True Crime Vault: My Son Is Not a Monster

Speaker 1 This show is supported by Hot and Deadly, a podcast from ID. Hot and Deadly brings you American true crime that is often stranger than fiction.

Speaker 1 Every week, dive into shocking stories of murder and betrayal, from IRS impersonators in Kentucky to a South Carolina businessman deceived by those closest to him.

Speaker 1 You'll hear first-hand accounts from investigators, witnesses, and family members as they share the chilling details behind each case.

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Speaker 1 Welcome to the 2020 True Crime Vault, where heart-stopping headlines come to life.

Speaker 1 What do you see in this mugshot?

Speaker 6 I see somebody who just committed a murder. That's why there's a mugshot.

Speaker 1 You have a kid who believes in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny, but is now standing accused of murder.

Speaker 8 And not just any kid, but his very own son.

Speaker 2 He was sitting there with shackles on, belted, handcuffed, like.

Speaker 2 Unbelievable.

Speaker 7 Tonight, in all new 2020, the little boy convicted of killing his father's pregnant fiancée.

Speaker 6 We arrested an 11-year-old boy because he put his shotgun to the back of somebody's head and pulled the trigger.

Speaker 1 An 11-year-old who police say loaded his shotgun, then shot her in the back of the head.

Speaker 10 The world's youngest monster. And that fueled the media frenzy.

Speaker 7 Child killer who may never know freedom again.

Speaker 8 That mugshot spread across the world.

Speaker 11 Jordan would have been the youngest child ever to be sentenced to life without parole.

Speaker 1 A father's fight to get him out.

Speaker 10 He's lost his childhood on a false conviction, and he needs to be exonerated.

Speaker 1 And the family that thinks he should stay in.

Speaker 6 Jordan's a murderer, and I'll say it.

Speaker 13 And his father needs to get in the mirror every morning and say, I am the father of a murderer.

Speaker 1 Now, after a bombshell twist, Jordan Brown is speaking out for the first time after seven years behind bars. Did you at 11 understand that you could face life in prison?

Speaker 14 No, I didn't understand anything at all.

Speaker 5 What was going on?

Speaker 1 Tonight, the question that still lingers, if he didn't do it, who did? You think that this led to a real killer getting away with Murder?

Speaker 2 Absolutely, and there's a murderer walking amongst us.

Speaker 1 This is 2020.

Speaker 7 Tonight, ABC's Juju Chang right here with a dramatic game changer in a case she's been covering for nine years now.

Speaker 1 This is Jordan Brown. When he was still a typical fifth grader, quarterback of the Pee Wee football team, the Warriors, coached by his father Chris, a single dad.

Speaker 15 Jordan had always been the center of his father's universe. They were best friends.

Speaker 2 They did everything together.

Speaker 1 Their hometown, Wampum, Pennsylvania, 40 miles north of Pittsburgh, a rural oasis for water lovers and off-roaders.

Speaker 15 It's a heavily wooded area with a lot of small towns, a lot of hills, and it's very beautiful.

Speaker 1 Jordan's childhood is filled with typical birthday parties, petting zoos, and pony rides, his dad closely by his side. Jordan's grin lighting up his elementary school photos year after year.

Speaker 1 What was Jordan like? What kind of kid was he at 11?

Speaker 2 He was your average 11-year-old kid, all-American child. You know, played sports, baseball, football, had friends.

Speaker 1 This is Jordan Brown today.

Speaker 1 Now 21, remembering that tender, precious time in his life fondly. What kind of childhood would you say you had up until 11?

Speaker 14 Normal, I guess. I mean, I had friends always coming over, we used to always play, and

Speaker 14 like games, like video games.

Speaker 1 And back then, Chris was happy too, working and shipping at a local tableware factory, engaged to a woman he'd known since his teens, Kenzie Hauk, a hairstylist and stay-at-home mom.

Speaker 1 Also, a single parent, mother of two young girls, seven-year-old Janessa and four-year-old Adeline.

Speaker 1 What made you love her?

Speaker 7 Who she was.

Speaker 2 Who she was a person.

Speaker 12 Kenzie was real feisty.

Speaker 14 She was funny.

Speaker 12 She always had a beautiful smile. Liked everybody.

Speaker 12 And she loved her children.

Speaker 1 That's all she ever said when you say, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a mom. I want kids.

Speaker 1 Kenzie and Chris and their kids had recently moved in together to this farmhouse. The new blended family seemed to be bonding.
Jordan even called Kenzie mom.

Speaker 1 What was your relationship like with your soon-to-be stepmom?

Speaker 6 It was strong.

Speaker 14 She was really nice. I liked her a lot.

Speaker 18 She been ever backwards for him.

Speaker 12 She had a good relationship with him.

Speaker 1 And a new sibling was on the way. Chris and Kenzie were eagerly awaiting a baby together, a boy they had already named Christopher.

Speaker 12 She was thrilled. That's what she wanted.
I had had a shower. All the clothing was washed.
Diapers where they were supposed to be and everything. Yeah, she was ready.

