On April 23, 2006, 12-year-old Jasmine Richardson and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Alan Steinke, committed a crime that most could scarcely imagine. They stabbed Jasmine’s mother, father and 8-year-old brother to death. Crimes like this had happened before. One or the other’s parents forbid the lovers to date and the lovers decide to take revenge on those who oppress them. What made this crime so shocking – apart from the crime itself – was Jasmine’s age at the time of the murders. She became the youngest person ever convicted of a multiple murder in Canada.
Jasmine Richardson and Jeremy Steinke met at a concert. Jeremy was an odd sort, who obviously had some very immature and deranged ways of looking at life. Jasmine was an impressionable preteen who was rebellious and could look older than her twelve years. Both maintained a presence online that would later help police piece the details of their demented relationship together. In one of Jasmine’s social profiles, she called herself bisexual and said she was into “kinky sh*t.” Jeremy’s profiles were not too alarming, but he did talk a little about being into gore and the Goth lifestyle. Friends later said that Jeremy Steinke claimed to be a 300-year-old werewolf. That is certainly odd, but none of this is incriminating, until a few weeks before the murders. At that time, Jeremy posted a rather dreadful and poorly written poem about how Jasmine’s parents were unfair and that they would pay for it with their blood.
Testimony later revealed that Jasmine fought with her parents in the weeks leading up to the murders. The Richardsons grounded their daughter and forbade her to see Jeremy Steinke. Most of us can see the logic in not allowing a 12-year-old to date a man nearly twice her age, but Jeremy and Jasmine did not. Both of them spoke to friends about killing Marc and Debra Richardson before and after the murders took place. No one took them seriously.
On April 23, 2006, a neighbor’s small child noticed that there was a body lying on the floor of the Richardson’s house. The neighbor called the police, who arrived at the home in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada shortly after. They found Marc Richardson on the first floor. He had 24 knife wounds. They found his wife Debra nearby. She had 12 knife wounds. Upstairs on one of the beds was 8-year-old Jacob Richardson. He had four knife wounds in the chest and face. Someone had slit his throat as well.
Police noticed that Jasmine was not in the Richardson house. The immediate assumption was that the murderer kidnapped her. It did not take long for police to discover this was not the case. Police arrested Jasmine Richardson and Jeremy Steinke on April 24. They were soon charged with murder. Despite the gruesome charges against them, they corresponded through letters from their jail cells. In their letters, they did not speak of the murders, but of the injustice of being separated from one another. In their typical selfish style, they continued to celebrate their love for each other (such as it was) and Jeremy even proposed to Jasmine.
Jasmine Richardson pled not guilty in 2007. In court, she stated that Jeremy murdered her parents and then told her to stab her brother, which she did. She went on to say that Jeremy slit Jacob’s throat. A jury found her guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. To the horror of many people, the maximum sentence for this murderous child is ten years. She will spend four of them in a psychiatric hospital. Jeremy Steinke was tried in 2008. He admitted to stabbing Debra and Marc Richardson, but insisted the Jasmine killed her brother. He was also found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. He got life in prison.
Sources
Jasmine Richardson, retrieved 12/7/10, investigation.discovery.com/investigation/internet-cases/richardson/jasmine-richardson.html
Jeremy Steinke: Found Guilty of Murdering Preteen Lover’s Family, retrieved 12/7/10, blogs.discovery.com/criminal_report/2008/12/jeremy-steinke.html
