WAMPUM, Pa. - An 11-year-old boy has been charged in the death of a pregnant woman who was found shot in a bedroom of her western Pennsylvania farmhouse Friday, police said Saturday.
A statement from state police said the boy was charged with criminal homicide and criminal homicide of an unborn child in the killing of 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk. The victim was eight months pregnant.
The statement said the boy had been arraigned in District Court and placed in the Lawrence County jail.
Officers couldn't immediately say Saturday whether the boy and the woman were related and wouldn't give any other details.
Police said Houk's five-year-old daughter found her mother's body Friday morning in a bedroom of their home in a wooded area in the community of Wampum.
The home, located at the end of a long driveway along a road scattered with abandoned and burned-out trailers, was cordoned off with yellow police tape and a Pennsylvania State Police vehicle was parked out front early Saturday afternoon. Next to the house was farm equipment and a barn filled with hay.
A neighbour, Cameron Tucker, said Houk was engaged and had been renting the house for no more than a year. Tucker said he had never met Houk's fiance, but that both of them had children.
"She was very protective of her kids," he said, adding that she seemed very excited about her pregnancy.
Tucker's wife sometimes drove Houk's daughter to the bus stop because she went to preschool with the Tuckers' five-year-old.
A preliminary hearing is set for Thursday.
The rural community is 55 kilometres northwest of Pittsburgh.