Speaker 1 You were excited about about the baby on the way?

Speaker 2 Oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 But father wouldn't be.

Speaker 14 I was happy. I always wanted a little brother and

Speaker 14 that's what it was a boy, so that's what I was going to get.

Speaker 1 So you were excited about that?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I was really excited.

Speaker 1 It's a frigid February morning in 2009. Kenzie is eight and a half months pregnant.

Speaker 1 But their hopes for a future together as a family are about to be shattered.

Speaker 2 I remember getting up that morning, running a little late for work. She'd asked me to stay home that day, and I didn't.
And that's something that's haunted me.

Speaker 1 What do you remember?

Speaker 14 It was just a normal morning. My sister, Janessa, woke me up.

Speaker 1 Kenzie is asleep in the downstairs bedroom. Jordan is in his bedroom upstairs.
Once the baby arrived, they were going to swap bedrooms. So Jordan had already moved his clothes downstairs.

Speaker 14 Went downstairs, got my clothes, went in the bathroom, got dressed, and we just sat on the couch in the living room waiting.

Speaker 14 And then Kenzie told us to go because the bus was coming and we're gonna be late. So we hurry up, went out the back door and ran down the driveway.
Went to school.

Speaker 1 Around 8.15 a.m. Jordan and Janessa leave for school.
Four-year-old Adeline is asleep upstairs. 9 a.m.
Tree trimmers arrive to work around the house.

Speaker 1 A short time later, a tree trimmer sees Adeline in the doorway, sobbing. She tells him her mother is dead.
He calls 911.

Speaker 5 And as we arrived on the scene and did our initial assessment, Kenzie was in the bedroom.

Speaker 1 What was your impression?

Speaker 5 At that point, we assumed that somehow she had hemorrhaged. We didn't touch her, we didn't move her.
At that point, we're trying to maintain the integrity of the scene.

Speaker 1 When did you realize you had a murder on your hands?

Speaker 5 The coroner was taking photos, and I was standing right at the edge of the doorway. And I remember the coroner saying, as he started to touch the body, we have a problem.

Speaker 5 And that's when we realized that it was a homicide.

Speaker 1 26-year-old Kenzie had been shot in the back of the head, execution style. Police attempts CPR, but it's too late.
Then police make the dreaded call to Chris, telling him to come home immediately.

Speaker 2 They told me that her and the baby were gone and I remember collapsing in the yard.

Speaker 5 I lost it.

Speaker 1 Chris Brown is interviewed at the state police barracks.

Speaker 19 You're voluntarily giving us a statement. Yeah.
Under arrest or freeing.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Was Chris Brown a suspect?

Speaker 20 Well, when you open an investigation, you have to leave everything open as far as who may be suspects.

Speaker 1 Chris describes his final moments with Kenzie.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 gave her a kiss, told her I loved her, she kissed me back, and I left.

Speaker 1 Chris had been at work at the factory, and his hands are clean of gunpowder residue, so he's quickly eliminated as a suspect.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, police head to Mohawk Elementary School to speak with the children. Kenzie's daughter, Janessa, doesn't report anything out of the ordinary.
Sounded like a typical morning for Jordan, too.

Speaker 14 There were two troopers. At the time, they know they were troopers.
And they asked me the same thing you just did, like if anything unusual happened.

Speaker 14 And I just told them that, you know, it was just a normal morning.

Speaker 1 But he does tell police he saw a black truck by the garage. In the very first interview with police, you mentioned that you saw a vehicle in the driveway.

Speaker 14 Well, I didn't think anything of it. You know, it was just a truck.
I thought it was just some guy there, you know, doing work or something. But that's why I told him.

Speaker 1 3.30 a.m. the following morning.
A grieving father and son have just managed to finally nod off when the silence of the night is broken by someone pounding at the door.

Speaker 2 And I had just fallen asleep and of course the stressful day that we had.

Speaker 1 You had just lost your fiancé? Absolutely.

Speaker 2 I don't even know how I fell asleep. Jordan was laying in my arm bawling and that's how we fell asleep and we were woke up shortly after.

Speaker 1 It's the police. They have a warrant to arrest 11-year-old Jordan Brown.

Speaker 14 As all I remember was they came and got me at three in the morning. They put me in the back of the car and they took me to the police barracks and I was in there.

Speaker 14 And then they took me straight to the county jail and I had no idea what was going. I wasn't with anybody.
It was just a bunch of strangers.

Speaker 2 I was mind-blown.

Speaker 1 Next, Jordan's life as a regular kid is officially over. He's now an accused killer.
You arrest him? Within less than 24 hours, you're convinced he's the murderer.

Speaker 6 Yes, or we wouldn't have arrested him.

Speaker 1 And another interview with that seven-year-old witness becomes a bombshell.

Speaker 6 She heard a big boom and she identified it as the sound of a gun.

Speaker 1 Stay with with us.

Speaker 1 It happened inside this Pennsylvania farmhouse.

Speaker 9 Child killer accused of a shocking crime at the age of 11.

