This week for True Crime 101, Alanna (#weirdbizarrecrimestories) takes us to Canada to tell us the story of a family annihilation, a twelve year old girl and a werewolf. This the Richardson family murders.
Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada – April 2006. When a young boy peeks into the window of his neighbours home and sees someone laying the floor, he runs for his mother. His mother calls the police and they find a grisly scene inside. Marc and Deborah Richardson, together with their eight year old son, Tyler Richardson, have been brutally stabbed to death. Panic immediately sets in as the family also have a twelve year old daughter, Jasmine, and she is no where to be found.
Police are concerned that Jasmine has been abducted, but their fears are dismissed by the next day when they locate her 130km away in Saskatchewan, Canada. With her boyfriend, Jeremey Steinke. Her 23 year old boyfriend. Initially the Police believe that Steinke had murdered the family to kidnap Jasmine but they are unsure, it has been only 24 hours since the murders occur so they charge both Jasmine and Steinke. Later they charge Jeremy’s friend, Kacy (who was 19) as an accessory for driving them away from the murder scene in her truck and disposing of evidence.
With the motive unclear, they go onto the pairs computers. They find messages between them and amongst the messages, two were specifically telling. The first is from Jasmine to Steinke saying “I have this plan. It begins with me killing them and ends with me living with you“. The second message was posted on Windows Live Spaces from Jeremy and it read: “Payment! My Lover’s rents are totally unfair; they say that they really care; they don’t know what is going on; they just assume; their greed continues to consume; she is going slowly insane. She continues to think that I came into her life to help her out and stop what they keep trying to shout; it is all total bullshit; their throats I want to slit; they will regret the shit they have done; especially when I see to it that they are gone; they shall pay for their insolence; finally there shall be silence; their blood shall be payment.” (Typos corrected!).
They find evidence of the parents, completely unsurprisingly, barring Jasmine from seeing Steinke. Their friends are also against the relationship. Steinke asks Jasmine to marry her shortly after their arrest. And she agrees because she is a twelve year old girl.
You might be thinking “oh Steinke is a peadophile?” right? But Steinke believes that he is, in fact, a 300 year old werewolf. He told his friends that he liked the taste of blood and wore a vial of it around his neck. He also visited and had an account on vampirefreaks.com.
12 years old is the youngest possible age a person can be charged with a crime in Canada. Further, those under 14 years of age at the time the crime occurred cannot be sentenced as adults. The maximum term that could be levied against Jasmine is a ten year sentence.
In July 2007, Jasmine was found guilty of three counts of murder for her parents and younger brother. She is thought to be the youngest person ever convicted for a multiple murder in Canada.
Later that year she is sentenced to to the maximum penalty of ten years. She also received some credit for the eighteen months she had already spent in custody. She spent some of her remaining sentence in a psychiatric facility and then latterly integration back into the community. She underwent substantive rehabilitation and treatment. She was diagnosed with a conduct order and oppositional defiant disorder. After attending classes at her local university, she was released in the fall of 2011. In 2012, it was reported that her rehabilitation was progressing well and she expressed remorse for her actions which experts considered genuine.
In May 2016, at 22 years old, Jasmine’s sentence was complete and she was freed of any court ordered restrictions and supervisions after a final sentence review.
Steinke was tried and found guilty in 2008 to three counts of first degree murder and charged with three life sentences. He will be eligible for parole after 25 years.
Kacy Lancaster, who assisted the pair’s escape, plead guilty to a lesser charge and received house arrest.
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Sources
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_family_murders
Allthatsinteresting.com – https://allthatsinteresting.com/jasmine-richardson
