Lawyers for an 11-year-old boy accused of killing his father's pregnant fiancée are questioning one of the search warrants used to collect evidence.
Jordan Brown is accused of shooting 26-year-old Kenzie Houk at a house in Wampum in February.
The defense says signatures on the search warrant investigators used to search the home did not have what it needed to be a valid warrant.
"We discovered that one of the four search warrants was not signed by the officer who obtained the warrant," Dennis Elisco, a defense attorney, said. "That would be the first in time which would have been [Friday, February 20th] at about 3:25 p.m."
Potentially at issue is whether the .20 gauge shotgun seized as evidence and said to belong to Jordan Brown can still be evidence in the case if the warrant is challenged and found to be invalid.
During a hearing this month, the prosecution's case so far ties Brown to the crime with evidence of gunshot residue.
But the prosecutor says a signature issue on a warrant is not enough to throw out the warrant.
"I don't see a problem with it at all actually," Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo said. "There's one place that's missing a signature. The law requires that it be sworn – the affidavit of probable cause be sworn to by the officer … in front of the judge.
"The warrant is signed in those necessary places. The application for warrant is signed by the judge – I don't anticipate it actually being a problem," he added.
http://kdka.com/local/wampum.murder.warrants.2.971695.html
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