Speaker 22 The general reaction around town and in the area really was one of shock.

Speaker 1 Just 18 hours after the murder of 26-year-old Kenzie Howk, Pennsylvania state police have made an arrest.

Speaker 1 The suspect, not some hardened criminal, it's an 11-year-old boy, Jordan Brown, accused of gunning down his pregnant, soon-to-be stepmom.

Speaker 1 The tiny town of Wampum, with a population of roughly 600, now has millions of eyes on it. Jordan Brown was just 11 years old last February.

Speaker 5 That mugshot of Jordan Brown that sort of became an icon of the story spread across the world.

Speaker 1 This is the mugshot that was taken.

Speaker 14 I was crying in the picture. I was crying the whole night.
I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't know where I was at, like what was going on or anything.

Speaker 1 Did you understand what you stood accused of?

Speaker 14 No, I didn't understand.

Speaker 1 What do you see in this mugshot?

Speaker 6 I see somebody who just committed a murder. That's why there's a mugshot.

Speaker 1 Retired State Police Corporal Jeffrey Martin says the first critical clue was from the autopsy, which revealed the single gunshot to the head and the shotgun pellets that killed her.

Speaker 5 I've...

Speaker 5 never expected to have the murder weapon to be a shotgun.

Speaker 1 And so what is that telling you in terms of a suspect?

Speaker 5 It's more of a weapon of opportunity. It's not a weapon that someone's going to carry across the field or carry up a driveway.
It's three feet long.

Speaker 5 And basically, the only way to get to the house is up through this driveway.

Speaker 1 At the Browns farmhouse, investigators found a collection of weapons, handguns, rifles, several rounds of ammunition, and a child-sized shotgun that belongs to Jordan, a gift from his father for Christmas.

Speaker 1 Tell me a little bit about the hunting culture in rural areas of Pennsylvania.

Speaker 20 It's fairly common. Most especially young males would grow up learning to shoot firearms.

Speaker 1 So it's not unusual for a kid to have a shotgun, hunting rifle.

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 1 How often did you go hunting with your dad?

Speaker 14 Well as much as he would take me.

Speaker 1 But two police officers at the scene are suspicious when they take a whiff of that barrel. It starts to seem like, well, a smoking gun.

Speaker 5 We had a youth model shotgun in a house that had smelled like it had recently been fired.

Speaker 1 But what really turns the case, police say, are the additional interviews they conduct with Jordan and seven-year-old Janessa on the day of Kenzie's murder. So what made you suspect Jordan?

Speaker 5 When we interview someone, you expect them to give their account, wait a little while, interview them again, and they should give the same account.

Speaker 5 And I don't know if that happened in this case.

Speaker 7 This was photo advanced.

Speaker 1 Investigators say in his second interview, if you look up here, Jordan described that black truck he saw that morning differently. And he now added that there was a person inside.

Speaker 6 Now all of a sudden someone was ducking down inside the truck and they had a hat on. His information changed.

Speaker 1 And police believe the strongest piece of circumstantial evidence comes from Kenzie's seven-year-old daughter, Janessa. Police say at first she didn't report anything out of the ordinary that morning.

Speaker 1 But when she is re-interviewed, she has a startling new recollection. Police say she tells them she saw Jordan moving his guns that morning.
And then?

Speaker 6 She told me that when she was waiting downstairs for Jordan, she heard a big boom and she identified it as the sound of a gun.

Speaker 1 Do you remember doing anything with those guns that day? No. You never brought the guns downstairs? No, I never touched them.
What was the motive in your mind for Jordan to do this?

Speaker 6 In my opinion, jealousy. Jealousy of the impending birth.

Speaker 1 And Kenzie's father told us he had seen another side of Jordan.

Speaker 23 He just seemed like he was a troubled kid. He just seemed like he wasn't like a real happy kid.

Speaker 23 I don't get it.

Speaker 1 Back at the Lawrence County Jail after Jordan's arrest, Chris is separated from his son and horrified by the sight of him behind bars.

Speaker 2 The smallest jumpsuit they had, they put on him and it was just rolled up and rolled up and rolled up.

Speaker 8 And I remember just big balls and cuffs around his like a Halloween costume.

Speaker 5 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 So you got a call in the middle of the night.

Speaker 10 Middle of the night.

Speaker 1 Defense attorney Dennis Alisco rushes to the jail.

Speaker 10 It was beyond surreal. He was in a state of absolute shock.

Speaker 2 And he couldn't understand why he couldn't come home. You know, at 11 years old,

Speaker 2 that's so hard.

Speaker 21 It's the whole situation, I'd say, is heinous.

Speaker 16 It's difficult to charge an 11-year-old with homicide.

Speaker 1 So you have to be really sure.

Speaker 16 It has to be sure enough to charge him, yes.

Speaker 1 Prosecutor John Bonjavengo tells reporters he is confident in his arrest, especially because Jordan's clothing showed some evidence of gunpowder residue.

