A Medicine Hat, Alta. woman who was just 12 years old when she helped murder her family will be free on Saturday.
The woman, who can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, is known only as J.R.
In 2007, J.R. was convicted – along with her then-boyfriend Jeremy Steinke – of killing her mother, father and eight-year-old brother in the family’s home. She is Canada’s youngest multiple killer.
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J.R. was given a 10-year sentence, the maximum for young offenders between 12 and 14. The sentence included four years in a psychiatric institution and four and a half years under conditional supervision in the community.
Now 22, J.R. had been living in Calgary where she was enrolled in university.
On Friday, J.R. attended her final sentencing review in Medicine Hat, appearing via closed-circuit television.
She was given a glowing review from Justice C.S. Brooker, who noted her commitment to her rehabilitation has been strong and unwavering.
Brooker even went so far as to say that J.R.’s parents and brother would be proud of her now.
J.R. offered no apology when she addressed the court and thanked Brooker.
As of May 7, the young woman will be free, no longer needing to report to probation officers, therapists, psychologists or judges.
Steinke, who was 23 at the time of the killings, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for 25 years.
WARNING: Graphic details below
The Crown argued she and Steinke concocted a plan to kill the girl’s parents because they disapproved of the 10-year age gap between him and the girl.
It was suggested the crime was loosely based on Steinke’s favourite movie Natural Born Killers, Oliver Stone’s twisted love story about a pair of young serial killers who get their start by killing the girl’s parents.
Steinke admitted in court that he stabbed the mother and the father after he snuck into the family’s home. But he argued that he did not plan the killings.
He said he attacked the mother, who was wearing only a nightgown, after she turned on a light and found him huddled in the darkened basement.
She screamed. Her husband came running with a small screwdriver and rushed Steinke. The man died in a fighter’s stance, his arms still raised above him with loose fists in a room splashed with blood.
READ MORE: ‘It was the worst scene’: Medicine Hat police recall horrific triple-homicide, 10 years later
Steinke steadfastly maintained the boy’s death came at the hands of the girl.
At trial, police officers and other witnesses became emotional as they recalled seeing the body of the small boy, found on his bed with a deep slash to his throat, his eyes and mouth wide open. Stuffed animals and a toy light sabre spattered with the boy’s blood could be seen next to his body.
Steinke and the girl were arrested in Leader, Sask., about a 90-minute drive away, the day after the bodies were found.
– With files from The Canadian Press and David Boushy