On the morning of February 20, 2009, in the New Beaver Community, a remote town 40 kilometers north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, usa, it had just snowed, and 4-year-old Adeline woke up from her room, sleepily walked downstairs, she went to her mother's room, and found her mother still lying on the bed.
She stepped forward and pushed her mother, and found that her mother did not respond, so she turned her mother over again, at this time, 4-year-old Edrin was stunned by the scene in front of her, only to see her mother covered in blood and motionless.
Adeline ran out of the house in fright, sat in the doorway and cried, at this time, the cleaning worker who was cleaning next to her saw Adeline who was crying and rushed forward to ask, "What's wrong with you?" ”
Adeline cried and said, "My mom is dead, right inside."
Upon hearing this, the workers immediately dialed 911, and the police rushed to the scene of the crime.
The place of the crime
When the police arrived at the scene, they found the woman lying on the bed, and when the forensic doctor examined Kenzi's body carefully, he realized that it was a murder, and the cause of death was a gunshot in the back of the head, and the time of death was not long ago.
What is even more tragic is that Kenzi was pregnant at the time, she had a fetus in her womb, and this murder case killed two corpses and made people's backs chill. Who was so cruel as to kill such a pregnant woman in her home?
Kenzi in high school
The police immediately investigated the family background of the deceased, her name was Kenzi, a beautician, who grew up in the town, had a lively personality, was kind, the townspeople liked her very much, and her current husband, Chris Hawke, was a worker who worked in the town's furniture factory.
Janissa on the left, Adeline on the right, Kenzi in the middle
Before the two married, both had an unhappy marriage, Kenzi and her ex-husband gave birth to two daughters, 7-year-old Janetha and 4-year-old Adeline, then Chris and his ex-wife had a child Jordan, the two came together because of love, Kenzi moved to Chris's house and soon became pregnant, just as they were looking forward to a better future, the murder changed everything.
At that time, Kenzi and Chris had already given the baby who had not yet been born by a good name, called Christopher, and they did not expect that on such a normal morning, Kenzi would say goodbye to the world.
The police found no loss of property in Kenzi's home, no pry marks on doors and windows, and no suspicious footprints in the home, so the police suspected that the murderer was either a family member or that the murderer had been premeditated.
When his wife died, the first suspect was her husband, Chris. But Chris went to work early in the morning, and colleagues could give him an alibi.
Jordan
At 8 a.m., Kenzi and his three children were at home, and Kenzi first asked his daughter Jennysa to ask his brother Jordan to get up for dinner, and when Jordan and Jenisha were eating, Kenzi urged them to "hurry up and eat something, otherwise they will be late for school."
After eating, Janesa and Jordan picked up their school bags, walked to the door, and hurried to the school bus at 8:15.
Forensic identification revealed that Kensey died between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., during which Chris did not commit the crime, and the police did a gunpowder residue test on Chris's hands and clothes, and no gunpowder residue was found on it, so Chris was quickly ruled out.
According to the marks of Kenzi's brain shooting, she looked like she had been shot by a shotgun, so the police immediately searched the scene, and in the home, the police found a lot of firearms, because the town has a population of less than 1,000 people, is remote, and people are keen on hunting, so it is normal to store shotguns in the home.
However, the police found an automatic shotgun in Jordan's room, which was located behind Jordan's door, wrapped in a blanket, with a small hole in the stall, and a policeman who picked up the shotgun also smelled and said, "I can faintly smell the gunpowder on it", and the police concluded that the shotgun was the weapon of the killer.
Spot the shotgun
The police then came to the school to inform Jordan and Janesa of their mother's death and gave a confession to both.
During the confession, Jordan said, "In the morning, I saw a black van parked on the road in my garage, much like a nearby worker's vehicle, but I didn't pay much attention to it."
Janesha said that there was nothing unusual that day, it was normal.
Shell casings
Soon, the police found three empty shell casings in the snow outside the Door of Kenzi's house, but one of the shells was obviously much newer than the other two, and because it was tens of meters away from the house, the police believed that it was the shell casing that the murderer had thrown away after shooting.
As a result, the police conducted a second questioning of Jordan and Jenisha. This time, Jordan described the black truck in detail, then said that "there was a man in the car, wearing a hat, and the hat was pressed very low, but it didn't look clearly."
Curiously, Jenisha was asked this time to completely change her previous confession, she said, "That morning, when I arrived in the living room, I saw Jordan playing with his shotgun, and soon after I heard a loud noise, much like the sound of shooting, and then I saw Jordan coming down from the stairs, and then I went to school with Jordan." Jordan threw something into the snow when he got outside, but I didn't see what it was. I also asked Jordan what he threw while sitting in the car, but he didn't answer me."
Jenisha's second confession directly made Jordan a suspect, and the police asked Jordan if he had killed his mother, but Jordan firmly denied it. Jordan also remained silent about whether he had ever played with a shotgun, giving the police reason to suspect jordan as the killer.
