Richardson Family Murder Case

For this project I wanted to do a Canadian case that for a lot of people speaks close to home including me because it happened in Alberta. I choose the Richardson family murder case because this murder occurred in Medicine Hat Alberta and they used the Youth Criminal Justice Act for sentencing 12 year old J.R. In 2006 Medicine Hat Alberta, the parents of J.R and 8 year old brother are found stabbed to death in their house.
When Investigators begin to look around the house for clues they notice that their is a 12 year old girl in a family photo and her body is nowhere to be found. They believed that the girl was kidnapped by the killer and began the search to look for the young teen. Investigators of the case began to search places that would be relevant to the young girl like her school and searched her locker and found a stick drawing of the girls house on fire with her family in it and her running to her boyfriends truck. She then became the main suspect in this case and investigators began to look for her and her boyfriend.
Why did this happen and what happened to make these awful events occur you may ask? Teachers described J.R as a good Catholic school girl before she started to be interested into the more darker things and became a goth. While her other goth friends would follow the Catholic schools dress codes J.R would constantly be breaking the dress codes and rebelling against her school. During this time she fell for a unemployed high school dropout named Jeremy Steinke who was 23.

According to his friends he said he believed he was a 300 year old werewolf and carried a vile of blood around his neck. One of the most disturbing things about their relationship was that it was a sexually active relationship which is was illegal because the age of consent in alberta at the time for her age was that she could be sexually active but only if her partner was two years older.
Many people were afraid of J.R including her other goth friends, this made her feel powerful and she liked the idea of scaring people. Her world revolved around her boyfriend and their relationship was kept secret for a while but eventually her family found out and her parents were furious. Once their relationship was revealed to her parents she was banned to see him and this was their mistake and would ultimately lead to there deaths.
This is when J.R and her boyfriend started to plan the murders of her family. Jeremy snuck into the basement of the Richardson family home and waited to attack. In the middle of the night J.R’s mother hears something in the basement and goes downstair to see what it is and this is when Jeremy attacks her stabbing her multiple times. After hearing screaming from the basement J.R’s father runs downstairs to the basement and this is when he also is attacked by Jeremy.
Meanwhile upstair J.R holds her scared little brother when her boyfriend comes upstairs from murdering her parents and murders her little brother so he won’t have to live without parents. Freedom for these two killers after the crime was very short and they were caught no less the 24 hours after the horrific murders. Since Jeremy Steinke is a adult he was tried as an adult and was sentenced to life in prison meanwhile since J.R was a minor she was put under the Y.C.J.A and was given the longest juvenile sentence which was 10 year.
Many people were angry about her sentencing and felt that she deserved to serve a longer sentence but since she was a minor thats the longest she could stay in prison and she is currently out of prison under a different name and in therapy for her past actions. The now 24 year old is out of prison living a normal life and is currently attending Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta.
I feel the legal decision in this case was done very well and I agree with the outcome of this case. I do believe that Jeremy Steinke’s sentencing was fair because he was the adult in this case meanwhile since J.R was 12 at the time and was affected by her boyfriend I believe it was good that she got a second chance.
In conclusion this crime was horrific and I feel very sorry for the family and friends of the victims involved. This case is a good example of mensa rea because they had the intention to kill and commit this wrongful act. I think this case is a good example of both adult sentencing and young offender sentencing just because we get to see both being used in one case.
Resources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN0qXAEkBoQ&t=599s
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/jasmine-richardson-walks-free-a-de cade-after-as-a-12yearold-she-and-werewolf-boyfriend-massacred-her-family/news-stor  /f826a2b4efb359bd02b53c4066234bae