Richardson family murders

Last updated

Richardson family murders
Location Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
DateApril 23, 2006;18 years ago (2006-04-23)
Attack type
 Triple-murder by stabbing, familicide, matricide, patricide, fratricide
Weapons Knife
Victims
  • Marc Richardson
  • Debra Richardson
  • Tyler Jacob Richardson
PerpetratorsJasmine Richardson and Jeremy Allan Steinke
Motive Revenge against Jasmine Richardson's family for disapproving of Steinke's predatory relationship with her
ConvictedKacy Lancaster (convicted of obstructing investigation)
VerdictRichardson and Steinke:
Guilty on all counts
Lancaster:
Pleaded guilty
ConvictionsRichardson and Steinke:
First-degree murder (3 counts)
Lancaster:
Obstruction [lower-alpha 1]
SentenceRichardson:
10 years in prison
Steinke:
Life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 25 years
Lancaster:
1 year of house arrest

Three members of the Richardson family were murdered in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada in April 2006. [1] The murders were planned and committed by the family's 12-year-old daughter Jasmine Richardson [2] [3] [4] and her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Steinke, now going by the name Jackson May. [5] Richardson and Steinke were each convicted on three counts of first-degree murder. Richardson, who had turned 13 before being convicted, is thought to be the youngest person in Canada ever convicted of multiple first-degree murder counts. [6] Her 10-year sentence was completed on May 6, 2016. [2]

Contents

Discovery

At 1:00 p.m. on April 23, 2006, the bodies of 42-year-old Marc Richardson and his 48-year-old wife Debra were found in the basement of their home, [7] and the body of their 8-year-old son Tyler Jacob [8] was discovered upstairs. [9] [10] [11] Marc had 24 stab wounds, Debra had 12 stab wounds, and Tyler had a slit throat and stab wounds to his head and torso. [12] Absent from the home at that time was the couple's 12-year-old daughter Jasmine. [9] [13] For a time, it was feared that she might have also been a victim, but she was arrested the following day in the community of Leader, Saskatchewan, about 130 kilometres (81 mi) away, with her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Allan Steinke. Both were charged with the three murders. [13] [14] Later, on May 3, 2006, Steinke's friend Kacy Lancaster, 19, was charged with being an accessory for driving them away in her pickup truck later in the day and for disposing of evidence. [15]

Motive

According to friends of Jasmine, Richardson's parents had grounded her for dating Steinke because of the age disparity. [16] Her friends had also criticized their relationship. [16] Shortly after her arrest, Steinke asked her to marry him, and Richardson agreed. [17] According to friends of Steinke, he told them he was a 300-year-old werewolf. [18] He allegedly told his friends that he liked the taste of blood, and wore a small vial of blood around his neck. [19] He also had a user account at the VampireFreaks.com website. [20] The girl had a page at the same site, leading to speculation they met there. [21] However, an acquaintance of Steinke later said the couple actually met at a punk rock show in early 2006. [22] The couple were also found to be communicating at Nexopia, a popular website for young Canadians. [23] Various messages they sent to each other were available to the public, before the accounts were permanently removed by Nexopia staff. [23]

Richardson's user page, under the name "runawaydevil", falsely said she was 15 and ended with the text "Welcome to my tragic end". [24] Just hours prior to committing the murders, Steinke and some friends reportedly watched the 1994 film Natural Born Killers , about a young couple who go on a violent killing spree. Steinke told his friends that he and his girlfriend should go about their plans in a similar manner, but without sparing her little brother. [25] Steinke also said to an undercover officer, "You ever watch the movie Natural Born Killers?... I think that's the best love story of all time...". [26]

Jasmine Richardson

Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, Richardson's name could no longer be published in Canada after she became a suspect. Under the same act, twelve is the youngest possible age at which a person can be charged with a crime; convicts who were under fourteen years of age at the time they committed a crime cannot be sentenced as adults, and cannot be given more than a ten-year sentence. [27] On July 9, 2007, Richardson, who had by then turned 13, was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. [28] She is believed to be the youngest person ever convicted of a multiple murder in Canada. [28]

On November 8, 2007, she was sentenced to the maximum allowed under law for someone her age, 10 years imprisonment. [29] Her sentence included credit for eighteen months already spent in custody, to be followed by four years in a psychiatric institution and four-and-a-half years under conditional supervision in the community.

