Nearly 16 years after he was accused of killing the woman he thought of as his stepmother, Jordan Brown testified for the first time Monday, describing for a jury the events of Feb. 20, 2009.
In appearance, only Brown’s clothes — a gray suit and tan, striped tie — and his beard separated the man on the witness stand from the 11-year-old, round-faced boy whose life he recounted.
That morning, Brown told the jury, was much like every other.
When he woke up in his second-floor bedroom, Brown said, he had to go downstairs to the bedroom at the front of the house — the one belonging to his dad and his fiancee — to get his clothes.
Chris Brown and Kenzie Houk were expecting a baby, due in just a week, and the couple and Brown were in the process of switching rooms.
Brown had moved his clothing downstairs the day before. So that morning, he walked into that front bedroom as Houk lay in bed on her side, watching TV.
“She said, ‘Good morning,’ ” Brown testified.
He said “good morning” back and retrieved a pair of socks from a drawer in an armoire, the same piece of furniture where his dad kept ammunition for various guns in the house.
Then Brown got a pair of jeans and a red-and-green-striped, long-sleeve Polo shirt out of the dresser at the foot of the bed. He got dressed in the bathroom and sat on the couch in the living room until Houk told him and her 7-year-old daughter, Jenessa, to go catch the bus.
It was the last time Brown would be free for the next seven years.
He was arrested early the next morning, accused of using his youth model 20-gauge shotgun to shoot Houk in the back of the head, killing her and the baby she carried.
Brown was adjudicated delinquent of first-degree murder in 2012 and remained in custody until he turned 18.
But in July 2018, the state Supreme Court ruled that the conviction should be overturned, finding that there was insufficient evidence to find Brown guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Two years later, Brown, who has maintained his innocence, sued the four state troopers who led the investigation: Janice Wilson, Jeffrey Martin, Troy Steinheiser and Robert McGraw. The civil trial — on claims of malicious prosecution and fabrication of evidence — began Wednesday before U.S. District Judge W. Scott Hardy.
The plaintiffs rested their case Monday afternoon.
Guns made him ‘uncomfortable’
Earlier in the day, Brown spent more than an hour testifying, his voice so soft that the judge had to instruct him to move the microphone closer.
He told the jury he viewed Houk as his stepmother, that he wasn’t allowed to handle any of the guns in the house by himself and that Jenessa — whose statement that she heard a “big boom” that morning led to the Pennsylvania State Police charging Brown — was as much a victim in the case as he is.
Brown told the jury he had gotten two long guns, a 30-30 rifle and the 20-gauge shotgun, as gifts from his father. But, his father always loaded and unloaded them for him.
“It made me uncomfortable,” he said. “I never knew what shell to put in. There were a bunch of different colors and sizes.”
Brown’s father, he said, taught him about gun safety, including to never point a gun at a person.
“We weren’t allowed to touch them,” he said, unless his dad or another adult gave them permission.
One or two nights before Houk was killed, Brown said, she had asked him to move the six long guns, which had been in the couple’s bedroom, up to Brown’s room.
He did as she asked, he told the jury, and said he never touched them again.
The day Houk was killed, state police found those guns leaning behind a dresser in Brown’s upstairs bedroom with a blaze orange hunting garment on top of them.
They said the 20-gauge smelled like it had been recently fired.
‘Sad and confused’
Brown also recounted for the jury his interviews with the state police that day.
In the first one with Wilson, he described his morning before leaving for school. When asked if he’d seen any vehicles on the property, which was a working farm, Brown said there had been a black pickup truck.
“I told her I thought it was one of the workers on the farm because he was there frequently.”
Later that day, Brown’s uncle pointed out a black Chevy S-10 and asked his nephew if the truck looked like that. Brown said it was bigger, so when he talked to the troopers for the second time later that night, he told them what he saw might have been an “S-11.”
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During her testimony on Monday, Wilson, one of the defendants, said one of the reasons they charged Brown was that his testimony about the truck had changed.
Brown then described for the jury how he learned that Houk had been killed.
That night, Chris Brown and two troopers arrived at Brown’s grandmother’s house where he had spent the day.
Chris Brown had been crying, his son recounted, becoming tearful himself.
“He never cried much,” Jordan Brown said. “He told me Kenzie had passed away. They told me she was in heaven. I asked about the baby. He just shook his head, ‘no.’ ”
As Jordan Brown sat at his grandmother’s kitchen table crying, Wilson and McGraw peppered him with questions.
Wilson asked him about the truck again, and also whether he saw anyone in or around the truck.
“ ‘I don’t know, maybe?’ ” Brown said he kept responding.
“I was trying to help her out,” he told the jury.
He said Wilson asked him if he owned guns. Then she asked Brown if he shot Houk.
“I told her, ‘No.’
“I was sad and confused.”
House rules
Chris Brown, who was the last witness to testify in the plaintiff’s case, told the jury that when Wilson asked that question, he ended the interview.
“They had lied to me twice that day,” he said. “I wasn’t comfortable with the questions they were asking.”
When Chris Brown gave the state police permission to interview his son late that night, he testified, he thought he was helping them learn who killed his fiancee.
“I did everything they asked me to do that day,” he said.
Wilson asked Chris Brown if his son knew yet that Houk had died. He did not.
“She wanted me to bring Jordan to the table and tell him in front of them.”
He did what he was asked and relayed the news. Later, after he halted the interview, Chris Brown asked to speak to the troopers outside.
“ ‘It’s absolutely ridiculous. Jordan didn’t even know how to load that gun,’ ” he told them. “I told them we had rules in the house that they weren’t allowed to touch the guns. The only time he ever shot that gun was with me.”
On cross-examination, state police attorney Brendan O’Malley asked Chris Brown about a statement he made that night in which he told his son to tell him the truth, and that he’d always love him and be his father.
“You thought for a second maybe he did do it?” O’Malley asked.
“No, I just didn’t automatically exclude it,” Chris Brown said. “I’m a reasonable person. You’re putting those words in my mouth.”
O’Malley countered with, “A responsible parent would know their son could never do such a thing.”
The trial is expected to resume Tuesday morning as the defense begins its case.