Speaker 21 I have a shotgun blast at the back of the head, consistent with a 20-gauge shotgun shell. I have a 20-gauge youth model in his room.

Speaker 21 Smells like it's recently filed, and he's got gun residue on him. I think that's at this point is more than enough.

Speaker 1 And he believes there's even more evidence against young Jordan Brown. Police found three 20-gauge shell casings outside the home, and one in particular caught their eye.

Speaker 5 That shell was found adjacent to the driveway in late February in pristine condition.

Speaker 1 In that second interview he had with police, Jordan refers to throwing lint out of his pocket on the way to the bus. McGraw thinks he threw something else.

Speaker 1 You're convinced that it was the lethal bullet from this 20-gauge shotgun.

Speaker 6 Correct.

Speaker 1 You didn't immediately assume that he was innocent.

Speaker 2 Correct. I kind of took a step back and thought, could this have happened? I didn't see any signs.

Speaker 2 I didn't want to believe it.

Speaker 1 Could Jordan have done this?

Speaker 5 Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 So, but at the same time, I said, if he is responsible for this, he needs help.

Speaker 1 And so what made you convinced?

Speaker 2 Once I talked to Jordan, I know my son, and I know if I ask him a question, if he's lying to me or not. An 11-year-old couldn't plan their own birthday party,

Speaker 2 let alone, you know, to think that they could do something like that.

Speaker 5 Next.

Speaker 24 This case would have been easy if it would have been somebody other than Jordan, if it would have been an ex-boyfriend.

Speaker 1 But it turns out, Kenzie Hauck did have an ex-boyfriend.

Speaker 2 There were seven people that they talked to and interviewed. Who could have done this?

Speaker 5 Who could have hurt her?

Speaker 2 All seven people said the same name.

Speaker 5 Adam Harvey.

Speaker 1 Who's Adam Harvey? The answer when 2020 returns.

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Speaker 1 11-year-old Jordan Brown is having to grow up pretty fast. Sitting in a six by ten foot jail cell will do do that to you.

Speaker 1 And you were pretty convinced he still believed in Santa Claus? Yeah.

Speaker 2 You have a kid who believes in Santa Claus and the Easter button,

Speaker 1 but is now standing accused of murder.

Speaker 2 Of masterminding something that sent a dozen state troopers on a wild goose chase.

Speaker 10 The world's youngest monster. And that fueled the media frenzy and the presumption of guilt that stayed with the case throughout.

Speaker 1 But if Jordan didn't kill Kenzie, then who did? Chris Brown believes investigators had tunnel vision and need to take a long, hard look at Adam Harvey, Kenzie's ex-boyfriend of six years.

Speaker 1 A look at Harvey's Facebook page shows a cat lover. There's even a picture of Adam with Kenzie.

Speaker 2 The police asked me if there was anybody out there that I thought would have done something to her. And the first person to come to mind was Adam Harvey.
She feared him.

Speaker 1 She was terrified of him.

Speaker 2 She had textion orders, protection from abuse orders.

Speaker 1 In that protective order, Kenzie claimed Adam had left messages threatening to kill her and her entire family. Adam Harvey denies all of those claims.

Speaker 10 Unbeknownst to Jordan, his assumed-to-be stepmother had a PFA against a gentleman who had been threatening to kill her, leaving threatening messages who happened to drive a black truck.

Speaker 1 A black truck. Remember, Jordan said he saw a black truck on the morning Kenzie was murdered.

Speaker 22 Jordan Brown described a black pickup truck, which coincidentally Adam Adam Harvey was stopped in. It's hugely significant.

Speaker 1 The police, however, are not swayed, saying Harvey's black truck that day didn't look like it could have made the almost 24-mile drive to and from Kenzie's house and still have snow on it.

Speaker 5 There was a light coating of snow that we had on the ground. And when his truck was pulled over a short distance from his house, it still had snow on the hood.

Speaker 5 We cannot get over the fact that Adam Harvey did not have time to drive there and had the snow on his car.

Speaker 1 But there is something the police discovered when interviewing Harvey. Kenzie's little girl Adeline, who was believed to be his daughter, was not his daughter after all.

Speaker 10 He discovered a couple months before the homicide that he was not the biological father.

Speaker 1 This photo posted on Adam's Facebook page years after Kenzie's murder shows Harvey holding a newborn baby. He writes, That's Adeline I'm holding, lied to for years.

Speaker 1 Everyone knew and never said a thing.

Speaker 1 Adam told police he and Kenzie had fought over money. She wanted financial support for little Adeline.
But Adam refused because at the time he suspected the child wasn't his.

Speaker 5 He was the first person who was interviewed. He was the first person we located.

Speaker 7 To me, he was, he's the guy.

Speaker 5 He had a PFA on him. This was textbook.
Here, this is the guy. This is going to be easy.

Speaker 1 But police say the investigation into Harvey quickly lost steam. They tested his hands for the presence of gunshot residue, and there was none.

Speaker 1 And Harvey told police he didn't even know where Kenzie lived.

