Chris's Crime Forum

Tearful teens take the stand in triple murder trial

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. — A tearful teenage girl testifying at her best friend’s first-degree murder trial mouthed the words “I love you,” and blew a kiss as she passed the 13-year-old sitting in the prisoner’s dock.

The friend, who can’t be identified, was one of three emotional junior high school students who took the stand Wednesday in Medicine Hat’s Court of Queen’s Bench.

Each of the girls burst into tears as they told Justice Scott Brooker and the jury of seven men and five women the accused said she hated the Richardson family and wanted them to die.

The teen witnesses told court they knew the girl, who was 12 at the time, was dating 23-year-old Jeremy Allan Steinke. He is also charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

The first teen to take the stand, a visibly nervous blond 14-year-old, said that while talking in the school bathroom, the accused once said she was angry with Debra Richardson and wanted to kill the family.

“I didn’t think she meant it. I thought she was saying it out of anger,” the girl told defence lawyer Tim Foster.

Another teen, who said she was best friends with the accused and that they “pretty much lived at each other’s houses on weekends,” said she noticed a change in her friend when she started dating a much older man.

“I just tried to be there to listen,” the girl said.

Steinke and the accused girl met at the mall through a friend, the teen testified.

More at the link

http://tinyurl.com/2nsj2x

Police officer testifies that co-accused in Alta family slayings had black eye

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. (CP) - The jury in the trial of a 13-year-old girl accused of killing her family has been excused, while her defence lawyer argues over the admissibility of some evidence.

Tim Foster told court he was objecting to upcoming testimony from Crown witnesses and the jury was excused until Monday.

But before jurors left they heard from a Grade 10 student who testified she first met the girl's co-accused, Jeremy Steinke, at a friend's house in Medicine Hat, Alta., the day before the killings in April 2006.

She said she and the 24-year-old Steinke simply shared some small talk.

Court also heard from a police officer who said Steinke had a swollen left eye when he was brought back from Saskatchewan where he and the girl were arrested.

Const. Barry Steire testified that Steinke told paramedics he got the swollen eye when he was punched in the face several days earlier - although he didn't say how that happened.

http://tinyurl.com/32agte

Jury hears of break-up threat

MEDICINE HAT — The girl charged with the slaughter of her family threatened to dump her adult boyfriend if he didn’t kill her parents, court heard today.

Grant Bolt, testified long-time friend Jeremy Steinke made the revelation a week or two before the Medicine Hat girl’s family was massacred.

“He asked me, ‘how much, how far would I go for love?’ ... and then he just popped the question,” Bolt told Crown prosecutor Stephanie Cleary.

“He told me ‘(my girlfriend) is pretty much going to break up with me unless I do it soon,’” Bolt said.

“Do what?” Cleary asked.

“Kill her parents, basically,” he said.

Bolt, who has known Steinke for 11 years, testified his friend asked for his assistance in the killings.

“He asked me to help him and I told him to (get lost),” he said.

http://tinyurl.com/3andts

Court hears of deadly plan

MEDICINE HAT -- It was just a 10-second snippet of a telephone conversation, but an Alberta court was told yesterday that it was evidence of a scheme concocted by a 12-year-old girl to recruit her much older boyfriend to murder her mother, father and younger brother.

Jordan Attfield, an 18-year-old with a home life spent shuffling between foster care and couch surfing, told a packed courtroom he inadvertently eavesdropped on a disturbing phone call between the friend he was staying with - 24-year-old Jeremy Steinke - and that man's girlfriend, known only as J.R., before her family was found stabbed to death in their Medicine Hat home on April 23, 2006.

"I was in the kitchen one night and Jeremy was in his room," Mr. Attfield recalled. He said he picked up the phone and heard Mr. Steinke's voice on one end and that of a girl, whom he believed to be J.R., on the other. "Will you kill them?" he recalled J.R. asking. Mr. Steinke replied, "I'll think about it," he said.

http://tinyurl.com/2pfkgs

Witness tells court family gutted like fish

MEDICINE HAT, ALTA. — An Alberta girl remembered her little brother “gargled” as she helped her much older boyfriend kill her family, a court was told today.

James Whalley recounted a disturbing conversation he had with his friend, Jeremy Steinke, and that man's girlfriend, known only as J.R., on the day last year that J.R.'s parents and eight-year-old brother were found stabbed to death in their Medicine Hat home.

“Jeremy said they, him and (J.R.), had murdered her family the night before,” Mr. Whalley told the Court of Queen's Bench.

“Jeremy said that he had gutted them like fish,” he continued.

J.R., who is now 13 and on trial for three counts of first-degree murder, offered a comment, he recalled.

“(J.R.) said her brother gargled,” court heard.

One member of the seven-man, five-woman jury sighed. Another looked over at J.R., who sat quietly in the prisoner's box.

The court was previously told that the young boy was stabbed five times, suffered signs of strangulation and died from a massive gash to his throat.

More at the link if you can stomach it

http://tinyurl.com/29w57j

Accused felt bad boyfriend killed family: Witness

MEDICINE HAT, Alta.–A 13-year-old girl accused of murdering her family said she felt badly for her boyfriend because he had committed the crimes on her behalf, court heard Thursday.