In this regard, all the confessions and evidence formed a "closed-loop chain", for which the police speculated about Jordan's motives: because Kenzi was pregnant, Jordan was afraid that the child who was about to be born would take away the love of his parents, so he had been "planning" to kill the child, so on this morning, he took advantage of his mother's lack of attention and shot Kenzi in the head with a shotgun.
Jordan and Chris
At 3:30 a.m. on February 21, the police directly took Jordan, who was still asleep, to the police station, and from the clothes Jordan wore that day, the police detected gunpowder residue, which further confirmed the police's suspicions.
The media flocked to Jordan before any trial could be held, and the media defined him as "America's youngest demon."
Chris was completely confused by his son's accusations, his son had never shown violent tendencies, and he got along with Kensey and his sisters very well, how could he become a murderer? In response, Chris explained to the police over and over again: something must have gone wrong!
In fact, in addition to Jordan, the police also suspected another person, his name is Adam Harvey. Adam is Kenzi's ex-husband, and in the months leading up to the crime, Adam accidentally learned that 4-year-old Adeline was not his own flesh and blood, which made him very angry, he thought that Kenzi put a green hat on him, so he constantly threatened Kenzi, and even threatened to kill her family.
In response, Kenzi applied to the court for a restraining order prohibiting Adam from approaching her and her family, Adam had a good motive for committing the crime, and it happened that Adam's vehicle was a black truck, which fit Jordan's description of it.
Adam
Adam was once taken back to the police station by the police, but he claimed that "I did not know where Kenzi's family lived, and my father could provide me with an alibi of the day, confirming that I was not out of the house at the time of the crime."
The police found adam's black truck covered with fresh snow, which led to the belief that Adam had not driven the car, and if Adam had driven 20 miles back and forth, the snow on the roof would have been blown away, so what was seen that day was not Adam's car.
At the same time, Adam did not have gunpowder residue on him, and the police gave Adam a lie detector test to confirm that Adam was not lying, so Adam's suspicions were ruled out.
At this time, the police had only one suspect, Jordan, 11 years old, who "rightfully" became the murderer.
According to Pennsylvania law, although Jordan is a minor, he is not allowed to enter the juvenile court trial, and according to the adult trial rules, he may be sentenced to life imprisonment, which is obviously unfair to a child.
The case received widespread attention across the United States, with many judges expressing dissatisfaction with the Pennsylvania rule, and the fact that children were punished for crimes as adults were puzzled by the fact that if tried as a juvenile, the sentence for first-degree murder would not exceed 20 years, which was a world away from life imprisonment.
After numerous judges' proposals, the Pennsylvania court finally approved that Jordan could be tried in juvenile court, while Jordan had been in jail for three years.
During the court trial, Jordan's defense lawyer defended him not guilty, pointing out many doubts.
1. 4 days before the crime, Jordan and his father Chris participated in a turkey hunt, and the two used this shotgun, so the gunpowder must remain on the clothes.
Since jordan's hands and body were not tested for gunpowder residues at that time, and the gunpowder residues on his clothes became the key to the case, the court specifically sought ballistics experts, and the experts confirmed that it was impossible to determine how long the gunpowder residue would remain on the clothes, that is to say, the gunpowder residues on Jordan's clothes were most likely left by hunting a few days ago, so they could not be used as evidence of conviction.
2. The police who searched the scene claimed to smell the gunpowder smell emitted from the shotgun, but this taste sensation is very subjective, the police have never received professional training before, and whether the gunpowder smell they smell is remnants after just shooting or has been left after hunting, the difference is very large, so it cannot be presented as evidence in court.
3, the three shells found outside the house, although it is proved that the same type of shotgun fired, but can not prove that it is this shotgun fired, because the town often appears hunting activities, many people have similar guns, shooting nearby is also normal, so it can not be used as evidence in this case.
4, the most critical point is that the murderer shot very close to Kenzi at the time of the crime, only a few inches away (not more than 30cm), in such a close position to shoot shots, the gun can not be stained with blood, but after identification, there is no blood or brain tissue fragments on the Jordan shotgun and the blanket wrapped outside.
The reason given by the police is also particularly strange, they claim that Kenzi's hair shielded the blood splash, so the shotgun and blanket did not get blood.
Jenisha, 5 and 7 years old, showed obvious uncertainty in her two confessions. According to Janesha's confession, she sat in the living room waiting for Jordan after breakfast at 8 o'clock, which was next to Kenzi's bedroom, and she had never seen Jordan enter Kench's bedroom. Later, she heard a gunshot, so where was Jordan when the gun rang? According to Janissa's description, she saw Jordan coming down the stairs after hearing the loud noise, and since Jordan was on the second floor and had never entered Kenzi's room, how could he be the murderer? There are many unexplained aspects of this claim, so it cannot be used as evidence.
Despite the controversy in the case and the lack of substantial evidence for many claims, on April 13, 2012, the court convicted Jordan of first-degree murder and infanticide.
