Marie Houk, a pregnant mother, was found dead by her four-year-old daughter. The killer appears to be the son of her boyfriend who will reportedly face adult murder charges — despite the fact that Jordon Brown is 11 years old. He reportedly went to school after killing Houk in a farmhouse in western Pennsylvania.
The child was charged with one count each of criminal homicide and homicide of an unborn child. In Pennsylvania, anyone over the age of 10 accused of murder or homicide is charged as an adult and can face life in prison.
The boy and his father are living in the farmhouse in Wampum, Pa. 
He appears to have used a youth model 20-gauge shotgun — a gun designed to be used by young children. There are a considerable number of options for kiddie guns. Some sites prefer to call them “small statured shooters.” In states like South Dakota, the trend has been to lower the age to as low as 10 for hunters. Children as low as eight have received gun permits, as discussed in here and here in the United States and England. Some ministers have called on parents substituting video games for gun lessons as a wholesome alternatives.
The idea of treating an 11-year-old as an adult in such case is unfathomable but not uncommon. It remains one of the continuing points of conflict with other Western nations. The Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that states cannot execute murderers under the age of 18 over the objections of many conservative leaders.
What is fascinating is the desire to continue to treat children as adults despite recent research showing that human brains do not fully function until in their late teens. Specifically areas of the brain used to judge risk and make judgments are affected.
Big Fella,
Trigger lock. As a kid, my guns were always kept locked unless my father or grandfather unlocked them.
Thanks for updating with the mug shot, JT, that really hits home how wrong everything is about this incident, and it begs one to consider, could this not have been prevented?
Do you want a shovel to help with that hole? Naw, you’re doing just fine diggin on your own. So I’ll leave you to it.
buddha, “decent” people don’t act 1/100th the way you do so stop thinking of yourself as “decent” when you are not. I pity you.
buddha, no doubt you are one of the wack jobs that think firebombing dresden was a “war crime” also. Well even the Germans of today know it wasn’t:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Still, there was certainly more to the Dresden air raid than a desire to destroy civilian morale, wasn’t there?
Taylor: Certainly. The Dresden attack was directly linked to the conduct of the war elsewhere — in this case on the Eastern Front. In Feb. 1945, Dresden was a major transport and communication hub less than 120 miles from the advancing Russians. The aim of the bombing was quite deliberately to destroy the center of the city, thereby making the movement of German soldiers and civilians impossible.
Nor was Dresden uninvolved in war production:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The inflated casualty figures have proven quite resistant to academic research. The myth of Dresden as a victim of Allied aggression is one that refuses to go away. How innocent was Dresden really?
Taylor: Dresden was undeniably a beautiful city, a center of the arts and a symbol of all that was great about pre-Nazi German humanism. It was also quite strongly Nazi and a major industrial center. Its light industries, ranging from factories producing typewriters and cigarettes to furniture and candy, had overwhelmingly been converted to war use after 1939. Around 70,000 workers in the city are thought to have been involved in war-related work. Its regional railway directorate was heavily involved in the war effort on the eastern front and also in the transport of prisoners within the concentration camp system. The question therefore is not whether Dresden contained legitimate bombing targets, but whether the method and intensity of the February 1945 bombing was justifiable.
The methodology can certainly be criticized without making it an argument for “war crimes”. The Germans manufactured arms in Dresden, and by their own conduct of the war, made that a permissible target for Allied bombers. The use and intensity of incendiary bombs could certainly be questioned; the resultant firestorm literally sucked the oxygen out of the city and asphyxiated thousands, which Vonnegut saw first-hand.
But the use of incendiary bombs on factories and railheads was not a war crime, nor was particularly controversial during that war, as the Germans had been dropping them on London for years by that point. The Allies had a right to destroy the Nazi war production system, including in Dresden. They had a limited number of options for bombing targets, and the intensity can reasonably be assigned to an accuracy that had eluded the Allies on their night bombing runs for most of the war.
And let’s not forget that at the same time as the Allies raided Dresden, the Germans were launching rocket attacks with only marginal thoughts of accuracy against the British civilian centers. If Hitler had the ability to create a Dresden in London, he would not have hesitated to wreak it.
