The scream came from the basement, and Mark Richardson knew, in that single instant, that his world was already over. He had been ripped from sleep by his wife’s terror, his body moving before his mind could catch up, his feet pounding down the stairs toward the sounds of a struggle. He found Deborah on the floor, a figure in a black hoodie and a face mask looming over her, a knife glinting in the dim light. Mark grabbed the only thing within reach, a screwdriver, and lunged.
He was a man who had fought his way back from addiction, who had built a life from nothing, and he was not going to let this monster take his family without a fight. But the attacker was younger, faster, and high on cocaine. In the frantic, desperate struggle that followed, Mark’s thumbs were forced into his own eyes, his body was overwhelmed, and the knife rose and fell again and again. His final word, a faint, desperate whisper, was a question he would never hear answered.
“Why? ” the killer snarled back at him. “Because you treat your daughter like this. It’s what your daughter wanted.
”
For most of his life, Mark Richardson had been a survivor. He had struggled with substance use for years, and just two months before his twenty-third birthday, he had walked into Rockhaven Recovery Home for Men in Sunbury, Ontario, determined to change. Patricia Delea, the director, had been impressed by his focus. He knew exactly what he wanted and was prepared to do the hard, internal work required to succeed.
He was a good-looking man with dark hair and a deep interest in motorcycle culture, but beneath that exterior was a seriousness about turning his life around. Two years later, in 1990, he met Deborah at a gym. She was six years older, a vibrant woman with a beaming smile who had also left her own troubled past behind. Mark was drawn to her lively personality, and she was drawn to his spirituality, his Catholic upbringing.
Their connection was immediate and undeniable. Within a year, they were married. On October 21st, 1993, their daughter Jasmine was born, followed three years later by their son Jacob, after the family had moved to Okotoks, Alberta, searching for a brighter future. They were a picture-perfect family.
Reverend Paul Orrit remembered Jacob’s christening as a special day, a moment of triumph for a family that had overcome significant struggles. Mark held his son tight, and Deborah looked on with love. But financial hardship was a constant shadow. Close family friend Judith recalled that Deborah sometimes had to rely on the food bank to get through the tough months.
They believed in moving forward slowly and steadily, a philosophy that mirrored the twelve steps that had saved them. Deborah became a mentor and sponsor at Narcotics Anonymous, and both Mark and his sister Monique’s husband devoted themselves to helping others break free from addiction. Judith saw them as models of recovery success. Mark was skilled in mechanics and welding, but he wanted more.
He returned to school for courses in electrical engineering, and by September of 2003, his hard work paid off. He secured a job as an instrument technician with Kana Corporation, a major Canadian oil and gas company. His co-worker, Wayne Chopic, remembered him as a guy who took genuine interest in anything he got his hands on, someone who threw himself into every task. The position required the family to relocate to Medicine Hat, a small city in southeastern Alberta known as the sunniest place in Canada.
It was there that they purchased their dream home, a three-bedroom house in the suburban neighborhood of Ross Glen. The children were immediately drawn to the large tree in the backyard, which had a rope swing and a wooden platform with a makeshift ladder. Jasmine and Jacob spent countless hours playing there. Neighbors spoke positively of the family.
When Jacob accidentally broke a basement window, Mark insisted the boy learn responsibility by doing chores to pay for the damages. Jacob was a lively, spirited boy who adored hockey player Dave “Tiger” Williams and was a huge fan of Star Wars, often referring to himself as a Jedi. His kindergarten yearbook entry read, “When I grow up, I want to be a policeman or a soldier. Thing I like best about me is that I have a family and I’m very fast.
” Jasmine, in many ways, was growing into her mother’s image, with a bright smile, clear blue eyes, and long dark hair. She was a studious honor student at a Catholic school, involved in the fine arts program. Her best friend, Aubrey, remembered her as an understanding, decent, outgoing, absolutely amazing person. But beneath the surface, cracks were beginning to form.
Jasmine embraced her mother’s new-age interests, including Reiki, crystals, and meditation. Over time, this fascination deepened, and she developed an interest in Wicca, even creating a pentacle on her bedroom wall with black tape. She and several classmates began questioning their religious upbringing. Her friend Nora recalled, “If God was so loving, why would he torture people?
All of us shared our frustrated feelings about this. Jasmine did also. It was clear she had no desired belief in God at all. ” As she entered adolescence, Jasmine began to push back against the rules.
One day at the Medicine Hat Mall, she and a friend noticed a group of local goth kids, and Jasmine was instantly drawn to their dark fashion. Soon, she and a small circle of friends began dressing in similar ways, drawing criticism from other students who labeled them the “dark side” or the “bad group. ”
Jasmine matured quickly. By the summer of 2005, between grades six and seven, she was only eleven but could easily pass for fifteen or sixteen.
Judith remembered Deborah saying after dropping her off at a friend’s house, “Oh, she struggles so much with that, my poor honey. ” The internet was exploding, and Jasmine was captivated by it. On August 27th, 2005, she registered on Mind. com, a popular social platform, and created a profile that left her age blank.
