Jasmine Richardson
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Jasmine Richardson (formerly known as J.R.) was a 12-year-old Canadian girl who murdered her parents and baby brother. The murders occurred in 2006, and were executed by her and her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke.
Jasmine had killed her parents because she was enraged at them for telling her to stay away from Steinke, and that she could live with her boyfriend. It has been stated that she originally didn't want to kill her younger brother, but she did so anyway, because her boyfriend pressured her into it. She stabbed her own brother several times, and Steinke finished him off by slashing his throat. They then escaped to a fast food restaurant nearby.
Richardson was tried and convicted in 2007, and she received a 10-year sentence. She is currently released.
Biography edit
According to friends of Jasmine, Richardson's parents had punished her for dating Steinke due to the age disparity. Her friends had also criticized their relationship. Shortly after her arrest, Steinke asked her to marry him, and she agreed.
According to friends of Steinke, he told them he was a 300-year-old vampire. He allegedly told his friends that he liked the taste of blood, and wore a small vial of blood around his neck. He also had a user account at the VampireFreaks.com website. The girl had a page at the same site, leading to speculation they met there. However, an acquaintance of Steinke later said the couple actually met at a punk rock show in early 2006. The couple were also found to be communicating at Nexopia, a popular website for young Canadians. Various messages they sent to each other were available to the public, before the accounts were removed by Nexopia staff.
Richardson's user page, under the name "runawaydevil", falsely said she was 15 and ended with the text "Welcome to my tragic end". 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.
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. On July 9, 2007, Richardson, who had by then turned 13, was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder in the killings. She is believed to be the youngest person ever convicted of a multiple murder in Canada.
On November 8, 2007, she was sentenced to the maximum penalty of ten years' imprisonment. 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. 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.
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.