Speaker 5 And as the interview progressed through the first half hour, maybe 40 minutes,

Speaker 5 I just got no indication

Speaker 24 that it was Adam.

Speaker 1 So within an hour of an interview, you felt it wasn't him?

Speaker 5 Well, the interview went longer, but generally a half hour, 45 minutes, you get cues and you'll see body language and you'll get indicators.

Speaker 5 and you saw nothing I saw nothing I saw a gentleman in front of me that was crying and he had

Speaker 5 crying like yes yes even with the relationship they had

Speaker 5 Adam was still in love with Kenzie

Speaker 1 Investigators say Adam Harvey cooperated during the investigation he said he'd take a polygraph he also had an alibi which his father backed up he told police he did not harm Kenzie that morning so in less than a day Adam Harvey was no longer a suspect.

Speaker 16 It's such a small window and such an unlikely set of circumstances that, when he found out where she lived, he knew the doors were unlocked.

Speaker 16 He knew there's a 20-gauge shotgun that they have in the house. And he gets there after everybody leaves, before it snows with no tracks, and gets by the tree-cutting guys.
That seems highly unlikely.

Speaker 1 Next, a father's fight for his son's freedom.

Speaker 1 What was it like hearing that he could face life in prison if convicted as an adult?

Speaker 2 Holy cow, I can't believe this is happening.

Speaker 7 There's no middle ground.

Speaker 15 So he's either looking at life in prison or home in time to learn how to drive.

Speaker 5 It's an amazing contrast.

Speaker 1 Stay with us.

Speaker 1 Imagine driving four hours a day to visit your incarcerated 11-year-old son when you're convinced he's innocent of murdering your fiancé, an unborn child.

Speaker 1 He's awaiting trial, housed in a juvenile detention center in Erie, Pennsylvania. 230 miles.

Speaker 2 Round trip.

Speaker 1 Every day.

Speaker 2 Every day.

Speaker 8 We were there over a thousand times.

Speaker 1 Prosecutor John Bonjavengo thinks he has his man, or rather his boy. Jordan, just 11 years old, is charged with murder as an adult.

Speaker 16 Under Pennsylvania law, you really don't have a choice. Murder is specifically excluded from the Juvenile Act.
So it's either not charged or he's charged as an adult.

Speaker 1 The punishment if convicted?

Speaker 10 Life in prison without the possibility of parole in an adult prison.

Speaker 1 We saw the headlines.

Speaker 11 I was appalled.

Speaker 1 Jordan's case quickly draws attention from advocates like Marshall Levick of the Juvenile Law Center, who joined forces with Jordan's attorney in his defense.

Speaker 11 Jordan would have have been the youngest child ever to be sentenced to life without parole.

Speaker 1 Did you at 11 understand that you could face life in prison?

Speaker 14 No, I didn't understand anything at all.

Speaker 5 What was going on?

Speaker 9 Once he was charged, this is all about getting it out of adult court and into juvenile court.

Speaker 7 There's no middle ground.

Speaker 15 He's either looking at life in prison or home in time to learn how to drive, which when you think about that, it's just, it's an amazing contrast.

Speaker 1 Chris says, with his focus on Jordan's legal plight, his grief for the loss of Kenzie and their unborn baby had to take a back seat.

Speaker 1 But it was almost as if you couldn't take time to mourn her because you were so busy.

Speaker 5 No, really, really haven't had a chance to grieve properly.

Speaker 1 The four-hour daily journey to see Jordan is wreaking havoc on Chris's finances.

Speaker 2 It cost me my job and what money that I had coming in went into the gas tank and went into things that he needed.

Speaker 14 The visits were two to four, so I couldn't wait till two.

Speaker 14 And even if they were like five minutes late, I used to get like antsy. Then I never wanted to leave, but looking back now, though, I don't know what I would have done without them.

Speaker 14 Yeah, they played a big role in like keeping my head straight.

Speaker 1 You were 11, 12, along with like 17-year-old hardened defenders. Oh, yeah.
Did you see fights?

Speaker 14 Oh, yeah,

Speaker 14 like every day.

Speaker 2 He'd say, dad, he said,

Speaker 2 you wouldn't believe what I've seen seen today. One kid threatened to stab another one in the neck, you know, while we were eating.

Speaker 1 On his 12th birthday, Jordan's old football buddies come to visit.

Speaker 14 It was like the best day I ever had because I haven't seen my friends in so long and they all came up and we were there for a couple hours.

Speaker 9 This was not an easy move to juvenile court. It's not like the court said, oh, you're 11, of course, we'll move it to juvenile court.
These kinds of legal fights take a long time, sometimes years.

Speaker 1 In fact, years pass. Jordan attends classes in detention, but says he was mainly self-taught.
He bides his time absorbed in books. He would read them with a dictionary at his side.

Speaker 14 So if I would read something, come across a word I didn't know, look it up, that way I know what was trying to be said, then that's how I read.

Speaker 1 What kinds of books did you like to read?

Speaker 14 I was a big fantasy reader.

Speaker 1 I take it it was a bit of an escape for you.