Her profile photo showed her holding a replica handgun, making her appear much older. She created more identities on MySpace under the username x_xmadness_x, claiming to be sixteen. Her listed interests included hatchets, serial killers, criminal psychology, blood, moonlight, and human anatomy. She even described Jeffrey Dahmer as one of her heroes, alongside Batman, illusionist Chris Angel, and the musicians Marilyn Manson and Dani Filth.
Her school counselor, Sandra Richard, began to notice a sharp change in her during the fall of 2005, particularly her short skirts and the chains she wore. Sandra met with Jasmine several times over dress code violations, trying to have open conversations rather than scolding her. The school called Mark and Deborah multiple times, but Jasmine claimed her parents weren’t particularly concerned. In her seventh-grade school photo, she showed up dressed according to the rules, but just before the picture was taken, she switched accessories with her friend Aubrey.
The final image showed her in a black mesh top with a spiked dog collar fastened around her neck. Jasmine and her friends began wearing black Marilyn Manson hoodies, which the Catholic school strongly disapproved of, but the group didn’t care. Before long, Jasmine and her friends began connecting with members of the local Goth community, including a nineteen-year-old who went by “Raven” and another around twenty-one known as “Trench Coat. ” Despite their much younger age, the middle schoolers were welcomed in.
One of the girls explained, “Our group of friends doesn’t discriminate based on age. It’s just a number. It shouldn’t inhibit friendship. Most of us have very alike backgrounds, so we get along perfectly.
” Jasmine never revealed her true age to the group. On November 10th, 2005, she signed up on vampirefreaks. com, claiming to be fifteen and using the screen name xkillerkittyx. A couple of weeks later, she created an account on Zorpia.
com under the profile name “Runaway Devil. ” On December 28th, she registered on Nexopia, a social networking site popular among teens in Western Canada, again under the alias Runaway Devil. On her profile, she wrote, “I am the almighty Jazz X. Bow down.
I think deep thoughts. I am quite emotional and my mood is everchanging… I don’t trust easily… I like to make attempts at poetry and anime… I am afraid of llamas… I like random questions… I sometimes watch Teen Titans because I’m that cool. I play guitar and I suck. ”
Jasmine was also spending more and more time with the group at the mall.
It was during one of those gatherings that she met Kaye, a girl her peers described as wild. Not long after Jasmine’s twelfth birthday, Kaye introduced her to twenty-two-year-old Jeremy Steinke. Like everyone else, Jeremy didn’t believe Jasmine was only twelve. Jasmine had already seen him before, having piled into the back seat of his 1981 Firebird one afternoon while he performed donuts in a parking lot.
She later remembered, “It was a cool night. ” But Jeremy’s story was very different from Jasmine’s. His childhood had been scarred by instability. He was bullied in school, where classmates and even some teachers called him “stinky” instead of “stanky.
” His mother, Jacqueline May, testified that Jeremy’s alcoholic father came home drunk nearly every night, often beating the boy with a belt or dragging him to his room by his ear. She separated from his father when Jeremy was two, but reconciled and had another child, a daughter four years younger. The relationship collapsed for good after seven years. Jacqueline’s later relationships proved to be no better.
Jeremy endured both physical and emotional trauma. He recalled defending his mother when a boyfriend shattered her cheekbone, chasing the man with a lead pipe and breaking his arm. Because of his mother’s unstable relationships, Jeremy and his mother moved constantly. He rarely stayed in one place long enough to form real friendships.
At fourteen, he began using weed and ecstasy, and later tried acid and shrooms. Jacqueline rationalized his substance use, saying it made him calm and not so hyper. Jeremy often wished he had never been born. One winter when he was fifteen, he drank so heavily that he passed out outdoors and suffered from hypothermia.
He avoided medical attention for his injuries, disliking doctors. In tenth grade, he was enrolled in the Integrated Occupational Program, a course designed for students with learning difficulties, but the bullying followed him there as other students referred to it as “idiots on patrol. ” He joined the school’s football team, and his former teammate, Spencer Chu, recalled, “There’s people that are teased in high school, and there are people who are asked to be teased because it’s an attention getter. He loved it.
He fueled off it. When we played football, he would try to get hit and try to be big and tough, but he never really was. He was a pretty small kid. He wanted to cause trouble.
”
Within three months of starting tenth grade, Jeremy dropped out of school because his mother was ill. Jacqueline had been diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a serious lung disease that permanently scars lung tissue. At sixteen, Jeremy moved in with his father and started working in a dusty underground potash mine, but after a dispute with his stepmother, he moved back to Medicine Hat and started renting low-cost apartments with friends. He picked up a series of entry-level jobs he despised, including pizza delivery, grocery and hardware store shifts, sporting goods sales, and various day labor positions.
