The remains of three slain family members are being flown to Ontario, while a 12-year-old girl accused of their killing is making her second court appearance today.
MEDICINE HAT, Alta. -- The remains of three slain family members are being flown to Ontario, while a 12-year-old girl accused of their killing is making her second court appearance today.
A funeral home visitation for Marc Richardson, 42, his wife Debra, 48, and their son Jacob, 8, is planned today, and a funeral service will be held Tuesday at La Toussaint Church in Sudbury.
On Tuesday, the girl's boyfriend, Jeremy Allan Steinke, 23, is scheduled to make his second court appearance. They're both charged with three counts of first-degree murder.
They were arrested in Leader, Sask., on April 24, a day after a neighbourhood playmate discovered the family had been killed in their southeast Medicine Hat home.
Homicide detectives have wrapped up their investigation inside the family's house. Once the murder scene has been cleaned, relatives will be allowed inside to pack up their loved ones' belongings.
Medicine Hat police have not revealed how the Richardsons were killed. They continue probing the relationship between the 12-year-old and Steinke, an unemployed high school dropout.
Part of their investigation includes messages sent over the Internet. Plans to carry out a triple slaying of a local family may have been foretold to friends days in advance.
An April 20 message on vampirefreaks.com is believed to have been sent from accused killer Steinke.
The message, from what friends say is Steinke's souleater52 account, makes reference to "doing morbid stuff to others! ...which i'm going to do this weekend," days before the Richardson family was killed.
"We're looking into all connections between these two, which includes their friends, the Internet, or any other connection," said Sgt. Dave Townsend of Medicine Hat police.
The murders have rocked the city of 55,000, but it's not the first time Medicine Hat has endured the terrible sadness of a triple slaying.
On Jan. 18, 2001, 23-year-old Chris Anton LeClaire murdered his parents and brother Raymond, 60, Janet, 58, and Raymond Jr., 21.
LeClaire, a paranoid schizophrenic, kept police at bay during a 28-hour standoff.
A judge found him not criminally responsible for the shooting deaths of his family, whom he believed were imposters.
During sentencing, a surviving daughter of the couple said the family sought help from the medical and legal communities for two years prior to the killings, but it never came.
LeClaire shot his father once through the hand and chest, which was almost immediately fatal. He shot his mother while she was sitting in her bed in the arm and then in the chest. Next, LeClaire went into his brother's room and shot him in the left wrist, left bicep and then through his right wrist and right temple. He then covered their bodies with blankets.
Calgary Herald
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