Speaker 14 Well, it was. It was a whole different world.
I'd like lose myself in the book and then...

Speaker 1 Pass the time.

Speaker 14 Right. Time flew when you were reading.

Speaker 1 Jordan's only time away from the detention center are for his court visits.

Speaker 14 Whenever I would go from Erie down to Newcastle for court, I'd have shackles and handcuffs on.

Speaker 2 I used to get so mad about that. You may have a 17-year-old that can overpower a grown man and take off, but an 11-year-old?

Speaker 2 An 11-year-old who's four foot nine, he was sitting there and his feet were swinging off of the floor, just dangling with shackles on belted handcuffed like

Speaker 2 unbelievable

Speaker 1 throughout jordan's years in detention in erie chris continues to ask his son did you kill kenzie i gave him every opportunity jordan listen if something happens accidents happen buddy if something happened

Speaker 2 tell me i'm not gonna be bad at you i'm your dad I'm never not going to be your dad. I'm never not going to be here every day.

Speaker 1 And what did he say?

Speaker 2 Never, never changed his story. Maintained his innocence throughout from day one.

Speaker 1 Obviously, the police believe that you killed Kenzie. Did you kill Kenzie? No.

Speaker 1 Kenzie's family remain convinced Jordan is guilty and that he should face maximum punishment.

Speaker 23 I'm hoping, I'm hoping, and hoping he's going to be charged in adult because that's what he is. He did an adult crime.

Speaker 6 Jordan's a murderer.

Speaker 12 And I'll say it.

Speaker 13 And his father needs to get in the mirror every morning and look in that mirror and say, I am the father of a murderer.

Speaker 1 August 2011, two years after Jordan's arrest, finally, a judge's ruling. And it's a big break for Jordan.
He won't be tried as an adult, but as a juvenile.

Speaker 10 What was your reaction? I was greatly relieved.

Speaker 1 The stakes could not have been higher.

Speaker 10 Not have been higher.

Speaker 1 Defense Attorney Dennis Alisco brings on co-counsel Steve Calafella to help prepare for the juvenile trial. With those fresh eyes come some raised eyebrows.

Speaker 22 I mean, I really was expecting this overwhelming evidence and forensics and witnesses and all the things that you typically see or would hope to see in a case of that magnitude for them to be so sure that they're going to take this little 11-year-old boy through that process.

Speaker 22 And it just wasn't there.

Speaker 1 Coming up, a new witness who has never spoken publicly before, talking only to 2020. Tonight, the little girl who found Kenzie's body.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I remember everything.

Speaker 1 Stay with us.

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Speaker 26 For the family of the victim, there's pain in Jordan Brown denying he shot Kenzie Hauck in the head as she slept.

Speaker 17 She was eight and a half months pregnant.

Speaker 1 It's been three years since Jordan Brown entered this Pennsylvania detention center. So long that there's now a new prosecutor on the case.

Speaker 1 Chris Brown hasn't stopped hoping the scales of justice will finally tilt in his son's favor.

Speaker 2 He has total faith in both of his attorneys, and he believes that he's going to eventually come home.

Speaker 1 But if Pennsylvania investigators have their way, it will be years before Jordan Brown tastes freedom.

Speaker 6 There is not a trooper on scene that day that has lost one second of sleep over this case.

Speaker 1 In a murder trial that barely lasted three days, the case is decided by a jury of one. Judge John Hodge.

Speaker 9 Once you have a bench trial, it's one person who's making that decision.

Speaker 1 Judge Hodge's verdict, swift and severe. Jordan Brown, by then 14 years old, guilty of double homicide.

Speaker 10 And pray that somehow through today.

Speaker 28 The Hout family's prayers were answered this afternoon when a judge announced a guilty verdict.

Speaker 1 It's a stunning gut punch for Jordan Brown and his legal team.

Speaker 22 When he announced that verdict, just looking at Jordan and feeling like we had failed him and just feeling so sorry for him at that moment.

Speaker 1 But still convinced Jordan is innocent, his lawyers vow to take their fight all the way to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Speaker 10 Because he's lost his childhood on a false conviction and he needs to be exonerated.

Speaker 1 Jordan's lawyers begin picking apart the prosecution's case, starting with that youth model shotgun that authorities say smelled like it had recently been shot. shot.

Speaker 10 Those law enforcement officers who said that they smelled it was recently fired, they conceded that they have no expertise or training.

Speaker 1 And yet they dubbed it the smoking gun.

Speaker 10 Correct. They dubbed it the smoking gun.

Speaker 1 You arrested an 11-year-old boy based on the smell of a recently shot shotgun and a shell casing that was found after he was arrested.

Speaker 6 And someone who was within feet. and heard the blast.

Speaker 1 Remember, that someone is Kenzie's older daughter, Janessa.

Speaker 1 But it turns out that explosive statement she gave police, where she said she heard a boom right before they left for school, that bombshell was never entered into evidence at trial.

Speaker 1 Janessa never testified. Does it occur to you that maybe they didn't enter it into evidence because it wasn't reliable?

