Richardson Family Murders

Richardson Family Murders

Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, April 2006—Three members of the Richardson Family were found murdered in their home.  The murders were planned and committed by the family’s 12-year-old daughter, Jasmine and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke—also known as Jackson May.  Each convicted of three counts of first-degree murder, Jasmine is probably the youngest person in Canada to be convicted of multiple first-degree murder, her 10-year sentence finished on May 6, 2016.

Discovery and Arrest

On April 23, 2006 around 1:00 PM, the bodies of Marc Richardson, 42, and his wife, Debra, 48, were found in the basement of the family home.  Their son, Tyler Jacob, 8, was discovered upstairs.  The couple’s 12-year-old daughter, Jasmine, wasn’t home at the time of the murders, and police at first assumed she too might be a victim.  But Jasmine, along with her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Allan Steinke, were arrested and charged in Leader, Saskatchewan, about 81 miles from the murders, with her family’s murders.  On May 3, 2006, Steinke’s friend, Kacy Lancaster, 19, was charged with accessory for driving they away in her pick up and disposing of evidence.

Motive

Jasmine’s parents, along with her friends, disapproved of Jasmine and Jeremy’s relationship due to their ages.  After being arrested, Jasmine agreed to marry Jeremy.  Jeremy believed he was a 300-year-old werewolf who liked the taste of blood and even wore a vial of blood around his neck.  Jeremy even had an account on VampireFreaks.com, as well as Jasmine, supposedly where the two met.  But an acquaintance of Jeremy’s said the couple actually met at a punk rock concert in early2006.  The couple also chatted on a popular Canadian website called Nexopia, and several of their messages were public view before Nexopia  staff removed the accounts.

Jasmine’s account, “runawaydevil,” said she was 15 and revealed the text, “Welcome to my tragic end.”  Several hours prior to committing the triple murder of Jasmine’s family, Steinke and some friends had watched the 1994 film, Natural Born Killers, about a young couple on a violent killing spree.  Steinke got the idea of killing Jasmine’s family from the movie, without sparing Jasmine’s younger brother.  Jeremy even asked the undercover officer if he watched the movie Natural Born Killers…and that he thought it was the best love story of all time.

Legal Outcome

Due to Jasmine’s age, her name could not be published under the Youth Criminal Justice Act in Canada after she became a suspect.  The same act said twelve was the youngest possible age that a person could be charged with a crime.  Convicts younger than fourteen years of age having committing a crime could not be charged as adults and not be given  more than a ten-year sentence.  July 9, 2007, Jasmine, who had turned 13, was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder in the triple murder of her father, mother and brother.  She is possibly the youngest person to be convicted of multiple murder in Canada. 

On November 8, 2007, Jasmine was sentenced to the maximum of ten years imprisonment.  Her sentence included eighteen months served in custody, four years in a psychiatric institution, and four-and-a-half in conditional supervision in the community.  September 2011, Jasmine began attending classes at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta during the final years of her sentence. Released from the ten-year sentence in the fall of 2011 at the psychiatric hospital, Jasmine was doing well in rehabilitation by October 2012 and even seemed to express remorse for her actions in the murders.  

On May 2016, after completing her ten-year sentence, she was freed of any court-ordered conditions, restrictions, or supervision after reviewing her sentence on May 6, 2016.

Jeremy Steinke, admitting to murdering Jasmine’s parents to an undercover police office while in custody, was tried in November 2008 and found guilty by a jury on three counts of first-degree murder for Richardson victims.  On December 15, 2008, Steinke was sentenced to three life sentences for each first-degree murder count, to be served concurrently.  Steinke is eligible for parole after 25 years.

Kacy Lancaster, the couple’s friend, was charged as an accessory to murder was dropped after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice in Medicine Hat provincial court.  Lancaster was under house arrest for one year, and ordered to refrain from drugs and alcohol.