In September 2011, Richardson began attending classes at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta during the final years of her sentence. [30] She was released from a ten-year sentence at a psychiatric hospital in the fall of 2011, and in October 2012, it was reported her rehabilitation was going well, and she expressed remorse for her actions that experts considered genuine. [31]

In May 2016, her sentence was completed and she was freed of any further court-ordered conditions, restrictions, or supervision after a final sentence review on May 6, 2016. [32]

Jeremy Steinke

Steinke admitted to the murder of the parents in conversation with an undercover police officer while in custody. He was tried in November 2008 and found guilty by a jury on three counts of first-degree murder for the killings of the three Richardson victims. [33] On December 15, 2008, Steinke was sentenced to three life sentences, one for each first-degree murder count. The sentences are to be served concurrently, and Steinke will be eligible for parole after serving twenty-five years. [34]

Kacy Lancaster

The accessory to murder charge against the couple's friend Kacy Lancaster was dropped, and she pleaded guilty to an obstruction charge in Medicine Hat provincial court. She received one year house arrest as part of the plea bargain and was ordered to refrain from drugs and alcohol.

In the media

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ An accessory-to-murder charge was dropped after a plea deal.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Reena Virk</span> 1997 murder of a teenager in Canada

Reena Virk was a 14-year-old Canadian girl who was beaten and killed by a group of teenagers in Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. Her status as a victim of bullying prior to her murder attracted substantial media scrutiny in Canada. Six teenagers were tried and convicted for their participation in her death. The Globe and Mail commented at the time that her case was "elevated into a national tragedy". A pair of Canadian sociologists have described the case as a watershed moment for a "moral panic" over girl violence by the Canadian public in the late 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matricide</span> Act of killing ones own mother

Matricide is the act of killing one's own mother.

Craig Martin Sorger was a 13-year-old American boy who was murdered by his then 12-year-old friends and classmates Evan Drake Savoie and Jake Lee Eakin in Ephrata, Washington. Sorger had been invited by Savoie and Eakin to play in a park near his home. There, Savoie dropped a rock on Sorger's neck, knocking him to the ground. He then repeatedly stabbed him in his chest and torso with a knife. Eakin joined in the attack, by beating Sorger's head and legs with a tree branch.

Robert Charles Browne is an American murderer who is currently serving two life sentences for the murders of two teenage girls in Colorado Springs, Colorado, committed in 1987 and 1991, respectively. A few years into his sentence, he sent letters to the El Paso County Sheriff's Office in which he claimed to be a serial killer who has killed approximately 48 or 49 people since 1970 across several states.

Johnathon Robert Madden was a 12-year-old Canadian boy whose gruesome murder at the hands of his 16-year-old brother Kevin Madden and his brother's friend Timothy Ferriman provoked widespread revulsion and outrage in Johnathon's home city of Toronto and across Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Sally Anne Bowman</span> English murder case

Sally Anne Bowman was an English hairdresser and model who was murdered in the early hours of 25 September 2005 in Croydon, London. 18 year-old Bowman had been robbed, raped and repeatedly stabbed. Mark Dixie, who had a history of robbery and sexual offences, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum of 34 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Blair (serial killer)</span> American serial killer (1961–2024)

Terry Anthony Blair was an American serial killer who was convicted of killing seven women of various ages in Kansas City, Missouri, although investigators believed that there were additional unidentified victims.