Riiiggghtt. I think it’s self-evident who the decent ones are, so I’ll let the others be the judge of that, troll.
Buddha, the only thing you probably knew about your grandfather is he was 1,000 times the man you are and now in your puny attempt to build yourself into something worthwhile, you drag your grandfather down to your level.
You have nothing in common with decent human beings do you.
You didn’t know him. I did. He’d say the same thing you you. So how about you keeping your words out of his mouth since you have zero frame of reference. You aren’t fit to mention him much less speak for him. He was a hero. You’re just a troll.
buddah, if you are speaking to me, I would be pretty certain that your Grandfather is as ashamed of you as the rest are here.
Mr. Turley sure seems to attract a handful of real left wing gooney birds.
Why don’t you mind your own business.
Looks like a couple of low lifes that think using four letter words is cool hang around here.
Real impressive….
I rather doubt if someone coming here and using a four letter word has any credibility about speaking for his “grandfather”.
why don’t you go back to your video games buddha.
Charles,
My grandfather was one of the ones who helped deliver the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. People like you sickened him. Your god is Death. And he’d have spit in your face.
This is not to call out Hunter, but just to point out that Hunter’s reaction is just kind of a “knee jerk” that one should expect from the gun lobby. No where in my comment did I promote banning the legal ownership and use of firearms.
Just as my comment was considered and written after giving some thought to the issue, those who react with a knee jerk to my stated opinion might better serve themselves if they engaged in some reflective thought and analysis, before pulling the trigger.
hunter:
Sorry, forgot to tell you that Harry Truman was a guy from Missouri who became President of our country following the death of FDR, and made the decision to drop the …. Oh never mind, Rush will cover everything anyone needs to know on his radio show, and fill you in on just what happened. One suggestion though, don’t call and ask him about drugs. He gets a little cranky.
How about this for a suggestion.
Some things are just too tragic to be a partisan over, hunter.
It’s not about the gun.
It’s about murder and the competency of an 11 y.o. to stand trial as an adult.
Before you freak out further, I am a strong proponent of the 2nd Amendment. It provides a needed check against government run amok and/or subverted to evil ends from attacking the citizenry. When I was young I had a gun much like the one described here. And I’m just about as liberal as they come. I just hope none of the family gets to read how someone thinks their misery is an excuse to promote an agenda. Shame on you for framing this in terms of left and right. Shame.
They have lost three-fold. They don’t need politics. They need sympathy, understanding and help from as many places as they can get it.
Professor, as strong a proponent of free speech as I am, I had dearly hoped you were going to leave this thread with the comments disabled just so to avoid things like hunter’s ignorance compounding an already tragic situation. I dare say this poor family is in pain unlike any poster here can imagine. No one with a humane bone in their body would suggest otherwise or that dragging politics into this is in anyway appropriate or helpful. This is appalling.
hunter:
Could you teach me how to use that right-click copy function as well as you do? Then I wouldn’t have to think for myself either. Thanks.
hunter:
That’s exactly what Truman said. Are you channeling the “Buck Stopper?”
hunter:
“Now you gun banners are all in a fluff that out of 250,000,000 guns in the United States, 1 10th of 1% of them are used in a crime.”
***********
You go girl! I am in total agreement. Do you know, hunter (sound so macho, you know) these nuts also want to ban nuclear weapons from the planet? Yep, two little incidents in that fureign country of Japan over 50 years ago compared to the thousands and thousands of nukes around,and these nuts think something bad will happen again. Man I’m glad you came along to set them straight, and mouth the logic that has kept the conservative movement right where it belongs.
It is totally ridiculous to prosecute this child as an adult. But what is also disturbing, is here is another case of death by a firearm in the hands of a child.
A shotgun manufactured to fit the stature of a child? Does anyone else see something wrong with this? The gun manufacturers can’t wait to get the guns in to the hands of the children quick enough, not wanting to wait until they are physically larger, and hopefully, more fully intellectually developed? How intellectually developed could this child’s father be, allowing a child to have free access to his own firearm without appropriate supervision.
They local authorities should prosecute the father for the murder, as an adult.