The Richardson family murders

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The Richardson family lived in Medicine Hat which is a city in Alberta, Canada that’s situated along the South Saskatchewan River with a population of 63,271 in 2021. The location is known as the sunniest place in Canada, averaging 2,544 hours of sunshine a year vs. 2,066 hours of sunshine annually in Toronto. The family consisted of husband & wife, Marc & Debra Richardson & their two children, 12-year-old daughter Jasmine & 8-year-old son Jacob.

12-year-old Jasmine was always known as a happy, social girl, but her personality took a drastic turn when she began dating her boyfriend. Jasmine met Jeremy Steinke in January 2006 at a punk rock show; she was 12 & he was 23-years-old. They exchanged online usernames & agreed to stay in touch, starting a secret relationship where they mostly communicated online. She was immediately taken with the goth style that Jeremy was part of & her style & interest soon morphed into the things that he was interested in. Jasmine became a member on VampireFreaks.com & began wearing dark makeup to make herself look far older than her actual age. Vampirefreaks.com is currently an online clothing store that was previously a social media site for goths. It was launched as a social networking site in 1999, an online clothing store was added in 2001 & the social media aspect was removed in February 2020.

Marc & Debra adored their daughter, but when they discovered her secret relationship, they forbade her from seeing or communicating with Jeremy. However, being a very young, naive girl, Jasmine believed that her first love was her one & only.

The startling, disturbing 11-year age gap wasn’t the only issue that her parents had when it came to Jeremy, but also the fact that he believed that he was a 300-year-old werewolf. He took this belief so far that he claimed that he enjoyed the taste of blood & wore a vial of blood around his neck. Marc & Debra soon sought out family therapy which helped until Jasmine began sneaking out to see Jeremy. She became increasingly angry that her parents were trying to end her relationship.

Unlike Jasmine who had a stable & loving household, Jeremy had a very tumultuous upbringing. His mother struggled with an alcohol addiction & her partner was abusive to Jeremy. Though not confirmed, it is suspected that Jeremy was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. He dealt with ADHD & during his time in school, he was frequently bullied, being called “Jeremy Stinky.” By the time he met Jasmine he had already attempted suicide. He began adopting his vampire persona as far back as age 13. It was clear to Marc & Debra that this man, who was a pedophile, was clearly not going to be a good influence on their impressionable, young daughter. Jeremy was an unemployed high school dropout who was suffering from mental health issues while living with his mother.

The two interacted on social media & on Jasmine’s Myspace page, she described herself as an “awkward, nocturnal Wiccan” who idolized Jeffrey Dahmer. Marc & Debra removed Jasmine’s computer from her room & forbade her from interacting with Jeremy in any way.

Being on the cusp of her teenage years, Jasmine was not about to listen to what her parents had to say & began to rebel, refusing to be grounded & considered running away from home. It was Jasmine’s belief that she & Jeremy were in love, so they began discussing how they should handle the situation. It was Jasmine’s goal to get the obstacle of her parents out of her way so she could live with Jeremy.

On April 3, 2006, Jeremy took to his blogging platform & wrote:

Payment! Lover’s rents are totally unfair; they say that they really care; they don’t know what is going on the just assume.. Their throats I want to slit… Finally there shall be silence. Their blood shall be payment!

Not only did 42-year-old Marc & 48-year-old Debra disapprove of the relationship, but Jasmine’s friends were also critical. Jasmine & Jeremy often communicated through Nexopia which is a popular website for young Canadians. Jasmine’s user page carried the name “runawaydevil” & falsely claimed that she was 15-years-old. Her page ended with the message, “Welcome to my tragic end.” In an email to Jeremy, Jasmine wrote, “It begins with me killing them & ends with me living with you.” Jeremy was very much receptive & responded, “Well I love your plan but we need to get a little more creative with like ideas & stuff.” Jeremy had the username “souleater” on Nexopia & his profile indicated that he “believed in blood, destruction, guts, gore & greed.”

The pair discussed various ways that they could kill the Richardson family which included making it appear as a murder-suicide or hitting them on the head while they slept & then burning the house down. Jasmine wrote that the plan included killing her 8-year-old brother because “he is too sensitive to be an orphan.”

Jasmine also mentioned her plans to kill her parents to friends when she explained that she was grounded, but they just assumed that she was joking or just venting.

On Saturday, April 22, 2006 Jeremy watched Natural Born Killers with his friends & told them that he & his girlfriend should go about their plans in a similar way. This is a 1994 American romantic crime action movie which tells the story of two victims of traumatic childhoods who become lovers & mass murderers & are glorified by the mass media.