In 2004, he enrolled at Medicine Hat College to upgrade his high school courses, but by Christmas, he had dropped out again and went back to living with his mother in the trailer she had inherited from her father at Tower Estates. At age twenty, he dated a seventeen-year-old girl who later claimed he was the father of her child. She described their relationship as impossible to sustain because of Jeremy’s “Jekyll and Hyde” personality. “I probably only know 10% of him.
He can change in a blink of an eye. He’d sit up in the middle of the night and start talking to himself. ”
After the breakup, Jeremy began a troubling pattern of dating younger and younger girls. He couldn’t seem to hold a steady job.
His days fell into a cycle of drinking, smoking weed, strumming his guitar, and writing poems and unfinished song lyrics. One of his poems, named “Eternal Scars,” read: “There are scars on my arm. They appear every other day. The scars on my arm are with me to stay to serve as a reminder of the pain I receive.
Even though the world I live in is hell, I believe. That the world goes on even after life. No, the question is, should I use that knife to end all the pain? To stop all the rain?
To never know if there’s something to gain? Can I set myself free of all this misery? Or shall I remain drowning in pain? No matter which path I choose, eternal scars remain.
”
His room in his mother’s trailer was plastered with posters, and a painted portrait of a bane wolf hung on the wall. He frequently ran into trouble with the police for offenses including shoplifting, bouncing checks, and causing minor disturbances. He once misled a judge, saying he was going through a divorce, and was awarded an extension to pay his bills. His life never improved.
He started to believe he was a werewolf, claiming to be part of the “Lykan Brotherhood” whose empire would one day rise. On Nexopia, he went by the username Soul Eater. He joined vampirefreaks. com, writing, “I believe in blood, destruction, gut score, and greed.
” He listed interests including the dark, the moon, the stars, and biting, with a particular fascination for lycans, while his dislikes bluntly stated “the sun. ” In private messages, he told others he was a 300-year-old immortal. On a personal blog, he posted, “We must meet in the cemetery 1 hour before the full moon is at its fullest to speak of a tragedy within the coven. Those who have not overcome the mindless rage need not attend.
”
To most people, this was nothing more than melodramatic posturing. But Jasmine was captivated by him. She later said, “I thought he was good-looking. A lot of people thought he was.
We just hung out for the day. I wanted to be friends with him. He was really hyper and the center of attention. People loved him.
” Jeremy wasn’t particularly interested in her at first, initially thinking she was dating Trench Coat. By December of 2005, however, the two began seeing each other more often. They’d hang out casually at punk shows, and as those outings became more frequent, the bond between them grew stronger. Mark and Deborah were far from pleased.
They didn’t like that their twelve-year-old daughter was spending time with people much older than her. Arguments became routine. That Christmas, Deborah sent her friend Judith some family photos. Judith exclaimed that Jasmine seemed markedly different from the girl she had been just months before.
Deborah was quoted as saying, “She’s 12 going on 20. ”
At school, concerns were rising. One afternoon, Jasmine appeared in her counselor’s office visibly upset, venting her frustrations about her parents. “These rules are too much.
I hate it there. I hate it there. ” At one point, she even told Sandra she wanted to be placed in foster care. But after a more extensive conversation, Sandra concluded that there was no violence or neglect at home.
Jasmine was simply mad at her parents over her loss of control. On another day, Jasmine came into the office asking for a bandage. Sandra noticed a pentacle drawn on her hand. Jasmine told her it was nothing sinister, just a Wiccan symbol.
Sandra asked her to wash it off out of respect for the faith and for the school. For Jasmine, it felt like yet another example of being misunderstood. In early February of 2006, Jeremy announced that he and his alleged fiancée Danielle were no longer engaged. He posted a poem: “My love left me hanging by a rope.
” Valentine’s Day was just around the corner. Jeremy took his chance with Jasmine. Jasmine recalled, “Jeremy gave me this really sweet poem. It was about me.
I was flattered. A few days later, he asked me out on the phone. I liked him. He was really sweet and attentive.
” Their first date was at a punk show. Jasmine knew Jeremy was older than her, but she didn’t know by how much. At the show, she sent one of her friends to tell him she was thirteen. Even after knowing that, Jeremy casually walked up and asked her out.
Over the next couple of weeks, the relationship grew closer. Jasmine would sneak the cordless phone to her room or go down to the basement where her parents couldn’t hear her. She even invited Jeremy and other friends to her house when she knew her parents would be away. He would often pick Jasmine and other friends up from school or the mall and bring them home to his mother’s trailer.
Meanwhile, Jasmine was drifting further away from her parents. One afternoon, Mark and Deborah left Jasmine and her eight-year-old brother at home while attending a company event. Jasmine was supposed to watch Jacob, but she left with Aubrey to a nearby 7-Eleven. Realizing he was alone, Jacob grew frightened and called his mother, causing them to leave the event early.
Mark and Deborah were furious. They grounded her indefinitely. According to Jasmine, that was the breaking point. “I couldn’t take them anymore.
