Richardson family murders

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This image of Jasmine Richardson was originally released to the media on April 23, 2006 when the police were looking for her, at which time she was not an official suspect, but was suppressed the next day when she became a suspect (and was arrested).

The Richardson family murders involved the murder of three members of the family in Medicine Hat, Alberta.^[1] The bodies of Marc Richardson (age 42), his wife Debra (age 48), and their son Jacob (age 8) were found by a friend of Jacob on April 23, 2006 at 1 p.m.^[2]^[3]^[4] Absent from the home at the time of the discovery was Jasmine Richardson,^[2]^[1] the couple's 12^[5] year old daughter (early news reports said she was 13^[2]). Jasmine was arrested the next day in the nearby community of Leader, Saskatchewan with her 23 year-old boyfriend Jeremy Allan Steinke, both charged with the three murders. ^[5]^[6] Later, on May 3, 2006, Kacy Lancaster was charged with being an accessory after the fact. She is accused of disposing of evidence^[7].

Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act the name of Jasmine Richardson could no longer be published in Canada after she became a suspect. However, by the time of her arrest, her name had already been widely published. Under the same act, twelve is the lowest possible age a person can be charged, persons under fourteen cannot be sentenced as adults, and cannot be given more than a ten year sentence (an adult could face a life sentence).^[8] Jasmine Richardson became the youngest person ever charged with a multiple murder in Canadian history.^[9]

According to friends of Jasmine, who was in grade seven,^[10] Jasmine's parents had grounded her for dating Steinke, due in part to the age disparity.^[11] Her friends had also criticized the relationship, but the couple continued dating regardless.^[11] Shortly after Richardson's arrest, Steinke asked her to marry him, and she agreed.^[12]

According to friends of Steinke, he told them he thought he was a 300-year-old werewolf.^[13] He allegedly told his friends that he liked the taste of blood, and wore a small vial of blood around his neck.^[14] He also had a user account at the VampireFreaks.com web site.^[15] Jasmine also had a page at the same site, leading to speculation they met there.^[16] However, later, an acquaintance of Steinke said the couple actually met at a punk rock show in early 2006.^[17]

The couple were also found to be communicating at Nexopia, a popular web site for young Canadians.^[18] Various messages they sent to each were available to the public, before the accounts were removed by Nexopia staff.^[18] Jasmine's user page, under the name "runawaydevil", falsely said she was 15 and ended with the text "Welcome to my tragic end.".^[19]

On July 9, 2007, Jasmine Richardson was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder in the killings. ^[20] On November 8, 2007, she was sentenced to the maximum allowable sentence of ten years, which is the maximum penalty for a person under 14 years of age.^[21] This will include four years in a psychiatric institution and four and a half years under conditional supervision in the community. She is currently the youngest person in Canadian history to be convicted of a multiple murder.