Boy charged with killing dad's pregnant girlfriend

An 11-year-old boy shot his father's pregnant girlfriend in the back of the head while she was lying in bed in their western Pennsylvania farmhouse, then got on the school bus and went to school, authorities said.

Jordan Brown was charged on Saturday as an adult in the shooting death of Kenzie Marie Houk, who was 8 months pregnant, Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said at a news conference.

Brown, the son of Houk's live-in boyfriend, was charged with criminal homicide and criminal homicide of an unborn child, Bongivengo said. He was being held in Lawrence County Jail.

The fifth-grader was picked up from school Friday by Pennsylvania State Police, who found Houk's body after her 4-year-old daughter told tree cutters on the property that she thought her mother was dead, Bongivengo said.

The murder follows another shocking killing linked to a boy. On Thursday, a 9-year-old Arizona boy reached a plea deal with authorities who accused him of the fatal shootings of his father and his father's roommate. The boy pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in the death of his father's roommate while the murder charge in his father's death was dropped.

First Published: Feb 22, 2009 09:00 IST