Psychiatrist: Boy is not amenable to rehabilitation

MARY GRZEBIENIAK

news@vindy.com

NEW CASTLE, Pa.

A prosecution psychiatrist says a 12-year-old accused of homicide is not amenable to rehabilitation.

That was part of the testimony given Friday during a hearing before Lawrence County Common Pleas Court Judge Dominick Motto, who must decide by April 1 whether Jordan Brown of New Galilee will be tried as an adult or juvenile in the shooting death of his father’s pregnant girlfriend, Kenzie Houk, 26.

Jordan is charged with two counts of criminal homicide, one for the fetus, in the slayings which took place at the family home Feb. 20, 2009. If convicted as an adult, he would face life in prison without parole and would be the youngest defendant in the nation to be so sentenced. If convicted as a juvenile, he could be held only until he is 21.

Prosecution psychiatrist Dr. John O’Brien of Philadelphia, who evaluated Jordan on Feb. 24, testified Friday that he believes it is unlikely that Jordan is amenable to rehabilitation.

He disputed the testimony of defense psychologist Dr. Kirk Heilbrun who testified in January that he believes Jordan is amenable to treatment in a juvenile facility because of his strong family support, his social involvement and his lack of significant problems prior to the murders.

O’Brien said that avoiding responsibility is a pattern with Jordan and would “complicate the process of rehabilitation.” He said rehabilitation cannot begin until an offender takes responsibility for his behavior. He described Jordan as a “juvenile with significant personality problems complicated by presenting to authority a version of himself which doesn’t include the negative.” He added Jordan also is easily angered.

O’Brien said Jordan is sensitive to feeling that other children were favored. A few years prior to the murders, a problem with the son of another woman that he and his father lived with resulted in Jordan having several sessions of counseling. Jordan at the time perceived that the boy received more Christmas gifts than he did. O’Brien noted that at the time of Houk’s killing, Jordan was being moved out of his bedroom to make room for the baby that Houk and Jordan’s father, Chris Brown, were expecting.

He said Jordan also resented his biological mother, who abandoned him, and complained that she favored a half-sister by spending her tax refund on the girl instead of buying a game he said she had promised him.

O’Brien said Jordan wants to please adults and wants his father’s full attention. He said this dynamic makes it unlikely that Jordan would ever admit to the killings because in doing so, he would risk the rejection of his father and others who support him.

He said that taken together, this tendency to “deny, minimize and shift blame,” and harbor resentment as well as the lack of incentive he has to admit guilt make his amenability to rehabilitation “very limited.”

Under cross-examination by Defense Atty. David Acker, O’Brien said personality traits could remain the same into adulthood but could also change.

The prosecution also called Pennsylvania State Trooper Jeffrey Marti who said that lab tests showed that a “pristine” shell casing found in the driveway at the Brown residence along the path where Jordan walked to the school bus “was fired from Jordan’s gun.” The weapon was a 20-gauge shotgun which the boy had in the house.

After the hearing, Anthony Krastek of the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office said allegations by Jordan’s supporters are not true that police did not investigate a former boyfriend who had made death threats against Houk. He said investigators eliminated the ex-boyfriend as a suspect because when they went to his house, he was just getting into his vehicle and there were no tracks in the fresh snow around the home, indicating he had not left the house that morning.

Krastek said an investigation found no tire tracks consistent with a pick-up truck Jordan reported seeing near the home and that the only tracks in the snow were those that Jordan and Houk’s daughter made when they walked down the driveway to catch the school bus.