Speaker 6 No.

Speaker 6 No way, shape, or form. You're talking about a seven-year-old taking a stand in a courtroom.
It had nothing to do with her being unreliable.

Speaker 22 All they really arrested him on, largely, was the statement of Janessa.

Speaker 22 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.

Speaker 1 But the forensic pickings are slim. Starting with that shell casing, they claim Jordan tossed on his way to the school bus.

Speaker 22 On that property, where they lived on a farm, there were shotgun shells all over the place. They routinely shot on that property.
The discovery of that shell was not significant.

Speaker 1 And police were never able to prove Jordan's shotgun was the murder weapon.

Speaker 9 All you can really say is

Speaker 9 it was this type of gun, but you can't definitively say it was this gun.

Speaker 1 And then also curious is the fact that there was no blood or tissue, also known as blowback, found on Jordan's gun.

Speaker 22 The absence of any tissue or blood on his clothing or on the barrel of the gun.

Speaker 22 It's almost inconceivable that a shotgun was fired at close range and it wouldn't deposit any tissue, any blood on the barrel of the gun or on his clothing, which he wore to school.

Speaker 22 It was appalling to me that they seemingly just ignored that fact throughout the case.

Speaker 1 But the prosecution's expert testified that the angle at which the gun was shot could have minimized the blowback. And the police have their own theory.

Speaker 20 Our theory is that the blowback would have been stopped most of it, if not all of it, from the hair of Kenzie.

Speaker 1 You think hair would stop the blowback of a shotgun blast?

Speaker 29 Between the hair and the fold in the skin with the direction that was pulled back, yes.

Speaker 1 But those seasoned investigators who admit they rarely work on murder cases insist they have the goods on Jordan Brown. Why did you arrest him at 3.30 in the morning?

Speaker 5 Because we wanted to do a search warrant on his clothes also.

Speaker 1 And what did you find on his clothes?

Speaker 5 They discovered gunshot residue and gunshot particles on his shirt and pants.

Speaker 1 The defense argues that gunpowder came from a jacket Jordan wore at a turkey shoot days earlier.

Speaker 1 And the prosecution's own expert says it's just as likely those two particles of gunshot residue could have transferred to Jordan's clothes. Which leaves Jordan's legal team with one big question.

Speaker 1 Where is the physical evidence? In order for this perfect storm of a crime to have happened with the 11-year-old as the trigger man, what would have had to take place?

Speaker 22 This is precisely what would have had to have happened. Jordan Brown was sitting with his stepsister, Janessa, in a room adjacent to the room where the victim was sleeping.

Speaker 22 Run upstairs, grab a shotgun, load it with a shotgun shell, walk over to the bed, place that shotgun up against her head, pull that trigger, kill her, somehow manage to wipe whatever bodily fluid or blood might have been contained on the end of that gun, take it upstairs, replace it along the wall, remove the shell, run downstairs while his sister presumably was waiting for him, all without leaving a single clue.

Speaker 1 And Jordan's lawyers say the police timeline means it all happened within a couple of minutes.

Speaker 10 An 11-year-old child can't make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drink a glass of milk without leaving clues.

Speaker 1 And tonight, a brand new witness, Kenzie's younger daughter, Adeline, four at the time, now 13, coming forward with an account that flies in the face of the police timeline.

Speaker 1 Mother, you fill my life with happiness and my heart with love.

Speaker 1 The gunshot was what had woken me up. I was so young, I did not know what the sound was.
I was just going to walk in to wake her up and her phone rang.

Speaker 1 I went and answered the phone and I was like, hi. And they were like, can I talk to your mama? I went in to wake her up and her face was facing me.
I was just like, hey, mom, wake up.

Speaker 1 And when I turned her over, I realized. So I hung up the phone.
And I went outside. A tree trimmer spots Adeline sometime after 9 a.m.

Speaker 1 And if you go according to Adeline's recollection, Jordan and Janessa would have been long gone on the school bus when Kenzie was killed. I just sat there and cried with my little blanket.

Speaker 1 Her family says Adeline's shared bits of her story over the years, but it's something neither police nor Jordan's defense team have ever heard. His lawyers say her timeline means Jordan wasn't there.

Speaker 1 But we asked an investigator to respond who says after so many years, he finds her account not credible. So this is the casing.
But we wondered if the timeline falls apart, what about the forensics?

Speaker 1 Did you ever check his hands for gunshot recognition?

Speaker 5 We did not.

Speaker 1 Can you tell me why no one dusted for fingerprints on the unlocked doors?

Speaker 5 I don't know if it wasn't done.

Speaker 1 It was never

Speaker 8 reported.

Speaker 5 Because when this initially happened,

Speaker 5 they didn't know what it was and they were going to try to save her. And they actually tried to save her and gave her CPR.

Speaker 1 So a bunch of people went in and out. So you're saying the crime scene was contaminated?

Speaker 5 The door.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so you never got fingerprints off the door.

