Boy, 11, Allegedly Used 'Youth Gun' in Killing

 

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Bongivengo said he was unable to file the homicide charges against the boy in juvenile court and had not decided whether he would oppose a motion to transfer the case to juvenile court.

"On the nature of the crime itself, I would say I would be opposed. But I'm not going to take a hard line stance," he said. "I want to gather all the information possible and make the best possible decision. I'm not out to persecute him."

Houk's family and friends said Houk had had problems with the boy in the past. Prosecutors said Jordan had been the center of attention in his father's life until Houk moved in.

Family members told "Good Morning America" that Jordan had threatened to "pop" Houk and her daughters in the past.

"There was an issue with jealousy. He told my son stuff," Houk's brother-in-law, Jason Kraner, told the Associated Press. "He actually told my son that he wanted to do that to her."

Houk's 7-year-old daughter is now a key witness in the case. Prosecutors said the girl said Jordan came downstairs early Friday morning holding two guns.

When she asked what he was doing, Jordan allegedly ran back upstairs, then returned with a shotgun under a blanket, according to prosecutors. State police found Houk's body in bed after her 4-year-old daughter told tree cutters on the property that she thought her mother was dead.

"The operating theory is that he covered the gun with the blanket to hide it when he came downstairs" from his bedroom to shoot Houk, who was in a first-floor bedroom, Bongivengo said. "It wasn't used to muffle (the shot) or anything, the blanket wasn't thick enough for that."

Deborah Houk, Kenzie's mother, said, "I lost my grandson, and my daughter and my two little babies lost their mother. Nothing could ever be so horrible."