Stepmom Asks Stepson for a Baby Pays Son to Get Her Pregnant
What happened later an eleven-year-old boy was accused of murdering his significant before longhoped-for stepmom
Jordan Chocolate-brown said he has "mixed feelings" about what happened to him.
On the morning time of Feb. twenty, 2009, Chris Brown was running a little belatedly for work.
It was a frigid day in Wampum, a pocket-size boondocks in Western Pennsylvania. Chocolate-brown said his fiancée Kenzie Houk, who was eight-and-a-half months significant at the fourth dimension, had asked him to stay home with her that day, just he decided to go to work.
That decision, he told "20/20," is "something that'south haunted me."
Brown and Houk had known each other since they were teenagers and were planning to exist married soon. This was their starting time child together – a infant boy they had already named Christopher.
"She was thrilled, that'due south what she wanted," Houk'southward female parent Debbie Houk told "xx/twenty." "The clothing was washed. The bed was all ready… diapers were where they were supposed to exist and everything, yeah she was ready."
The 2 of them, plus Dark-brown's and then-eleven-year-one-time son Jordan and Houk's two daughters, then-7-year-old daughter Jenessa so-four-year-erstwhile daughter Adalynn, all from their previous relationships, had recently all moved in together in a farmhouse.
The blended family unit seemed to be bonding. Jordan said he and Houk had a strong relationship, and he even called her "Mom."
"She was really overnice. I liked her a lot," Jordan Chocolate-brown told "20/20." "I was happy [most the babe]… I always wanted a picayune brother. And … information technology was a boy. So that'southward what I was going to become."
Houk, a hairstylist and a stay-at-domicile mom, was sleeping in a sleeping accommodation downstairs at the time, which was to become Jordan'south room subsequently the baby was born. Jordan, who had a bedroom upstairs, had already moved his clothes into that downstairs bedroom.
That morn of Feb. 20, 2009, Jordan Brown said, was "just a normal forenoon" as he was getting set up for school.
"My sister Jenessa woke me up," said Jordan Brown. "[I] went downstairs, got my clothes, went in the bathroom, got dressed. And we just sat … on the couch in the living room waiting and then Kenzie told us to go considering the omnibus is coming and we're going to be late. Then we hurry upward and went out the backdoor and ran down the driveway. Went to schoolhouse."
Around 8:fifteen a.m., Hashemite kingdom of jordan said he and Jenessa left the business firm to catch the schoolhouse motorbus.
At nine a.m., tree trimming workers arrived to work around the house. Sometime before long after, 1 of the tree trimmers spotted footling Adalynn in the doorway, sobbing and maxim her mother was expressionless. The tree trimmer called 911.
Pennsylvania State Police Corporal Jeffrey Martin, now retired, says he was one of the first responders on the scene. They establish Houk in the sleeping room, he said, and thought at starting time that she'd had a medical emergency.
"At that point, we assumed that somehow she had hemorrhaged," Martin told "20/twenty." "We didn't bear on her, we didn't motion her. At that signal, we're trying to maintain the integrity of the scene."
It wasn't until the coroner arrived and started taking photos, Martin said, that they realized this was something else.
"I was standing correct at the edge of the doorway, and I recollect the coroner maxim, as he started to touch on the body, 'We take a problem,'" Martin said. "And that's when we realized that it was a homicide."
Police force adamant that Houk had been shot in the back of the head. They attempted CPR, just information technology was too late.
"Homicide, something of this magnitude was very, very uncommon," Martin said. "In my 25 years, I believe it was the but 1 in that area that I tin call back."
Police called Chris Brownish at his job in the shipping department at a local tableware company and asked him to come up abode immediately.
"They told me that her and the infant were gone, and I retrieve collapsing in the yard," Brown said. "I lost it."
State Police Corporal Troy Steinheiser, now retired, interviewed Chris Brown at the state constabulary barracks. Brown'due south easily were swabbed for gunpowder residuum and came back clean. Police also confirmed he had been at work during the shooting, so they quickly eliminated him as a doubtable.