The following day, Sunday, April 23, 2006, a 6-year-old neighbor of the Richardsons went to their house to play with 8-year-old Jacob. When he knocked on the door, there was no answer so he eventually peered through a window & believed he saw a body. He immediately ran home to tell his mother what he saw who then called the police.

The police arrived at the Richardson home at 1 pm & they looked through the same basement window the neighbor boy reported seeing a body & saw at least one person laying on the ground. Officer Brent Secondiak immediately called for backup in hopes that maybe someone inside the home could be saved. Once inside, they were met with a grisly crime scene. Officer Secondiak was rattled to the core by what he saw. Marc & Debra’s bodies were located in the basement & their throats had been viciously slit open. What he found in Jacob’s room is something that he will never forget. At first glance, the young boy, who was found in his bed, looked as if he could be peacefully asleep. However, as investigators looked more closely, there was a jagged wound across his throat. Dried blood was splashed into the sheets around his little head.

Police initially feared that Jasmine was also a victim in this horrific murder as she was nowhere to be found & assumed she had been kidnapped by a murderous psychopath. At that point, it was never in their realm of possibilities that the 12-year-old girl had anything to do with her three family members’ brutal murders.

Police were able to piece together that Debra had been murdered first after being stabbed at least twelve times. Marc tried to fight the attacker off with a screwdriver, but was also stabbed to death.

Because it was the police’s belief that Jasmine was also a victim, they released a statement indicating that they were searching for Jasmine “regarding a serious family matter.” An Amber Alert was also issued.

However, after obtaining evidence from Jasmine’s bedroom & locker, Jasmine quickly went from potential victim to prime suspect. In her locker, they found a hand-drawn comic strip of two figures burning her family alive.

The very next day Jasmine & Jeremy were located about 100 miles away on the other side of Saskatchewan in the town of Leader. When questioned, it was clear that the pair were the killers & Jasmine showed absolutely no remorse. They were both taken into custody & charged with three-counts of first-degree murder. Shortly after their arrests, Jeremy asked Jasmine to marry him & she said “yes.”

Jeremy immediately confessed to the murders & said that he murdered Marc & Debra in the basement while Jasmine murdered her 8-year-old brother in his room. After Jeremy stabbed Marc & Debra to death in the basement, he went two floors up where Jasmine proceeded to stab her little brother in the chest while he pleaded for his life. Jeremy said that while Jasmine slashed her brother’s throat, he stood in the doorway.

When asked how or why she could have possibly killed her brother, Jasmine indicated that it would have been cruel to let him live without his parents.

As the news of what happened began to spread, the residents of Medicine Hat were stunned; this was a small town & many people knew the Richardson family through school or work. It was important to those that knew & loved the family that justice be served in order to find closure.

Because Jasmine was only 12 at the time of the murders, when the trial began in 2007, she could only be referred to as JR in the media. She pleaded not guilty & indicated that she had only had “hypothetical” conversations about killing her family & never intended on going through with it. According to Jasmine, Jeremy broke into their home & killed her parents. She said that while Jeremy was attacking her parents, she was trying to comfort her brother who was in his room & was terrified from hearing his parent’s screams. When Jasmine looked down the stairs, she said she saw her mom laying on her back with blood on her chest. Jasmine grabbed a knife that she had hidden in her closet to protect herself. She said when Jeremy was done murdering her parents, he came upstairs & ordered her to kill her brother.

Jacob was pleading with his own sister for his life, saying, “I’m scared. I’m too young to die.” Jasmine said she stabbed him one time in what she described as a half-hearted attempt. She said at that point, Jeremy took the knife from her & cut Jacob’s throat while she turned away. She said she could hear Jacob making a gurgling noise.

She was asked repeatedly that if this was truly the case, why hadn’t she done something to stop the attacks or call for help. She indicated that she was in a “zombie-like” state & it hadn’t even entered her mind to call 911 or run to her neighbors for help. She said she was in such a state of shock that she felt as if she was sleepwalking. Instead of telling her brother to run out the back door to safety, she placed him in a choke hold.

It was emphasized that Jasmine had plenty of opportunities to ask for help; after the attack, she stole her mother’s purse, called for a taxi, withdrew money from an ATM at a nearby convenience store & went to Jeremy’s trailer. She never asked the taxi driver or those at the convenience store for help.

During the trial she was asked why they murdered her family & Jasmine responded, “I loved him so much. I thought it would bring us closer together.” She said that they started dating shortly after Jeremy gave her a Valentine’s Day poem & said that she loved that he was sweet, attentive & told her that he loved her all the time. They talked on the phone daily for hours at a time & the first time they had sex was one week before the murders after Jasmine snuck out of her house.