” Mark’s coworker recalled seeing Jasmine grow noticeably irritated with her younger brother during a family open house. According to family friend Judith, Jacob had grown increasingly afraid of his sister to the point where he didn’t even want to walk home from school with her. She recalled one disturbing incident where she witnessed Jasmine choking Jacob. Since Jasmine wasn’t allowed to attend shows or go out with her older friends anymore, she began to grow envious of her friend Kaye’s freedom.
Kaye was a runaway and, unlike Jasmine, wasn’t held back by consequences. Jasmine started to fantasize about a life without parents. By March of 2006, Jasmine was spending long nights talking with Jeremy. She recalled, “I felt really flattered and loved.
He was really romantic. He told me that he loved me all the time. I was falling in love with him. ” Jeremy once gave Jasmine a small vial filled with his own blood.
He later shared that Jasmine had a strong fascination with blood and would sometimes bite him during intimate moments hard enough to make him bleed. Mark and Deborah, concerned about their daughter talking to older guys, started monitoring her social media and restricting her calls. Jasmine stuck to emails and instant messaging. Jeremy’s messages revealed his simmering fascination with brutality.
He shared that when he went to see George A. Romero’s “Land of the Dead,” he found himself laughing and cheering during the gory scenes. His favorite movie was “Natural Born Killers,” the film in which Mickey Knox and his wife Mallorie kill her toxic parents before going on a murderous spree. On March 9th, he posted a poem titled “The World” on his blog, speaking openly about his desire to kill.
The lines read, “The world I live in is dark and cold. The things these pitiful souls do seem to never get old. I wish they would all die. The earth can burn.
To hear them all scream, I yearn. Their blood should be spilled. For some of them, my heart they killed. ”
Mark, increasingly worried, decided to take Jasmine’s computer away.
But she simply turned to the public library, where she could use the computers freely. Even Jasmine’s friends grew concerned and tried to reason with her. When one confronted her, Jasmine simply said, “It’s my choice. Leave us alone.
” A friend highlighted the fact that Jeremy was in his twenties, but Jasmine argued back, saying, “He is not. He’s 17. ” She allegedly didn’t know his true age. She later admitted she didn’t want to know for sure.
Her best friend, Aubrey, later described Jeremy as very immature for his age, explaining that nobody took him seriously. On March 13th, 2006, Jeremy sent a message to Jasmine: “How goes it? You were a sight for sore eyes and I miss you more than killing people. Can we get together and kill people together?
I have a poem for you and you shall see it when I see you. Teehe. Well, I guess I should go. I love you tons.
” Jasmine responded, “Aha, yes, we shall. I miss you, too. A large large amount that cannot be contained in mere words. I wish to see this poem.
Love you. ”
A couple of days later, Jeremy wrote to a friend, “The whole point of killing them would be to start a spree across Canada. Kind of like the legendary Mickey and Mallerie love birds. ” On the other hand, Mark and Deborah were doing everything they could to get on good terms with Jasmine again.
They suggested that the three go to counseling, which Jasmine surprisingly agreed to. They even agreed for Jasmine to go to a local punk show on the condition that they accompanied her. The show took place on Friday, March 17th, 2006, at a local community hall. Jasmine had been buzzing with excitement, but for her, the real highlight wasn’t the music.
It was Jeremy. During a break, Jasmine stepped outside with Aubrey, Jeremy, and a few other friends. The group was running around the streets laughing. But in the middle of it, Aubrey dropped something and turned back to pick it up.
By the time she returned, Jeremy and Jasmine were nowhere in sight. Jasmine later said the two had wandered off for privacy. “We started making out in the alley. ”
Mark and Deborah began running up and down the block hysterically calling out their daughter’s name.
Deborah eventually turned into an alley and saw her daughter wrapped in the arms of someone much older. Mark arrived on the scene after her, and the sight crushed him. When Jeremy spotted Mark, he bolted and ran off into the night. At home, Jasmine was grounded like never before.
Her parents took away her MP3 player, her eyeliner, and her hair straightener. She was instructed to go to school and get right back home. When a friend showed up in the morning to walk Jasmine to the school bus, they were turned away. Jasmine was no longer allowed to go to the mall or even see Aubrey.
Jasmine recalled, “I was under quarantine. It was like I was under house arrest. They took everything out of my room except my clothing and my bed. I was really angry.
I was so close to my mom, I could tell her anything. But now, I felt like she didn’t love me anymore. ”
Over the next couple of days, Mark and Deborah decided to give Jasmine back her PC on the condition that they could monitor her activity and she removed all the men from her friends list. Jasmine agreed.
On March 20th, she wrote to Jeremy, “Raar, I hate them. So, I have this plan. It begins with me killing them and ends with me living with you. So, we are set.
” Jeremy replied the next day, “Well, I love your plan, but we need to get a little more creative and think like details and stuff. I wish they wouldn’t treat you that way. Gr. It angers me to hear that.
I dislike them very much. Don’t worry. I love you too, my sexy beast. ” On Friday, March 24th, Jeremy posted a poem about the situation: “My girlfriend’s family are totally unfair.