Since the 1994 film Natural Born Killers was released, several attacks suspected to be copycat crimes have been committed by fans of the film, mostly by high school students within the age range of 15 to 18. Though apparent links have been claimed between the film and most of the incidents described below, certain causality has not been proven.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of violence against LGBTQ people in the United States</span>

The history of violence against LGBTQ people in the United States is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals, legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United States of America. The people who are the targets of such violence are believed to violate heteronormative standards and they are also believed to contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBTQ may also be targeted for violence. Violence can also occur between couples who are of the same sex, with statistics showing that violence among female same-sex couples is more common than it is among couples of the opposite sex, but male same-sex violence is less common.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Gargiulo</span> American serial killer

Michael Thomas Gargiulo is a convicted American serial killer. He moved to Southern California in the 1990s and gained the nickname The Hollywood Ripper. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death on July 16, 2021. As of April 2023, he was incarcerated in the California Health Care Facility; in September 2024, he was extradited to Cook County, Illinois, to face trial for a 1993 murder.

Rick and Suzanna Wamsley were murdered on December 11, 2003 in their home in Mansfield, Texas, as part of a conspiracy involving their son Andrew and two others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Cassie Jo Stoddart</span> 2006 murder in Pocatello, US

The murder of Cassie Jo Stoddart was a thrill killing that occurred in Pocatello, Idaho, on September 22, 2006. Stoddart, a 16-year-old high school student, was stabbed and murdered by her classmates Brian Draper and Torey Adamcik, both 16, in her aunt and uncle's house. Stoddart's body was discovered two days later, when her relatives returned home from their trip.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in Canada.

Michael Wayne McGray is a Canadian serial killer convicted of killing seven individuals between 1985 and 1998. He claims to have killed eleven others during the same time period.

Nicola Edgington is a British double killer who also attempted to murder a third person. Having killed her own mother in 2005, she attacked two strangers in the street in Bexleyheath in 2011, killing one. She was convicted of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility, attempted murder and murder.

Melissa Ann Shepard, also known as Melissa Ann Weeks, Melissa Ann Friedrich, Melissa Ann Shephard and Melissa Ann Stewart, sometimes given the sobriquet of Internet Black Widow, is a Canadian murderer and habitual offender. Shepard has been convicted of manslaughter in the death of one of her husbands, convicted of poisoning another, and convicted of numerous fraud offenses.

Cody Alan Legebokoff is a Canadian serial killer convicted in 2014 by the British Columbia Supreme Court of murdering three women and one teenage girl, between 2009 and 2010, in or near the city of Prince George, British Columbia. He is one of Canada's youngest convicted serial killers, and his trial drew national attention. One of his victims, the 23-year-old Natasha Lynn Montgomery, has been included in the list of missing women and girls suspected as victims in the Highway of Tears murders.

The Bathtub Girls murder took place in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, on January 18, 2003. Two sisters, whose identities along with the victims are protected under Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) as they were minors at the time of the crime, conspired to murder their alcoholic, neglectful mother and make it appear as if she had accidentally drowned while taking a bath, in order to claim the insurance money. The death was not considered suspicious for almost a year.

Alexander Wayne Watson Jr. is an American serial killer. Initially convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1994 murder of a woman in Forestville, Maryland, Watson's DNA was later matched to three additional killings in Anne Arundel County committed years before. For these crimes, he pleaded guilty and received four additional life imprisonment terms.