Meanwhile, officers also went to Mohawk Simple School to speak to Jenessa and Jordan. Both children were interviewed and, according to police, neither said anything out of the ordinary had happened that morn. Notwithstanding, Jordan said he remembered seeing a blackness truck nearly the garage.
"I didn't think anything of it. You know, information technology's only a truck," he told "20/twenty." "I idea, you know, it was just some guy there doing work or something. But that's why I told them."
Afterwards that nighttime, as Chris and Jordan Brown were finally starting to nod off around iii:30 a.m., they were startled past a pounding on the door.
It was the law. They had a warrant for Jordan's arrest.
"All I call up was they came and got me at 3:00 in the morning," Jordan Chocolate-brown said. "[They] put me in the back of the automobile and they took me to the law barracks. And I was in there. So they took me straight to the canton jail. And I had no thought where we were going. I wasn't with anybody. Information technology was only a bunch of strangers dragging me around."
Just 18 hours before, Chris Brown had lost his fiancée and unborn child. Now, he was losing his son.
The arrest of an 11-year-erstwhile for murder chop-chop gained wide media attention, and of a sudden Wampum, Pennsylvania, a town with a population of roughly 600 people, had millions of eyes on information technology.
"That mug shot of Hashemite kingdom of jordan Brown that sort of became an icon of the story spread across the globe," said Pittsburgh-based ABC chapter WTAE reporter Bob Mayo.
When his mug shot was taken, Hashemite kingdom of jordan Brown said he had been crying the whole nighttime. Just a fifth grader at the time, he said he didn't understand of what he was being accused.
"I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't know where I was at, what was going on or anything," he said.
Police said what really turned the case for them were additional interviews they conducted with Jenessa and Jordan the night of the murders.
"When we interview someone, yous expect them to give their account, wait a little while, we interview them again, and they should requite the same account. And I don't know if that happened in this case," Martin said.
In fact, law said, in his 2d interview, Jordan inverse his description of the blackness truck and added that at that place was a person inside with a hat on, ducking down.
When Jenessa was re-interviewed, police said she had a startling recollection. Police said she told them she saw Hashemite kingdom of jordan moving his guns that morning.
"[Then] she told me that when she was waiting downstairs for Jordan to come downstairs and go become the school bus like they normally do, she heard a large boom and she identified it as the sound of a gun," added retired Pennsylvania Land Police Trooper Bobby McGraw.
Jordan denied to "xx/twenty" doing anything with his guns that morning, saying "I never touched them."
Martin said the dissection report determined that Houk had been killed with a shotgun and she had a single gunshot wound to the dorsum of the head.
"I accept never expected to have the murder weapon to exist a shotgun," Martin said. "It'south more of a weapon of opportunity. It's non a weapon that someone's going to bear across the field or carry up a driveway. It'south three anxiety long."
Within the Browns' farmhouse, police found a collection of handguns, rifles and several rounds of ammunition. They also institute a 20-gauge shotgun that belonged to Jordan Dark-brown. Investigators on the example told "twenty/20" in that rural expanse of Pennsylvania, "It's adequately mutual, almost – especially young males – would grow up with learning to shoot firearms."
"We had a youth model shotgun in the business firm that had smelled like information technology recently had been fired," Martin said.
But he added that Hashemite kingdom of jordan'due south hands were never checked for gunpowder residue.
Police also said they establish a 20-gauge shotgun crush casing in pristine condition adjacent to the family'southward driveway the next twenty-four hour period. Trooper McGraw believed Jordan threw the shell to the footing as he was walking to the bus the morn of the murders.
"He kept talking about… a piece of fuzz, and 'I got information technology out of my pocket and I threw it.' In my opinion, he was focused on the shotgun beat casing that he threw after he left the residence," McGraw said.
Jordan's motive, McGraw believed, was that he was jealous of the new baby.
"In my stance, [it was] jealousy, jealousy of the impending birth," he said.
After the arrest, prosecutor John Bongivengo told reporters he was confident in his case against Jordan Chocolate-brown.
"Information technology'south difficult to charge an 11-year-one-time with homicide. Yous take to be sure enough to charge him," Bongivengo told "20/xx."
At a time when headlines called Jordan "America'due south littlest monster," he was at an age where he still believed in Santa Claus. Elisco said that moniker "fueled the media frenzy and the presumption of guilt that stayed with the case throughout."
