughter to get to their school bus. And I had no idea where we were going. [I] havent had a chance to grieve properly, Chris Brown said. ". At that point, we assumed that somehow she had hemorrhaged, Martin told 20/20. We didn't touch her, we didn't move her. It's saying that I have a charge in front of me in juvenile court, and I am finding that you are responsible for that crime, ABC News Chief Legal Analyst Dan Abrams said. 2016) (In re J.B. III), the Superior Court affirmed the juvenile court, and rejected claims that the juvenile court had improperly reassessed the evidence and made new credibility determinations in ruling on Brown's post-dispositional motions. Police also confirmed he had been at work during the shooting, so they quickly eliminated him as a suspect. WAMPUM, Pa. -- Jordan Brown was 11 years old when he was arrested and initially charged as an adult for the murder of his pregnant, soon-to-be stepmother. The tree trimmer called 911. They investigated for eight hours then charged an 11-year-old as an adult. He has repeatedly stated in interviews that while he suffers from PTSD, he is committed to turning his life around. It was just a bunch of strangers dragging me around.. Youve, you know, ruined his name in essence. According to a search warrant filed Friday, police found the gun outside the boys bedroom, along with a blue blanket with a hole the size of a quarter and burn marks. He spent over three years in a juvenile facility in Pennsylvania. After the arrest, prosecutor John Bongivengo told reporters he was confident in his case against Jordan Brown. In fact, the prosecutions forensics expert had testified that these particles can be transferred. Retired Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Bobby McGraw said he is still confident that Jordan Brown committed the murders. The work on this case like so many unsolved cases was shoddy. Teen gets new hearing in case of woman's killing. Early in the investigation, a number of people including Chris Brown told police they should look into another person -- Houks ex-boyfriend of six years, Adam Harvey. It wasnt until the coroner arrived and started taking photos, Martin said, that they realized this was something else. Harvey told police he didnt harm Houk, telling them he was sleeping at home when she was killed. RELATED:Latest Updates And News About The Murder Of1stGrader AprilTinsley And The Man Finally Arrested After 30 Years, The content produced by YourTango is for informational and educational purposes only. The Jordan Brown case. Judge Hodge put Brown on probation in the custody of an uncle who lived in Ohio, just across the border from Lawrence County. He kept shifting and obviously upset. I believe, I always have, that the attorney generals office and state police rushed to judgment, said Elisco. She leaned against the Formica island, her sandy blond hair done up in a bulbous, frizzy ball. The rounds struck a victim's vehicle and an unoccupied apartment building. They literally said because he cried in the interview he was still in love with her & because the car had snow on it? (This account of the case is pulled from reports by ABC News, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Post-Gazette and available court documents.). He knew there was a 20 gauge shotgun that they have in the house and gets there after everybody leaves, before it snows with no tracks, and gets by the tree cutting guys. The Mesquite High School student had just left a party . Brown then drove off in a black . I can remember just looking at Jordan and feeling like we had failed him. Jordans defense lawyers say her timeline means Jordan wasnt there when Houk was killed, but Martin, who worked the case, says after so many years he doesnt find Adalynns account credible. A former Lawrence County man is suing a handful of retired state police investigators and officials alleging malicious prosecution after he spent most of his childhood in prison for the shotgun killing of his fathers pregnant fiance before the state Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Inside the family's farmhouse, police had found handguns, rifles, several rounds of ammunition and a child-sized shotgun that belonged to Jordan. Emma Tustin, 32, was unanimously convicted at Coventry Crown Court on Thursday of murdering Arthur Labinjo-Hughes. The system is very, very wrong.. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 2018 ruled prosecutors did not provide enough evidence to support a conviction and Brown was exonerated at the age of 20. -, Press J to jump to the feed. I think I have a good idea of the capacity's of each given their age range. But now Im kind of, like, I go back and forth sometimes, I think, he said. Houk, 26 and about eight months pregnant with Jordan's little brother, was found dead in her bed by her 4-year-old daughter on Feb. 20, 2009. He knew the doors were unlocked. But authorities transferred him to a juvenile center in March 2009 after his attorneys argued that the adult jail with its three cell blocks couldn't accommodate an 11-year-old boy. I'm never not going to be here every day, Chris Brown said. Jordan's mother, Mildred Krause, was just four months pregnant with him when she first entered a courtroom to battle his father, Christopher Brown. Paula Scarlett-Brown, the widow of Pilgrim Assemblies International founder Archbishop Roy E. Brown, told the New York Post on Sunday that she and Brown's daughter, Tiwana Brown, had a major fight over the minister's body just hours after his death on June 2. 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