References

  1. ↑ "Three bodies found Medicine Hat, Alta., home". The Globe and Mail . April 23, 2006.
  2. 1 2 Sutton, Candace (August 21, 2016). "The girl who massacred her own family walks free after 10 years". News.Com.Au. Retrieved November 13, 2017.
  3. ↑ Hunter, Grey (2014). Hegde, Nischal (ed.). The Best of American True Crime. Lulu Press, Inc. p. 30. ISBN   9781312377769.
  4. ↑ Chalmers, Phil (2009). Inside the Mind of a Teen Killer . Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Inc. p.  162. ISBN   9781595551528. OCLC   213845230.
  5. ↑ "Mass Medicine Hat killer Jeremy Steinke changes name, seeks appeal" Archived November 4, 2013, at the Wayback Machine , http://www.calgarysun.com/ , January 12, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Children who kill children: 6 high-profile cases". CBC News. September 3, 2013. Retrieved February 13, 2016. When a 13-year-old Alberta girl was found guilty in the 2006 murder of her eight-year-old brother and her parents, it was believed she was the youngest person in Canada to be convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder.
  7. ↑ Punch, Rachel. "Do youth sentences fit the crime? (comment on this story)". The Sudbury Star. Archived from the original on September 16, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2008.
  8. ↑ "Net holds dark hints on slayings" . Retrieved September 15, 2018.
  9. 1 2 Dohy, Leanne (April 24, 2006). "Triple murder shocks city". Calgary Herald . p. A.1. Archived from the original on April 25, 2014. Retrieved June 19, 2006.
  10. ↑ Sherri Zickefoose, Tony Seskus and Robert Remington, "Road to a massacre", National Post, April 29, 2006. Archived March 19, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  11. ↑ Zickefoose, Sherri, "Bodies of slain family flown to Ontario for funeral", National Post, May 1, 2006. Archived May 14, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  12. ↑ "The Richardson Family Murders: How A 12-Year-Old Helped Murder Her Family with Her 23-Year-Old Boyfriend". People.com. Retrieved November 2, 2024.
  13. 1 2 "12-year-old charged in Medicine Hat", CBC.ca, April 24, 2006
  14. ↑ "More charges possible in triple murders". Archived from the original on May 22, 2006.
  15. ↑ Third person charged, Edmonton Journal, May 4, 2006
  16. 1 2 Breakenridge, Dave, "Pre-teen's tryst 'gross' Friends of 12-year-old accused killer disapproved of boyfriend, 23" [usurped] , Calgary Sun, April 28, 2006.
  17. ↑ Girl on trial for murder agreed to marry lover, Toronto Star, June 30, 2007.
  18. ↑ "Mother Of Accused Family Killer Speaks Out Against Vilification Of Son", CityTV Calgary, April 26, 2006. Archived February 9, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  19. ↑ "Chilling stories emerge; Mother of accused in triple slaying denies her son was a werewolf", Daily Herald-Tribune, April 28, 2006.
  20. ↑ Algar, Selim, ‘VAMPIRE’ BLOG AN EERIE SITE, New York Post, April 29, 2006.
  21. ↑ Reynolds, Richard, "Accused killer, 12, linked to goth site", The Sydney Morning Herald, April 28, 2006.
  22. ↑ "Medicine Hat Murder Suspects Appear in Court", 630 CHED AM, April 26, 2006.
  23. 1 2 Walton, Dawn, "Net holds dark hints on slayings", The Globe and Mail, April 26, 2006.
  24. ↑ Johnsrude, Larry, "Goths say Medicine Hat killings give them bad name" Archived March 11, 2007, at the Wayback Machine , Edmonton Journal, April 26, 2006.
  25. ↑ Steinke, girlfriend smiled at murder coverage: Witness
  26. ↑ The Calgary Herald (November 19, 2008). "Steinke: "You ever watch the movie Natural Born killers?"". CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc. Archived from the original on November 8, 2012. Retrieved June 2, 2010.
  27. ↑ "If convicted, girl would be free in 10 years". Archived from the original on August 13, 2014.
  28. 1 2 "Medicine Hat girl guilty of first-degree murder". cbc.ca. CBC News. July 9, 2007. Archived from the original on December 22, 2007. Retrieved February 13, 2016.
  29. ↑ "Teen gets maximum sentence for Medicine Hat killings". cbc.ca. CBC News. November 8, 2007. Retrieved November 8, 2007.
  30. ↑ Child Murderer Facing November Release
  31. ↑ "Medicine Hat teen killer sentence reviewed". CBC News. October 1, 2012.
  32. ↑ Labby, Bryan (May 6, 2016). "J.R., who stabbed family to death with boyfriend at age 12, is free after 10-year sentence". CBC News. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
  33. ↑ "Steinke allegedly admitted to murder". CTVCalgary.ca. November 18, 2008.
  34. ↑ "Steinke gets life in triple-murder". Calgary Herald . December 16, 2008. Archived from the original on April 25, 2014. Retrieved July 24, 2009.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.