Girl on trial for murder agreed to marry lover

Two exchanged emails days after her family slain
MEDICINE HAT, Alta.–A young Alberta girl who was behind bars and facing three first-degree murder charges for allegedly killing her family accepted a written marriage proposal from her boyfriend and co-accused, court documents reveal.

The offer came in a series of misspelled jailhouse love letters that the girl, then 12 and now 13, and her much-older boyfriend swapped days after the bloodied bodies of her parents and 8-year-old brother were found in April 2006.

Jurors have heard the girl was angry at her parents for grounding her and trying to stop her from dating Jeremy Steinke, then 23.

"U said you want to get engaged?" Steinke wrote to her. "Then here's a Q ... Will U marry me? If so then it is a verbal agreement!"

The accused wrote back the same day: "Ahahaha! I never thought I'd find myself hystericaly laughing in a holding cell in these kinds of circumstances. But still! ahaha you make me so happy! Yes! Yes! I will, I would love to."

Steinke also asked the girl to come visit him when she gets out of jail.

The letters were passed back and forth between cells at the Medicine Hat remand centre by police.

Jurors also saw emails that included a plan from the accused to kill her parents – a month before the slayings.
The accused can't be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Steinke also faces first-degree murder charges but hasn't entered a plea or had a trial date set.