Steinke, girlfriend smiled at murder coverage: Witness

A front-page newspaper story about the murders of a southern Alberta couple and their son brought a smile to the face of their 12-year-old daughter and her 23-year-old boyfriend as they fled the province, an underage witness testified Wednesday.
By Calgary HeraldNovember 27, 2008

CALGARY - A front-page newspaper story about the murders of a southern Alberta couple and their son brought a smile to the face of their 12-year-old daughter and her 23-year-old boyfriend as they fled the province, an underage witness testified Wednesday.

The friend was testifying at the trial of Jeremy Allan Steinke, who's facing three counts of first-degree murder for the stabbing deaths of his girlfriend's parents and her eight-year-old brother at their home in Medicine Hat, Alta., on April 23, 2006.


The girl has already been convicted of first-degree murder.

"(She) was smiling about it," the friend said, describing the pair's response when they were passed a copy of the paper, which featured the 12-year old's Grade 7 school photograph.

"They were pointing things out in it."

The pair fled to Leader, Sask., with driver Kacy Lancaster and three underage friends. The group was arrested there the day after the family's bodies were found.

Friends of the pair also testified Wednesday that, hours before the murders, Steinke, now 25, was watching a film about serial killers and was overheard finalizing a deadly plan.

"He was on the phone in the kitchen, pacing back and forth, saying, 'I don't want to do this. Are you sure you want to do this?' " an underage girl testified.

Court has heard the girl wanted her parents dead because they were opposed to her relationship with Steinke.

Another girl testified she was with Steinke in his mother's trailer with a group of friends that night watching Natural Born Killers - a film that documents the fictional crimes of a serial-killing couple. She said Steinke compared his own plan to a scene in the movie documenting the murder of a girl's parents.

She said that, as Steinke watched a scene in the film where a young brother is spared, he said, "That's where it would be different. (She) would kill her brother."

The friends tried to talk Steinke out of his plan, the witness said.

"He told us we didn't understand. . . . He found someone crazy enough, just like himself," the girl testified.

The trial continues.