Early in the investigation, a number of people including Chris Dark-brown told constabulary they should look into another person -- Houk'southward ex-boyfriend of six years, Adam Harvey.
"The police asked me if there was everyone out there that I thought would've done something to her. And the first person that comes to listen was Adam Harvey. She feared him," Chris Brown said.
Kenzie Houk and her family had a protective club against Harvey after she claimed he had left messages threatening to kill her and her family unit.
Harvey denied those claims to police.
Harvey likewise drove a black truck. But when police pulled him over in that truck the day of the murders, they determined that he could not take made the almost 24-mile drive over to Houk's firm and back to his neighborhood because snow left on the hood was however intact. He likewise claimed he didn't know where Houk lived.
"We cannot get over the fact that Adam Harvey did not have the time to drive in that location and take the snow on his motorcar," Martin said.
Authorities said they too tested Harvey's hands for the presence of gunshot balance and institute none.
But what law did discover during their interview with Harvey was that he had recently discovered 4-yr-old Adalynn, who was believed to be his and Houk's daughter, was in fact, non his biological child at all.
He best-selling to authorities that he and Houk had argued virtually coin. She wanted financial support payments for Adalynn but he had refused, maxim he first wanted proof that the child was his.
"I saw a gentleman in front of me that was crying," said Martin. "Even with the relationship they had, Adam was notwithstanding in love with Kenzie. I guess you lot could speculate that. But, with my years of interviewing people-- he was crying for her."
Authorities said Harvey cooperated during the investigation and agreed to take a polygraph. Harvey told police force he didn't harm Houk, telling them he was sleeping at home when she was killed. His father backed upwards his alibi, confirming Harvey's story that he was home with them.
Within a solar day, Harvey was cleared equally a suspect.
"He has someone that says that he's at dwelling and from the trooper that interviewed him, who said the truck didn't expect like it had been driven and nosotros took photos of the truck," Martin said. "It's the totality of the circumstances. As an investigator, you take to look at everything."
"It's such a minor window and such an unlikely prepare of circumstances that ane, he found out where she lived. He knew the doors were unlocked. 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. That seems highly unlikely," added Bongivengo.
While awaiting trial, Jordan Brown was housed for iii years at the Edmund 50. Thomas Boyish Center, a juvenile detention facility in Erie Canton, Pennsylvania.
Chris Brown said he drove every twenty-four hours, 230 miles roundtrip, to see his son at the center. He needed to drive 4 hours every twenty-four hour period, he said, to visit Jordan because "he's my son."
Jordan Brown said those visits were a lifeline: "I don't know what I would've done without them."
"They played a big [office] in, like, keeping my head straight," he said.
The daily journey, however, wreaked havoc on his finances, Chris Brown said.
"It toll me my job, and what money that I had coming in went into the gas tank and went into things that he needed," Chris Brown said.
And with the focus on his son's legal plight, Chris Brownish said his grief for the loss of his fiancée and their unborn babe had to take a backseat.
"[I] haven't had a hazard to grieve properly," Chris Brown said.
As the years passed, Jordan Chocolate-brown said he spent much of his time captivated in the books his begetter brought him, reading with a dictionary next to him.
"If I would read something and come across a discussion I didn't know, [I would] look it up. That mode I know what was trying to exist said, and so that'southward how I read," he said. "I was a big fantasy reader... It was a whole different earth. I'd, like, lose myself in the book. ... Time flew when yous were reading."
Throughout Jordan Dark-brown'southward stay in detention in Erie, his begetter connected to ask him whether he'd killed Houk.
"I gave him every opportunity. [I'd say,] 'Jordan, heed, if something happens. Accidents happen, buddy. Y'all know, if something happened, tell me. I'm non going to be mad at you. I'm your dad. I'chiliad never not going to be your dad. I'm never non going to be hither every day,'" Chris Dark-brown said.
"[He] never inverse his story. You know, [he] maintained his innocence throughout from day ane," he added.
But Houk's family remains convinced that Hashemite kingdom of jordan is guilty, and that he should receive the maximum penalization and be tried equally an adult.