They say that they really care. They don’t know what is going on. They just assume as their greed continues to consume. She is slowly going insane.
She continues to thank that I came into her life to help her out and to stop what they keep trying to shout. It’s all total [unclear]. Their throats I want to slit. They will regret the [unclear] they have done.
Especially when I see to it that they are gone. They shall pay for their insolence. Finally, there shall be silence. Their blood shall be payment.
”
One night near the end of March, Jasmine tried to sneak out to meet Jeremy, but her parents caught her. In April, she tried again, this time successfully, using a basement window to sneak out. Jeremy came in his mother’s pickup truck and drove her to his mother’s trailer at Tower Estates. The two watched a movie, cuddled, and hooked up.
Jasmine later said, “We made love because I loved him so much. I thought it would bring us closer together. I thought it would make him happy. I knew he wanted to have sex with me.
” Afterwards, Jasmine went back to her place, but the family dog started barking, which woke up her parents. Jasmine explained she had a bad dream. Deborah and Mark didn’t buy the story. Jasmine had been pushing Jeremy for a while to kill her whole family.
Murder was Jeremy’s darkest fantasy, but at first he hesitated. He even tried to recruit friends to help, but most refused. Jeremy was allegedly afraid that if he didn’t kill Jasmine’s parents, she would break up with him. As for her brother Jacob, the couple decided that they couldn’t leave him alone in the world without parents.
In their minds, they thought the moral thing to do was to murder him out of mercy. On the night of April 22nd, 2006, Jeremy snuck to the front of Jasmine’s house. He picked up a pine cone and threw it at her window. Jasmine gestured for him to go to the basement window by the deck in the backyard.
He saw the basement window cracked open and climbed inside. The noise woke Deborah. First, she thought her daughter was trying to sneak out again. When she went down to the basement, she was met with a man in a black hoodie and a face mask holding a knife.
Jeremy, high on coke, lunged at her, stabbing her in the torso. The commotion jolted Mark awake. He rushed to the basement and grabbed a screwdriver to save his wife. Jeremy later recalled, “He came at me real fast.
I was scared shitless. I thought I was going down. I went to back up and I tripped and fell and he jumped on me and attempted to knee me in the chest. He grabbed my face and shoved his thumbs in my eye.
” Jeremy overpowered Mark and stabbed him so many times that he lost count. After Jeremy went upstairs, he was met by Jasmine. She embraced and kissed the man who had just murdered her parents and confessed her love to him. Jasmine then went to finish their plan.
Eight-year-old Jacob had been cowering in his room, confused and terrified. Jasmine entered, wrapped her arms around his neck, and began to squeeze. Jacob broke free and bolted into the hallway. Jasmine chased him up the stairs to the bedroom level where Jeremy was already standing.
He looked at her and said, “We can’t just leave him. ” Jacob fought back with all the strength he had, but the odds were against him. Blood was splattered across the walls, his toys, and the floor as the little boy met the same tragic fate as his parents. After Jacob’s murder, Jasmine calmly went to rinse off the knife she had used.
She returned to Jeremy, hugged him, and told him to wait while she grabbed some things. But Jeremy, shaken by the horror of what they had just done, panicked and fled in his mother’s truck without her. When Jasmine came back down with a canvas bag stuffed with clothes, toiletries, and her mother’s purse, Jeremy was already gone. Around 5:30 a.
m. , she walked to an ATM near 7-Eleven, withdrew cash from her mother’s account, and took a taxi to Jeremy’s mother’s trailer. They cuddled there. A friend of Jeremy’s who was staying at the trailer recalled seeing the couple stuff something into the garbage, a plastic grocery bag containing Jeremy’s blood-soaked clothes.
Afterwards, they headed to the apartment of a friend, Cam Barkley. Jeremy asked Cam for ice to press against his badly swollen eye, which had happened during the confrontation with Mark. He asked how to clean blood off knives, which immediately spooked Cam. Still showing sympathy, Cam offered the couple his bed while he and his girlfriend took the couch.
Even with the blood of an entire family still fresh, their recklessness didn’t end. As Cam and his girlfriend slept, Jeremy and Jasmine slipped out and drove to a nearby liquor store. From there, they went to a party at an apartment on Kleen Crescent. When they arrived, people had been drinking and smoking weed since noon.
Jeremy, wearing dark sunglasses to hide his swollen eye, introduced Jasmine to the crowd. James Whiley, a close friend of Jeremy who had just arrived, was bewildered when Jeremy said, “We killed my girlfriend’s family last night. I gutted them like a fish. ” James was in disbelief, but Jasmine admitted her boyfriend’s claim and said, “My little brother gargled.
” The whole conversation hardly lasted thirty seconds before James went on saying, “You guys are crazy. ” Throughout the party, witnesses recalled Jeremy and Jasmine being unusually intimate, their kissing so intense that it made several people uncomfortable. Jasmine later explained that she was trying to be physically affectionate to reassure herself he was still there. Soon after, Jeremy approached a girl named Casey Lancaster and asked for help cleaning his mom’s truck.