After Jacob died, Jasmine said that Jeremy left the house, leaving her alone in her home with her three deceased family members. She said that she began to panic & the moment felt very morbid & surreal. Jasmine took her mom’s bank card from her purse, then walked to a nearby ATM to withdraw cash & called a taxi which brought her to Jeremy’s mother’s trailer. She & Jeremy then went to a mutual friend’s house to party & have sex.

Jasmine’s lawyer attempted to downplay her involvement & portrayed her as an innocent victim rather than a cold-blooded killer. On July 10, 2007, after three hours of deliberation, Jasmine was found guilty by a jury for three counts of first-degree murder & given a maximum sentence for a youth. Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, twelve is the youngest possible age that a person can be charged with a crime. Those under age fourteen cannot be sentenced as adults or receive a sentence that exceeds ten years.

By the time Jasmine was sentenced on November 8, 2007, she had turned 13 & is believed to be the youngest person ever convicted of a multiple murder in Canada. As the judge addressed her during her sentencing hearing, she stood sobbing. Of her ten year sentence, she was given credit for the eighteen months she’d already served & four years would be spent in a psychiatric facility, followed by 4 ½ years under community supervision. Judge Brooker addressed Jasmine, “You can never undo what you did to your mom, dad & brother. However, what you can do is honor their memory by dedicating your life to becoming the woman your parents & brother would be proud of.”

During her community supervision, she was first in a group home & then went on to living on her own & studying in Calgary. She received what is known as an Intensive Rehabilitative Custody & Supervision order or IRCS. This is for serious, violent offenders who may have a mental or psychological disorder or emotional disturbance.

Psychiatric assessments indicated that Jasmine was diagnosed with conduct disorder & oppositional defiant disorder. Conduct disorder is a mental health condition that affects children & teens & those with the condition frequently display severe antisocial & aggressive behaviors. Signs may include bullying others, abusing small animals, lying, stealing, skipping school, drinking alcohol & using drugs before their teenage years. Oftentimes, they feel very little guilt about their actions & have little empathy for others. It’s estimated that up to 3% of teens & children in the United States have conduct disorder. Oppositional defiant disorder is characterized by uncooperation, defiance & hostility toward authority figures & can include being spiteful & seeking revenge.

Jeremy admitted to murdering Jasmine’s parents in a recorded conversation with an undercover officer who was posing as a prisoner as they were driven in a van from Medicine Hat to Calgary which is a three hour drive. Their conversation was recorded by a hidden microphone & during this conversation Jeremy said that Jasmine killed her brother despite the fact that he tried to talk her out of it. He said that she wasn’t having it & he was a man of his word. He revealed that as Marc was dying, his last words were, “Why?” Jeremy told him, “Because your daughter wanted it that way.” However, once on the stand he denied exchanging any words with Marc during their battle. He also said that it didn’t bother Jasmine in the least to kill her brother; even the next day, she just laughed when talking about it.

Jeremy was tried in November 2008 & found guilty by a jury for three counts of first-degree murder. Because Jeremy was older, he was sentenced on December 15, 2008 to three life sentences which will run concurrently, one for each count of first-degree murder. He will be eligible for parole after 25 years which would be in 2033 when he is 50-years-old.

Moments before his sentencing, Debra’s brother Peter Doolan, stood & faced Jeremy & read his victim impact statement, “I will never understand why she was taken, I will never understand the workings of sick & twisted minds.. But I do understand about forgiveness. She taught me that. So it is for her sake & through the deep love for my sister, who is watching over us right now, that I extend forgiveness.”

Additional family members of Marc & Debra were present & described the anguish they experienced over the loss of “three wonderful people”. Marc’s older sister spoke to Jeremy & said, “You’re nothing but a punk with evil tendencies. You partially did this for love & you both turned on each other. I hope this teaches other people who glorified you for this that it didn’t work out & it never does.” The family spoke of their fears when the time comes when Jeremy is up for parole & free to walk the streets. They reflect on the fact that three innocent people lost their lives in a violent, brutal way without the slightest provocation. A sample of Jeremy’s DNA was provided to the national database & the judge issued a lifetime ban from owning weapons. However, the three members of the Richardson family were taken from this world by the use of a knife which is obviously something Jeremy will have at his disposal when he is eventually released.

During the trial, the details of what happened during the horrific murders were revealed. Jasmine called Jeremy in the middle of the night, asking him to help her sneak out so they could be together. Jeremy arrived at the darkened house hours later; he was not only drunk but also high on cocaine & dressed all in black, wearing a ski mask, carrying a knife in his pocket. He entered the house through a back window.