Houk's mother Debbie Houk told "20/twenty," " Jordan's a murderer. And I'll say it. And his father needs to make it the mirror every forenoon and wait in that mirror and say, 'I am the father of a murderer.'"
More than two years later Jordan Brown was charged, a estimate ruled that his case would exist moved from developed to juvenile court, where instead of facing life in prison house he would get out far before. It would be another 8 months before Jordan would stand trial for double homicide.
The trial lasted three days. By then, Bongivengo had been replaced by a dissimilar prosecutor. Jenessa statements to law were never presented at trial, nor did she evidence.
Still, a juvenile court approximate constitute Jordan Brownish, then xiv, runaway in the case.
"A approximate finding a juvenile runaway is effectively a guilty verdict. It'south saying that I have a accuse 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.
"I can think just looking at Jordan and feeling like nosotros had failed him. And merely feeling so sorry for him at that moment," Colafella said. "And I just call back looking at him thinking, 'How tin can this kid have any more promise?'"
During his incarceration, Jordan taught himself to play guitar and said he became a pretty good basketball player.
Hashemite kingdom of jordan Brown's lawyers appear they would appeal two months subsequently his conviction. Just it would take some other three and a half years before his appeal was heard by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
His attorneys say constabulary were never able to evidence Jordan Brownish'south shotgun was the murder weapon. They debate that the particle of gunpowder residual on his shirt and pants could have come from the jacket he had worn to a recent turkey shoot. In fact, the prosecution's forensics skillful had testified that these particles can be transferred. So, Hashemite kingdom of jordan'southward defense force attorneys pointed to the troopers who had said Jordan's shotgun smelled every bit if it had just been fired when they arrived at the house that morning.
"Those constabulary enforcement officers who said that they smelled [that the gun] was recently fired, they conceded that they had no expertise or training," said Jordan'south attorney Dennis Elisco.
As for the shotgun shell casing police force institute near the driveway, Colafella said, "On that holding where they lived on a subcontract, in that location were shotgun shells all over the identify. They routinely shot on that property. The discovery of that beat out was not significant."
Another issue Jordan's attorneys raised was that there was no blood or tissue institute on the gun or Jordan Chocolate-brown's clothing that day.
"It'south about inconceivable that you could suggest that a shotgun was fired at close range… wouldn't deposit whatsoever tissue, whatsoever blood on the barrel of the gun or on his vesture, which he wore to schoolhouse," Elisco said. "It was appalling to me that they seemingly just ignored that fact throughout the case."
But the prosecution's good witness said that the bending in which the gun was shot could accept minimized what's referred to as blowback.
"This is precisely what would have had to have happened," Colafella added. "Hashemite kingdom of jordan Chocolate-brown was sitting with his stepsister Jenessa in a room adjacent to the room where the victim was sleeping, run upstairs, grab a shotgun, load information technology with a shotgun shell, walk over to the bed, place that shotgun upwards against her head, pull that trigger, kill her, somehow manage to wipe whatsoever-- bodily fluid or blood might take been independent on the terminate of that gun, take it upstairs, supercede it forth the wall, remove the beat out, run downstairs while her sister presumably was waiting for him in this very small house... All without leaving a single clue."
"All they actually arrested him on, largely, was the argument of Jenessa," Elisco said. "Every bit time went on they completely abandoned that statement, which would take been the strongest evidence in the case, and rather tried to pursue a prosecution based upon this forensic show."
Houk's younger girl Adalynn, whom tree trimmers found sobbing when she discovered her mother's body, has never spoken publicly near this. Until now.
In an exclusive interview with "xx/20," she told her own account of what happened that morning of Feb. xx, 2009, and some of it conflicts with the police timeline.
That day, she said she remembered existence woken upwardly by the sound of a gunshot.
"I was then young. I did non know what the audio was," said Adalynn, who was 4 years old at the fourth dimension and is now 13. "I was just going to walk in to wake her [Kenzie Houk] up. And her phone rang."
She remembered picking upwards her mother's phone and answering it. She said the person on the other cease of the line asked to talk to her female parent so she went into the downstairs bedchamber to get her.