Casey and her friend Jenny scrubbed down the truck, wiping away what they later described as palm-sized splotches from the seat, the armrest, and the lock. By the time they got back to the party, the radio and TV were buzzing with breaking news about the Richardson murders. Earlier that afternoon, at around 1:15 p. m.
, the Richardsons’ neighbor, Sarah Penner, pulled into their shared driveway. Her young son grew excited when he spotted Mark’s pickup still parked outside. He rushed towards the house. Moments later, he returned panicking.
He had seen the bloodied bodies through the basement window. Sarah checked for herself and realized the nightmare was real. Shaken, she bolted for her phone and asked her mother to call emergency services. The police team entered through the front living room.
At first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but the staircase leading up to the bedroom was a different story. Blood was smeared across both walls of the stairwell as though someone had dragged a brush dipped in red paint from top to bottom. The carpet outside Jacob’s room was still damp with his blood. Constable Gerald Saddlemyer would later describe the site: “There was a lot of blood all over the walls of the boy.
There was blood on the floor, the sheets, everything was soaked in blood. The boy was covered with blood from head to toe, all over the boy’s body. There was blood on the walls and a large wound to his neck. ” A blood trail led them to the basement where Deborah was lying lifeless, covered in blood from head to toe.
A few feet away from her was Mark, his hands still clenched as if he were fighting. Reports later confirmed that Deborah had been stabbed twelve times, while Mark had been stabbed more than twenty-four times. The officers finished their walkthrough at roughly 5:07 p. m.
They noticed that one family member was missing: Jasmine. At first, police feared she had been abducted. What they didn’t yet realize was that Jasmine wasn’t a victim at all, but the perpetrator. The breakthrough came when Constable Gordon Stal reached out to Sandra, Jasmine’s school counselor.
Sandra suggested that students sometimes kept personal notes or phone numbers inside their lockers. What she found inside was chilling. Jasmine had drawn a twelve-panel cartoon strip that depicted a family of three being burned alive while two other stick figures stood by and watched. In the final frame, one of the figures was seen running happily towards a vehicle labeled “Jeremy’s truck.
” Sandra uncovered another note which read, “May the hatred and anger built of blazing infernos fill you and overcome you. May the pains of a thousand tortured souls come upon you like stinging blades and eclipse all other noble feelings. May your hopes, dreams, and happiness fall into the swirling pits of despair never to return. May your peace of mind and safety be gone to you to be forever afraid and ill at ease.
May the black overcome you and the pain never ending. May all you love be stolen and destroyed just out of reach to never again feel such joys. Amen. XX.
”
Meanwhile, Jasmine’s photo was circulated across the media as police urgently appealed for help to locate the missing child in connection with what was first described as a family tragedy. The discovery at the locker completely changed the story. Jasmine was now a suspect. When James Whiley saw the broadcast, he was bewildered.
He had just seen Jasmine a few hours earlier at the party. Jeremy’s boast was true. James hesitated to call the police, as he had problems with the law himself, but he eventually decided to do the right thing and told them everything. Jeremy and Jasmine were growing increasingly anxious.
Around 7:00 p. m. , Kaye phoned Casey and asked if she could drive Mick back home and offered her thirty bucks for gas. Casey agreed.
She also asked Jeremy and Jasmine if they wanted to ride along. Casey had no idea they were being hunted. She stopped at Cam Barkley’s apartment before leaving town, gathering blankets to cover Jeremy and Jasmine, and picking up the plastic grocery bag containing Jeremy’s blood-soaked clothes. Their destination was a town called Leader in Saskatchewan.
By 8:30 p. m. , they were out of Medicine Hat. Over 300 kilometers away, rookie Constable Aaron Eert had been put on alert.
A bulletin had gone out warning about suspects tied to a Medicine Hat triple homicide. Eert spent most of the night circling the quiet town. Around 7:00 a. m.
, a small pickup with Alberta plates matching the wanted vehicle pulled into the main Esso gas station. Three girls hurried out of the truck and into the store. Inside, they came across the latest issue of the Medicine Hat News. Plastered on the front page was Jasmine’s school photo.
Kaye carried the newspaper back to the truck and showed it to Jeremy and Jasmine, who were still hiding under the canopy. Shockingly, Jasmine showed no reaction. The group joked, saying the photo looked nothing like her. The group drove to the parking lot of Leader Composite High School.
Constable Eert parked a block away and radioed for backup. Constable Andre Galant and a corporal joined him. They approached the truck from opposite sides while Eert quietly made his way to the back. With one swift motion, he pulled back the blanket covering the bed of the pickup.
There they were, Jeremy and Jasmine exposed and caught off guard. Jasmine bizarrely wasn’t wearing any pants. Everyone in the truck was taken into custody. Even in the back of the police cars, the teenage girls refused to take the situation seriously.