Speaker 5 And we fingerprinted a gun. There was no fingerprints on the gun either.
Fingerprints are very hard because you need a very perfectly good fingerprint that wasn't moved when it touched something.

Speaker 1 Fall 2017, more than eight years after his arrest, Jordan Brown's legal team will finally have their case heard by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 I pray this never happens to another child.

Speaker 1 When we come back, what justice looks like for Jordan Brown. Stay with us.

Speaker 24 An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu.

Speaker 1 Mom Talk started as a sisterhood, and that's gone to flames. New secrets and lies are coming out.
This is going to be catastrophic.

Speaker 1 We're fighting for our marriages, and the girls are just putting us through hell. They make everything about themselves.
I can't. Hopefully, this doesn't end in a bloodbath.

Speaker 24 Watch the Hulu original, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bonus subscribers.

Speaker 5 Terms apply.

Speaker 30 It started with a phone call in the early hours of the morning.

Speaker 21 911, what is the address to your emergency?

Speaker 30 A terrified woman tells the operator she's been kidnapped, assaulted, and that she's trapped in a room with her attacker. He's fallen asleep.

Speaker 30 So she quietly and ever so carefully finds his phone and calls for help.

Speaker 25 Is there any way you can get out of the building? I don't know without waking him and I'm scared.

Speaker 30 This 911 call began an investigation that would turn the town of Ashland into a crime scene.

Speaker 18 We've got something big going on here.

Speaker 24 The first thing to hit my mind is a monster.

Speaker 30 A new series from ABC Audio and 2020, The Hand in the Window. Out now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 1 Summer 2018, the stage is set for the final showdown at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the topsy-turvy legal case against Jordan Brown.

Speaker 26 The judges are being asked to rule Jordan Brown was wrongly found guilty on insufficient evidence.

Speaker 1 Since his arrest for murder in 2009, the now almost 21-year-old Jordan spent seven of his summers under lock and key. He was released from detention at 18.

Speaker 1 But this past July, a stunning victory for the Browns and the two lawyers who worked the case pro bono.

Speaker 1 Pennsylvania's highest court sides with Jordan, writing that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania failed to prove Jordan Brown guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. His conviction overturned.

Speaker 27 Now, Jordan Brown is a man and a free one.

Speaker 14 The truth finally got out.

Speaker 9 It is incredibly rare for a Supreme Court to say that there is simply not enough evidence here. It's not that the court is saying 100%

Speaker 9 he's innocent, but the court is saying that there's certainly not enough evidence to convict.

Speaker 1 During his incarceration, Jordan says he maintained a 3.9 GPA

Speaker 1 and taught himself to play guitar. He also became a pretty good basketball player.

Speaker 1 And through it all, he says he harbors no ill will.

Speaker 14 No, I'm not angry. I mean, I think the whole, like, what happened and the way it happened is BS, but I'm not.

Speaker 5 Can I say that? Yes, you can say that.

Speaker 14 But I don't think I'm angry.

Speaker 1 How do you explain to somebody what that's like to be accused of murder?

Speaker 14 Well, being accused of it, it's a horrible feeling. It's really embarrassing, I feel like, too.
Like being in front of people and then not knowing what they're thinking.

Speaker 1 Because people thought you were were a murderer.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And in fact, Kenzie's family still believes that Jordan's guilty.

Speaker 2 I'm heartbroken. My heart goes out to them.

Speaker 1 You think that this accusation led to a real killer getting away with murder?

Speaker 2 Absolutely. And that's disturbing.
There's a murderer walking amongst us that

Speaker 2 has been overlooked.

Speaker 1 If those troopers were standing right here, what would you say to them?

Speaker 5 Shame on you

Speaker 2 is probably the most polite way to put it. You took an 11-year-old's childhood away from him.
You've ruined his name.

Speaker 2 In that sense, I mean, you Google Jordan Brown and you get that mugshot picture that pops up.

Speaker 6 This case was investigated by some of the finest police officers in this country. Every trooper who investigated that case feels the same way.
We did not get this wrong.

Speaker 6 We didn't get it wrong.

Speaker 1 As for Kenzie's daughters, they cling tightly to the memory of their beloved mom. We used to like dance and sing on the fireplace.
That was like my favorite memory. I'm just like her.

Speaker 1 I am her little mini-me.

Speaker 1 Through the years of controversy, one truth never up for debate. Kenzie and her unborn child will remain forever in their hearts.

Speaker 2 I still love her. I miss her every day.

Speaker 1 Today, Jordan Brown is determined to leave his checkered past behind and focus on brighter brighter days ahead.

Speaker 14 That song I just played was called She Talks to Angels by the Black Crows.

Speaker 1 And what do you want to tell the world about you?

Speaker 14 That I'm innocent. That's like the only thing I really want people to know.

Speaker 4 It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes, the killing of a wealthy family at Whitehouse Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong.

Speaker 21 I know there's going to be a twist, won't they? A massive twist.

Speaker 18 At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case.

Speaker 4 I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from In the Dark and the New Yorker.
Find it now in the In the Dark podcast feed.