Kacy Lancaster, 20, testified that the accused voiced the concerns about her boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke, soon after they were arrested in Saskatchewan – less than a day after her mother, father and 8-year-old brother were found stabbed and slashed to death in their Medicine Hat, Alta., home in April 2006.

Lancaster, who has been charged as an accessory to the murders but has yet to enter a plea, admitted in court that she drove Steinke's truck to a secluded parking lot the day the bodies were found and helped wipe down the interior. The seat was stained, she recalled, but she didn't know why Steinke had asked her to take the vehicle away and clean it.

She was at Steinke's house the night of the killings, she said, and then had numerous encounters with him and the accused the next day.

Lancaster said another young friend of hers was running away from her foster parents and mother, so she agreed to drive her and a few others to Leader, Sask., that evening. Steinke and his girlfriend asked if they could come along.

"I actually thought she was running away, and I thought Jeremy was keeping a low profile too."

They arrived in Leader late on Sunday, April 23, nearly out of fuel. No gas stations were open, so they ended up spending the night parked in a field.

The next morning at a gas station, they bought a newspaper that reported the killings on the front page, Lancaster said.

"I sat and read the paper and didn't quite know what to make of it – we were in shock," Lancaster told the jury.

She said she was surprised that she didn't hear any reaction from the accused when she and Steinke began reading the article.

Soon afterwards, the truck was surrounded by police and all five occupants were arrested.

Lancaster said that when all four girls were in one police car, the accused said her pants were off when she was arrested and that the police wouldn't let her get dressed. She "was worried about Jeremy being charged with raping her because she was a minor."

Much more at the link

http://tinyurl.com/yvh2nx

Accused killers messages revealed

MEDICINE HAT — The teen charged with slaughtering her family planned to kill her parents and run off with her adult boyfriend, court heard today.

In a text message sent to her boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke, a month before the killings the girl, then 12, told him of her plot.

“Rawr I hate them,” the girl, used the handle Runawaydevil in the Nexopia online community which allows members to send messages via the Internet.

“So I have this plan,” she continued, in the message seized by Medicine Hat police and read in by computer forensics expert Sgt. Tim Schottner.

“It begins with me killing them and ends with me living with you,” she wrote to Steinke, whose Nexopia identity was Souleater.

Schottner told jurors deciding the teen’s fate the message was sent on March 20, 2006, at 7:10 p.m.

Schottner also read in a message Steinke sent the day after his pre-teenage girlfriend informed him of her plot.

“Well I love your plan, but we need to get a little more creative with like details and stuff,” he wrote.

“I wish they wouldn’t treat you that way! Grrr! It angers me to hear that — I dislike them very much!” said Steinke, who faces the same three charges but has yet to set a trial date.

A week earlier, Steinke mentioned the subject of killing in one of his text messages.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes and I miss you more than killing people!” said Schottner, reading out the March 13, note.

“Can we get together and kill people together?”

In the exchanges the girl and Steinke, then 23, also profess their love for each other.

Steinke also sends the girl the text of a song he wrote for her titled, Till Death Do We Part.

“You are the air that I breathe, you’ll never have to worry I’ll leave,” he wrote to her.

“I’m in this till the end, you help my broken heart mend.”

It concludes with the chorus.

“My love is for you forever, as we die here together, we’ll be together forever, till death do we part.”

This afternoon jurors will hear about letters exchanged between the couple after their arrest.

http://tinyurl.com/2zdxub

Alleged family killers boasted of becoming living legends

MEDICINE HAT - In jailhouse love letters, a lovestruck 12-year-old girl and her 23-year-old boyfriend accused of killing a local family boasted how they were legends and promised to marry each other.

Police copied six letters written to and from the girl in the days following the couple's arrest for first-degree murder last year.

The letters, written on unused police statement forms and lined paper, profess their love for one another and plan for a future together.

Both say they wish they had "run."

The girl writes, "the world is against us," and offers comfort: "don't stress too much," and "it can only get so bad before it gets better."

She also warns Jeremy Allan Steinke that anything they say can be used against them, even to a psychiatrist.

The letters were delivered between cells by Medicine Hat police Sgt. Chris Sheehan, who made copies of them, he testified Friday at the girl's trial in Court of Queen's Bench.

More at the link

http://tinyurl.com/33zmm6

Girl describes stabbing her 8-year-old brother

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. – A 13-year-old girl says she showed little emotion after stabbing her terrified little brother – knowing her parents were also dead – because the enormity of the act was ``too big to cry about."

The teen accused of murdering her mom, dad and 8-year-old sibling in their Medicine Hat home took the stand in her own defence Tuesday. She told a hushed courtroom that it was her much older boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke, who committed the crimes and demanded she stab her brother.

The girl, who can't be identified under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, told the jury in little more than a whisper that Steinke was panting and covered in her parents' blood as he climbed the bedroom stairs that fateful night in April 2006.

