"I have this plan. It begins me killing them and ends me living with you".
Jasmine Richardson was a typical beautiful young girl aged just 12. She was described by family and friends as bright, happy and very social. Alike most young girls, teenage angst took over and she began to rebel against society, her parents and societies 'norms'. She became involved with the goth scene, and her myspace photos showed her growing more and more dark and violent. This of course can be seen as 'normal' and 'common' with a girl who is finding herself and does not want to conform to society. However, this angst became dangerous, as she became more and more infatuated with a 23 year old man called Jeremy Steinke.
The two met at a concert and quickly began to fall for each other, with this love turning deadly. Jasmine's parents of course did not approve of this relationship due to Jeremy's age and his known violent past, and rightly stopped Jasmine from seeing him.
Jeremy had a history of depression, with one known suicide attempt. He was a very troubled man, raised by an alcoholic mother, with some convinced that he showed common signs of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. He was very involved with the gothic scene, almost appearing as a leader, possibly due to him being a lot older than others in the scene. He adopted the persona of a 300-year old werewolf, wearing a vial of blood around his neck and his friends have spoken of how he enjoyed the taste of blood. He was even reported to have made cookies with so much blood in that they came out of the oven pink. Both had an account on a website called VampireFreaks.com and would communicate through email.
April 23rd 2006.
A 6 year old boy went to his friends house to play. When he arrived to his house, he looked through the window to find Debra and Marc dead on the floor. He ran home to call 911 and when the police arrived to the home, they found the couple had been stabbed to death, and their 8 year old son dead in his bed, his throat had been cut. Officers noticed from family photos in the house that the daughter was missing. They quickly assumed that she had been abducted and started to search for her. The daughter was Jasmine.
After searching her school locker and finding her notebooks, the police understood that Jasmine had not been abducted, but was in-fact a suspect in the slaughter of her family.
April 24th 2006.
Jasmine and Jeremy were found just 100 miles away after police noticed some young people acting suspicious at a gas station. Jeremy had convinced one of his friends to help them escape and the couple were hidden in the back of a truck.
The Murders.
The night before the murders, Jeremy and Jasmine had sat and watched their favourite film, Natural Born Killers. It is reported that the couple idolised the characters and wanted to live a life just like them. If you have not seen this film, it is clear that it gave the two inspiration as the love stuck pair go on a killing spree, also killing the female leads parents.
The day of the murders, Jeremy had been drinking and taking drugs and arrived at Jasmine's home around 3am. He then threw pinecones at Jasmine's window to get her attention and she pointed at the basement window, the window she had used to sneak out at night on numerous occasions. It is not known how Debra ended up in the basement, but it was here that Jeremy stabbed her over 20 times. His next victim was Marc, who he also stabbed over 20 times. Jasmine spoke in an interview how she went to her 8 year old brothers room to cover his ears so he did not hear his parents being brutally murdered. However, she says, she decided that the boy was too 'sensitive' and that it would be unfair to leave him without parents, so she slit his throat whilst he begged for his life. The two then met upstairs, and Jasmine began to pack her bags.
Jeremy was so high on drugs, and too 'pumped' so he decided to go home and leave Jasmine to pack. She then got a taxi to Jeremy's home. The next day they went to a party and were seen laughing and kissing. Neither of them seemed at all bothered by what they had done.
November 8th 2007.
The police wrongly assumed that Jeremy was the mastermind behind these murders. Typical 'get rid of the parents that do not want me to see her'. However, more and more evidence built up against the 12 year old, and it became clear that killing her parents was her idea. In her email to him she said "I have this plan. It begins me killing them and ends me living with you", Jasmine had the idea and Jeremy had the action. At her trial, Jasmine was asked why she had planned to kill her parents and she simply replied "I loved him so much. I thought it would bring us closer together".
Jasmine was sentenced to just 10 years in prison due to her being a minor. 10 years was the maximum sentence according to the Youth Criminal Justice Act and Canadian law. She was the youngest convicted multiple murderer, and found guilty of all 3 murders.
Jeremy was sentenced to life in prison on 3 counts of murder but eligible to parole after 25 years. His lawyers appealed, claiming that he was 'out of his mind' on drugs when he committed the murders.
In his online forum, Jeremy had spoke in true angst fashion stating how Jasmine's parents must 'pay in blood' because they would not let them be together. This shows that the wanting to kill and 'punish' Jasmine's parents for keeping them apart had been playing on his mind before that night and regardless of the drugs.
An undercover police officer, posing as a prisoner spoke to Jeremy and reports on how he admitted to the crimes. Jeremy told him that "It didn't bother her at all either, she didn't cry or anything. In fact, the next day when we were on the road, she was laughing about it. She's got a few screws loose too". The statement of her laughing about slaughtering her own family was also separately confirmed by one of the girls who were helping them get away. She spoke of how Jasmine laughed when she saw her picture and a report of the deaths on the front page of a newspaper.
Two months after their incarceration, Jeremy proposed to Jasmine through letters they sent to each other, she said yes and the couple became engaged. The status of this engagement is still unknown.
A Murderer Walking Free.
Jasmine's sentence included both incarceration, time in a psychiatric hospital and close supervision whilst integrating back into society. She was seen as a 'poster girl' for rehabilitation and in 2011 Jasmine was released from the psychiatric institution. She took on a new name and in 2011 she also became a freshman at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta.
May 6th 2016, two weeks after the murders' 10 year anniversary, her mandatory supervision was lifted and her sentence was officially completed. It is said that she now lives a new life, completely under the radar. Due to her being a minor, her images would have not been made public after the murders and her identity protected, but due to her initially being seen as a missing person, her pictures were posted to the media in an appeal to find her. Therefore, there are many people speculating that they have seen her or know her.
It is unknown if the two are still engaged or if anything more came of it.
Groomed or Groomer?
Due to Jasmine only being 12 years old at the time, it is easy to assume that she was being groomed by 23 year old Jeremy. Of course, their relationship was totally illegal, especially as their relationship was very intimate and sexual. However, it was found that Jasmine had at first lied about her age to many people, stating that she was 15 (although this of course is still underage and illegal). However, when she revealed her real age, Jeremy did not seem to care. Jeremy was very immature for his age, with most of his friends being a lot younger, which is another argument for him suffering from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. It is said that he longed for someone to love him, and 12 year old Jasmine gave him the love and attention he craved.
However, Jasmine can not be seen as the innocent young girl who was groomed by an older man. It was in-fact her idea to kill her parents in order to be with him, and it was Jasmine who told the immature, 'man who would do anything to be loved', that her parents are forcing them apart. Jasmine looked into the eyes of her younger brother as he pleaded that he was too young to die, slit his throat, and even described the way he 'gurgled'. Yet despite this, she walks free, apparently 'reformed', but one questions if someone who never showed an ounce of remorse can be 'rehabilitated'. Despite opinions, Jasmine is living a free life, knowing that it is her fault that her whole family is dead.
Comments