In the face of the verdict, Jordan always claimed to have been wronged, that he never killed his mother, and that he kept appealing.
As an 11-year-old child, Jordan showed a distinctly uncomfortable feeling after entering the prison, he saw too much violence in the prison, and even during a restaurant meal, one prisoner stabbed another prisoner in the neck with a sharp knife, which directly frightened Jordan, and he lived in fear every day.
Before going to prison, Jordan was a member of the school's football team, sunny and positive, father Chris knew that his son would not adapt to this life, and on Jordan's 12th birthday, he also specially invited Jordan's then-football team classmates to visit him in the hospital and had an unforgettable birthday for him, Jordan said "This is the best day I have ever had.".
It was because of his father's support that Jordan did not give up the opportunity to appeal, and in May 2013, the Pennsylvania Superior Court received Jordan's appeal, which held that the juvenile court used discretion but clearly exceeded the standard it should, because in this case there was not enough evidence to conclude that Jordan used the shotgun to shoot his mother, so the juvenile court's decision was annulled.
That means Jordan is not guilty! But before Jordan could get out of prison, prosecutors appealed again, claiming that the court's trial had been error-free.
On April 19, 2015, court judges reviewed all previous testimony and evidence, and finally they issued a new verdict, still convicting Jordan, and the judge raised the trial opinion to the Supreme Court.
After obtaining this evidence, the Supreme Court, after repeated research, found that there was no obvious misconduct during the trial and agreed to the guilty verdict, which once again put Jordan, who had been acquitted, into the hat of the murderer.
Faced with this result, Jordan and defense attorneys appealed again to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Seven justices
On July 18, 2018, seven Supreme Court judges voted, two of whom abstained, and finally overturned the Supreme Court's previous verdict by a 5:0 vote to commute Jordan's acquittal.
A justice said that "the police evidence on the shotgun is obviously insufficient, and it cannot be proved that the gun is the murder weapon of the case, let alone that the defendant is the murderer of the case, so the suspect must be released"
In accordance with the state law's "no penalty for one crime" law, in order to avoid excessive use of public resources and prevent endless appeals by prosecutors, this judgment is immediately enforced as a final judgment, and even if new evidence appears in the future, the judgment cannot be overturned.
The reason why the five justices acquitted is clear: the federal forensic doctors, the testimony of eyewitnesses, and all the reasonable conclusions drawn from them are from the most favorable point of view, and it is also in line with both possibilities. We cannot rule out the possibility that on the morning of February 20, 2009, after Jordan and his sister left school, an unidentified person entered Kenzi's room, shot her and killed her.
Logically, under the gaze of 7-year-old Janesha, Jordan went upstairs to take out a shotgun and came downstairs, shot at his mother, and then took the shotgun back upstairs and put it in its original position, erased the evidence formed by the shotgun design, and then left with Janesha in the school bus, which was very unlikely and sensational.
At the time, the driver of the school bus also said in court that "Jenisha and Jordan ran to catch the school bus that day, and he did not find any abnormal behavior from the two children."
If the case was really Jordan's doing, then why didn't he show any panic? Is his psychological quality different from ordinary people?
Jordan and Chris after their release from prison
Jordan was officially released on July 18, 2018, he took off the hat of the murderer, from the age of 11 to the age of 20 out of prison, his life has changed dramatically in ten years, in prison, he learned to play guitar, play basketball, his father sent him a lot of books, he constantly through meditation to put himself in another realm of body and spirit, through self-study away from the bad things around him.
With Jordan's efforts, he successfully obtained his high school diploma, and after his release from prison, Jordan was admitted to a university computer science major, saying, "I did not kill my mother, I was completely innocent, in the years in prison, I suffered from PTSD, but I am trying to reverse my life." ”
In this case, the local police made a major mistake because they did not detect the fingerprints on the doorknob of Kenzi's bedroom during the test, and at the same time, they did not do the fingerprint test on the Jordan gun, they only tested Jordan's clothes for gunpowder residues, and did not test his hands, which made the evidence obviously insufficient.
In addition, the suspect Adam also has a lot of suspicious places, because the divorce legal documents clearly record Kenzi's address and contact information, because the two have children in common, so Adam will receive the court custody documents, these documents will list Kenzi's latest address, so Adam must know Kenzi's address, and the credibility of the alibi provided by his father for him is still in doubt.
However, Kenzi's parents firmly believe that the murderer is Jordan, because "it can't be someone else, because others don't have the possibility of murder."
For Chris, whose life has been plunged into endless grief since February 20, 2009, he has not only lost his fiancée and unborn child (whom he named Christopher), but also lost his most precious decade of accompanying his son Jordan, who was interviewed by the media and said, "Can I get these times back?" Obviously not, what I need to do is to move on from today and do what comes next. ”
Dennis, Jordan's lawyer, said, "While the end result was fair to my client and some of it was late, I don't understand why the killer remained at large for so long."
This case has come to an end for the time being, the murderer is still at large, for the murderer in this case, who do you think will be?