They laughed, cracked jokes, and hurled insults at the officers. The group lied and claimed they were on a two-day camping trip, but the officers obviously didn’t buy it. While in holding, the girls made unauthorized phone calls, and Kaye even stole notepads and pens, stuffing them down her pants and shirt, caught on surveillance. At around 8:00 a.
m. , forensic experts arrived at the Richardson home. Sergeant Sheehan, who had just landed from Ottawa, drove straight from the airport to the house. He shared what he saw there: “I’m an ex-military guy.
I’d seen some bad stuff before. It was the worst crime scene I had ever been in. ” By 6 p. m.
on Monday, April 24th, Jasmine and Jeremy were returned to Medicine Hat. Both were formally charged with three counts of first-degree murder. The next day, they were interrogated. Jasmine changed her story several times.
First, she told Sergeant Sheehan she had simply snuck out with Jeremy that night to drink. When he dropped her back home, she claimed she walked in to find the lifeless bodies of her family. She said she had been planning to run away for a long time. Sergeant Sheehan wasn’t buying it.
Jasmine then revised her story, slightly hinting that Jeremy was involved. Throughout the interview, Jasmine spoke slowly. When she recounted seeing her dead family, Sergeant Sheehan said, “You’re not showing any emotion at all. That’s strange, isn’t it?
” Jasmine replied, “All day yesterday, I didn’t cry. Am I a terrible person for not feeling this? And then last night, I started crying. I don’t know how I’m not crying now.
”
Sergeant Sheehan told Jasmine the police had already discovered the pickup truck filled with the family’s blood stains. Jasmine changed her story again. She claimed that when Jeremy dropped her back home, she went upstairs to pack her things and heard loud noises coming from the basement. “My mom was coming downstairs.
Jeremy was moving around downstairs and then my dad came downstairs so I bolted up to my room. I grabbed my stuff. I didn’t want my brother to see because I know how fragile he is… My mom was screaming and it was happening. I couldn’t stop this from happening.
I stated this is what I wanted, but it wasn’t what I wanted. ”
When asked why she killed Jacob, she said, “Because we talked about that, because of the kind of person he was, and he needed that support, I guess, or love, and we couldn’t just do that to him. ” When pressed further, she admitted that she had held her brother, stabbed him, but could not finish him, so Jeremy did it “out of love for her. ” After this confession, Sergeant Sheehan asked Jasmine to write an apology to her family.
Jasmine wrote, “Dear my lovely parental units, I am writing in response to the events of Sunday morning. Terrible thing happened. Something I feel was all my fault. You must know I love you all dearly and are in my prayers.
I wish peace upon your souls in the summerland. My little brother, I apologize for letting you hear what had happened. Also for causing you any pain and for frightening you so much. To my parents, I hope you know that through all that has happened, I loved you the whole while.
I wish I could take everything back… I pray you can forgive me and Jeremy, too, because he was under the influence of mind-altering substance and did it out of love for me. He is most possibly the kindest person I’ve ever met. ”
Following the interrogation, Jasmine was placed in a cell. Sergeant Sheehan gave her a book and a pen.
She continued to write love notes to Jeremy. After this, Jeremy was interrogated. At first, he demanded a lawyer, but no lawyer in Medicine Hat wanted to take his case. The next morning, midway through the interview, he broke down and confessed everything.
He admitted to the murders because of his deep love for Jasmine, claiming she had been crying and urging him to do it all along. Unlike Jasmine, Jeremy displayed a flood of emotion, crying hysterically, swearing, and banging his head against the desk. He insisted Jasmine was the one who slit Jacob’s throat. In the disturbing exchange of love notes, Jeremy asked Jasmine to marry him, and she excitedly said yes.
The entire town was shaken. Jeremy’s mother told the police, “He’s not the man everyone thinks he is. ” Some within the goth community saw him differently. A number of young girls admired his actions to an unsettling degree, showing up at his court appearances.
One woman, posting under the name “liberal-minded mom,” wrote, “Something that really disturbed me was the picture on the front of the Medicine Hat News yesterday. The one of all the young girls crying and hugging outside of the courthouse. Cannot believe this sick freak has a fan club now… What is inside these girls’ heads that is drawing them to feel sorry for a triple murderer? ”
On May 3rd, Jeremy sent his final letter to Jasmine: “I’m glad to hear that you accepted my proposal and you make me incredibly happy as well.
I too am going for psychiatric assessment. I’m not sure where I’ll be yet, but I’ll let you know. The world may be against us, but remember that nothing beats love. ” The next day, Jeremy was scheduled to be moved for a psychiatric evaluation.
Sergeant Sheehan slipped in an undercover agent, Constable Cory Both, disguised as an inmate. During the transport, Jeremy opened up and talked at length about the murders, still insisting Jasmine killed her brother. By the end of the ride, Constable Both claimed he was sick to his stomach from the graphic details. Over the next couple of months, court hearings took place.