"I went in to wake her up. And her face was facing me," Adalynn said. "I was just similar, 'Hey mom, wake up.' and when I turned her own, I realized—I'd come up to the conclusion of what had happened.
"And I went outside, and I had asked the tree men that were cutting down trees, 'Do you guys know my grandma's number?' And they were similar, 'No.'" she said. "I went back in the house and I remember a very squeamish cop had sat me on the chair. And he told me everything was going to exist all right, and I just saturday there and cried."
The tree trimmers saw Adalynn sometime after 9 a.grand. that morning. And if you get by Adalynn's account, this means it all, including the murders, happened long later Jordan and Jenessa had left the house and were on their manner to school.
Her family says Adalynn shared bits of her story over the years, only it's something neither police nor Jordan'due south defense team take ever heard. Police force had tried to speak with Adalynn when they arrived at the house, just reported that she was in a land of stupor, and could not provide coherent answers. Jordan'southward defense lawyers say her timeline ways Jordan wasn't there when Houk was killed, but Martin, who worked the instance, says subsequently so many years he doesn't find Adalynn's account apparent.
Hashemite kingdom of jordan Brown spent seven summers in detention and was released in 2016 when he was 18.
In July 2018, the court sided with Jordan Brown, writing that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had failed to evidence Jordan Brown guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Jordan's confidence was overturned. In a rare move, the highest court in Pennsylvania ruled that "there was bereft evidence" to prosecute the case. While the decision did not declare him innocent of the charges, he cannot exist retried.
"I was happy. Finally, information technology felt similar a big weight had been lifted off of me. It'due south been a nightmare for nine-and-a-half years," Chris Brown said.
"I'm 100 percent, y'all know, a whole, make clean slate. Everything is gone. And that made me happy. Finally, the truth finally got out," Jordan Brownish said.
When asked what message he had for the constabulary troopers who'd arrested his son, Chris Brownish said, "'Shame on you,' is probably the most polite way to put it."
"Yous took an xi-twelvemonth-old'south babyhood away from him. You've, you lot know, ruined his name in essence. I mean, you Google 'Hashemite kingdom of jordan Brown' and yous get that mug shot picture that pops upward," he said.
Hashemite kingdom of jordan Brown said he has "mixed feelings" virtually what happened to him.
"It used to carp me all the time. I used to hate it. But then I got to the betoken where it didn't bother me at all. I didn't care. But now I'grand kind of, like, I go dorsum and forth sometimes, I recollect," he said.
As for Chris, he notwithstanding mourns the loss of Houk and their unborn son. "I still dearest her. I miss her every day," he said.
"I'll exist honest with y'all, I suffer from PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] over this," Chris Brown continued. "It's kind of a bittersweet feeling, you lot know. [I'k] happy that this part of it is over with Hashemite kingdom of jordan, you lot know, being wrongfully defendant. But still, that side of information technology, that suffering from the loss and not having any answers, knowing he was falsely accused and the route the prosecutor and investigators took on this, the inadequate investigation. ... I think has just ruined usa [from] always having closure and the person who did this, and for the person who actually did this to pay for it."
Retired Pennsylvania Land Constabulary Trooper Bobby McGraw said he is nevertheless confident that Jordan Dark-brown committed the murders.
"This case was investigated past some of the finest police officers in this country, plain and simple. And none of u.s.a. wanted to put handcuffs on an xi-year-old. That's where the example took us. I have never looked back that we arrested the wrong person, in my opinion. And I would assume every trooper who investigated that case feels the aforementioned style. We did non go this incorrect," McGraw told "xx/xx." "There is not a trooper on scene that day that has lost one second of sleep over this case."
Jordan Brown, who is attending college and studying information science, is determined to leave his by behind and prepare for brighter days ahead.
"I just want to be successful. I just want to graduate college, you know, get a task in my major and, I don't know, but be successful," Jordan Brown said.
"My biggest hopes for him probably is that he gets a fair milkshake moving forward, that, you know, people look at this and, for what it is, what it truly is," Chris Brown said. "Read that Supreme Court order and realize that this kid was done wrong."
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/happened-11-year-boy-accused-murdering-pregnant-stepmom/story?id=58613764
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