Debra heard something because she came downstairs to the basement & was startled by the sight of this masked intruder & began to scream. Jeremy stabbed her 12 times, hitting both her aorta & lungs. Blood spatter was found in the stairwell that led to the basement as well as the floors, walls & ceiling. Debra died at the bottom of the stairs.

Marc heard the commotion & came at Jeremy with a screwdriver & managed to choke him & jam a finger in his eye. During the struggle, Marc was stabbed 24 times & had countless slashes over his body. The bannister leading down the stairs was broken & their struggle carried from one end of the basement to the other. The screwdriver Marc used as a weapon was found near his body. Black-handled kitchen knives were used as the murder weapons; police found a knife discarded near Marc’s body in the bloodied basement that had been bent fully out of shape. The knife was buckled in the middle & curved at the tip like a hook. After Debra & Marc were killed, Jeremy headed upstairs leaving a trail of bloodied handprints on the walls.

As Jeremy made his way up to the second floor, Jacob stood, terrified near his bedroom, as he was faced with this masked intruder as well as the sight of his own sister holding a kitchen knife. He was then strangled, stabbed & his throat was slashed by Jasmine; his jugular vein had been severed. Jacob’s room was found covered in blood & his little body was curled on his side in bed. He had been stabbed 4 times in the chest & this throat had been slashed. Forensic evidence revealed that he had also been choked. Jurors were faced with horrific crime scene photos as well as blood-spatter evidence; the walls of the family home were dripping with blood.

Jeremy indicated that he never touched Jacob & it was Jasmine who was fully responsible for his death. The court heard that Marc’s blood was found on Jeremy’s clothing & Jacob’s blood was on one of his shoelaces.

Friends testified that the couple then attended a house party where they were giggling & kissing. Jeremy showed off the injury to his eye & admitted to murdering his girlfriend’s parents while his girlfriend murdered her own brother. One friend said that Jeremy described what he did by saying he “gutted them like a fish.” Two friends testified to wiping blood from the seats of Jeremy’s truck for him where they then parked it out of sight. Jeremy told his friends that he & Jasmine planned to have a gothic wedding & move to Germany so they could live in a castle. Jeremy & Jasmine were arrested the next day after police found them sleeping inside Jeremy’s pickup truck 100 miles away.

The judge urged Jeremy, who was 25-years-old at the time of his sentencing, to take advantage of therapy during his time in prison, “Maybe sometime in the future you can begin to repay all the damage you’ve caused.” The judge asked him if there was anything he wanted to say before he was sentenced, Jeremy bowed his head & said, “no.” His lawyer did speak, “He told me before I came into court & these are his words, ‘If I could take it all back, I would.’” Jeremy’s family sat & wept during this time.

During their time in prison, Jasmine & Jeremy exchanged letters which discussed their promise to marry & in these letters, there was no expression of remorse for what they had done. Jeremy has since changed his name to Jackson May.

After justice was served community members & loved ones of the family felt a sense of relief, but a painful scar will always remain on those that knew & loved Marc, Debora & Jacob.

In September of 2011, Jasmine began attending classes at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta in the final years of her sentence. She was released from her psychiatric facility in the fall of 2011 & in October 2011, it was reported that she was remorseful for her actions & that her rehabilitation was going well & she was considered a “poster child” for rehabilitation.

In May 2016, her sentencing was complete & she was fully freed after a final sentence review on May 6, 2016 at the age of 22. Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Scott Brooker had presided over Jasmine’s case from the beginning & indicated that her final review concluded that she was a low risk to reoffend & said, “I think your parents & brother would be proud of you. Clearly you cannot undo the past; you can only live each day with the knowledge you can control how you behave & what you do each day.”

Officer Brent Secondiak, who was the first to arrive at the crime scene on April 23, 2006, voiced worry that Jasmine wasn’t actually rehabilitated & hoped that she hadn’t just tricked the justice system. He indicated that it took him years to get over the image of Jacob murdered in his bed.

Mark Totten, who is a criminal justice professor & co-author of When Children Kill, recognizes that Jasmine was diagnosed with two serious disorders, but feels that after spending time in a psychiatric institution & in community supervision, it is absolutely possible that she can change & go on to live a crime-free, productive life. Because she was so young at the time of the murders, gives her a greater chance of recovery. However, there is no way to say for sure & only time will tell if this is the case.

It’s been speculated that Jasmine, who is currently about 30-years-old, is living in an undisclosed part of Canada, presumably under a different name.

A book about this case was released in 2010 titled, Runaway Devil: How Forbidden Love Drove a 12-Year-Old to Murder Her Family.

References:

Crime and Coffee Couple

The Richardson family murders

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The Richardson family murders

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