On June 12th, 2007, a jury ruled there was sufficient evidence to prove Jasmine had planned the murders so she could be with Jeremy. Her seventy-six-year-old grandfather stated he forgave Jasmine, believing she had been under a bad influence, but he did not attend the court hearing. He said, “I can’t live that again. It’s too hard.
” On June 20th, Jasmine’s former friends, including Aubrey, were summoned as witnesses. All four girls, now fourteen, broke down in tears as they testified, recalling how Jasmine had repeatedly talked about killing her parents. Jasmine altered her version of events yet again. This time, she claimed that when she wrapped her arms around Jacob, it wasn’t to choke him, but to help him fall asleep.
She told the jury she had taken the kitchen knife only to protect herself, claiming Jeremy had been too aggressive. According to her, Jeremy came upstairs, was furious, and pressured her into killing Jacob. She admitted to stabbing her brother lightly, saying she was too afraid to do more. Prosecutor Stephanie Cleary’s cross-examination revealed too many holes in Jasmine’s story.
On July 8th, 2007, Jasmine was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. At just thirteen years old, she quietly broke down in tears. She had just become the youngest person in Canadian history to be convicted of multiple homicide. On November 8th, 2007, Justice Scott Brooker sentenced Jasmine to ten years under an intensive rehabilitative custody and supervision order.
He spoke tenderly about her parents, calling them wonderful parents who loved Jasmine and were at all times acting in her best interests. He described the murder of Jasmine’s eight-year-old brother as “utterly incomprehensible. ” Clinical neuropsychologist Roger Maro evaluated her and reported that with treatment she could potentially become a productive member of society. Under her sentence, Jasmine was required to serve four years in a psychiatric facility followed by four and a half years of conditional community supervision.
She was credited for eighteen months she had already spent in custody. Jeremy faced far harsher consequences. His defense attorney argued that Jasmine had orchestrated the murders and that Jeremy merely acted as her means of carrying out the plan. By this time, Jacqueline’s lung condition had deteriorated severely, requiring her to carry an oxygen tank everywhere.
Jeremy’s final court hearings took place in December of 2008, where he pleaded guilty to killing Mark and Deborah but claimed he never went to their home with the intent to kill. He explained he carried a knife because he had once been jumped by five guys in his early teens. He continued to deny responsibility for Jacob’s death, the only forensic evidence being a trace amount of the boy’s blood on his shoelace. Despite the efforts, the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder on all three counts.
Lead prosecutor Ramona Robbins argued, “There are a lot of abused children. There are a lot of children of alcoholic parents. There are certainly a lot of people who are bullied in school, and their lives don’t end with triple homicides. ” The sentencing hearing was held on December 15th, 2008.
Prosecutor Robbins read victim impact statements from the Richardson family’s relatives. Mark’s sister Monique wrote, “You’re nothing but a punk with evil tendencies, a coward… Your choices hurt us all, Jeremy. I stopped going out for my daily walks in the beautiful sunshine. I feared someone would run out and stab me.
I would wake up every morning and felt every stab wound you inflicted on Deborah. ” Deborah’s brother, Peter Dulan, was the only family member who personally attended the sentencing. Instead of anger, he chose forgiveness. Looking directly toward Jeremy, he said, “I’ll never understand why she was taken.
I’ll never understand the workings of sick and twisted minds, but I do understand about forgiveness. Deborah taught me that. ”
Jeremy didn’t look up throughout most of the hearing. When Justice Kent offered him the chance to speak, he simply shook his head in silence.
He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for twenty-five years. The following year, he legally changed his name to Jackson May. Jasmine still had a chance at redemption. On November 10th, 2010, she began serving her open custody sentence in a Calgary group home.
By February 7th, 2011, reports showed she was making significant progress, excelling academically with straight A’s. The now sixteen-year-old girl was in close custody at the Alberta Hospital in Edmonton to begin her reintegration. Her treatment team and lawyers said she needed more exposure to the outside world. Crown prosecutor Ramona Robbins expressed concerns about the report, specifically a part that mentioned the girl was having issues understanding the severity of the murders.
“We all know she’ll be out in the community one day, that’s inevitable. And what kind of person is she going to be? What kind of adult is she going to be? ” The girl’s team stressed that any reintegration would be done in baby steps, starting with walks around the facility before going out into the Edmonton community.
Jasmine appeared in court via closed-circuit television and, when asked if she had anything to add, only said to the judge, “Thank you for the opportunity. ”
By September of 2011, just shy of her eighteenth birthday, Jasmine had enrolled in classes at a Calgary university. A month later, the court acknowledged for the first time that she had shown genuine remorse. Her final court appearance came in April of 2016.
A month later, Jasmine was released. Mark, Deborah, and Jacob were laid to rest on Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006, at St. Patrick’s Church in Sudbury, Ontario.
Nearly two decades later, the community continues to honor their memory through vigils and remembrance events, as the cries of their tragic loss still linger on the streets of Medicine Hat.
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