She said she was armed with a kitchen knife for self-defence and was standing near her brother when Steinke ordered her to kill the boy.

"He yells at me, `Stab him, just stab him! Slit his throat!"' the teen testified in the ornate southeastern Alberta courtroom where spectators crammed into all five rows of wooden benches and strained forward to hear her every word.

"I said, `I can't, I can't,' and he said, `You have to. I did this for you."'

Weeping as she spoke, the accused said the little boy pleaded for his life with her, saying, "I'm scared. I'm too young to die."

The girl stabbed her brother once, she testified, "somewhere on his upper body," but couldn't do anything more.

She said that angered Steinke who then grabbed the boy and slit his throat. Unable to watch, she heard her brother trying to breathe. "He was gurgling," she told defence lawyer Tim Foster.

Over and over again she told the court that while she regularly talked about killing and death – mainly in regard to her parents – she didn't mean it.

She also admitted that the couple had sex again in a friend's apartment while her whole family lay dead in the house, hours before their bodies were discovered by her brother's little playmate peering through the basement window.

She also admitted to telling one of Steinke's friends that her brother made a gurgling noise as he died, but only because she was angered that her boyfriend was bragging about the murders and wanted to shut him up.

The accused told court that her father upset her the night of the killings and she told Steinke about it, but she had no idea that he was coming over to the house with murderous intent.

She said she was woken up by a noise, probably breaking glass in the basement, and was told to stay put by her mother.

Her father ran downstairs after her mother screamed twice and soon thereafter came sounds of a violent struggle, she recalled.

The accused said she remembered her dad demanding to know who his attacker was, and she heard Steinke say, "You treat your daughter like Poop."

Once the struggle had ended in the basement, Steinke came upstairs out of breath and told his girlfriend, "I love you ... I love you so much."

Steinke also faces three charges of first-degree murder in the killings, but he has yet to enter a plea and no trial date has been set.

More at the link

http://tinyurl.com/3d7brd

Jury told accused girl's actions after family's murder due to post-trauma stress

Wed, 2007-07-04 16:19
National News
By: JAMES STEVENSON

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. (CP) - A girl accused of killing her parents and younger brother says she was still traumatized by their vicious deaths when she accepted a jailhouse marriage proposal from the much-older man she blames for the murders.

The 13-year-old, on the witness stand at her trial Wednesday for the second straight day, was grilled repeatedly about her actions in the hours and days after her family members were slaughtered in their Medicine Hat home.

Crown prosecutor Stephanie Cleary asked during her cross-examination why the girl would agree to marry her boyfriend Jeremy Steinke, 23 at the time, if she was as horrified by her family's deaths as she testified she was.

"My psychologist says it's post-traumatic stress disorder," the girl practically whispered to the court.

Steinke, now 24, also faces three first-degree murder charges, but has not yet entered a plea. No trial date has been set.

The girl - the only witness called by the defence - first took the stand Tuesday. She told the jury her side of the story about how her parents and eight-year-old brother were repeatedly stabbed and slashed by Steinke in the family home in April 2006. She wept repeatedly when relating the details of her brother's final moments.

But on Wednesday she kept her composure and appeared to glare often at the Crown prosecutor. She was repeatedly told to speak up by both the judge and the Crown and often answered questions in just a few words.

The girl denied the Crown's theory that she had planned the attack and said she didn't call police or go for help because she was in a dream-like state.

"I was like a zombie - I could barely function," she said. "It didn't even enter my mind to call 911."

Clad in a high-cut brown top with her brown hair flowing over her right shoulder, the young teen remained stony-faced as she again recalled how her brother died.

She admitted she had wanted her brother to go to sleep and "to not remember this" when she started choking him with one arm, but he fought back and screamed at his sister to stop. She then pushed him into a bedroom.

She testified that when Steinke came upstairs after stabbing her parents repeatedly in the basement, he told her to kill her brother. But after stabbing him once in the upper body, she couldn't do it.

"I thought he was going to kill me ... because I couldn't do it," she said of Steinke.

She said he fled the house after her parents and brother appeared to be dead. Despite being alone in a home literally soaked with blood, she didn't bother to check if anyone was still alive or needed help.

"I wasn't thinking if they were dead for sure," she told court. "I was practically sleepwalking."

Cleary pointed out the girl had plenty of opportunities to ask for help. She stole her mother's purse, called for a cab, withdrew money from a nearby 7-11 bank machine with her mother's card and then headed to Steinke's trailer.

She didn't ask for help from the neighbours, the convenience store clerk or the cab driver, Cleary said.

On Tuesday, the accused testified that she and Steinke had "hypothetical" conversations about killing her parents and her brother. She said she would vent to Steinke because her parents didn't approve of their relationship.

But she reiterated Wednesday that she was just joking and didn't mean any of it.

The Crown's cross-examination took little more than 1 1/2 hours. The defence rested its case immediately afterwards.

The girl can't be identified under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act because she was 12 at the time of the slayings.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Friday. Jurors will then be sent home for the weekend before hearing the judge's charge Monday. They will then be sequestered to deliberate over a verdict.