Legal Outcome
Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act the name of the daughter could no longer be published in Canada after she became a suspect. Under the same act, twelve is the youngest possible age at which a person can be charged with a crime; convicts who were under fourteen years of age at the time they committed a crime cannot be sentenced as adults, and cannot be given more than a ten-year sentence.
On 9 July 2007, the girl was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder in the killings. On 8 November 2007, she was sentenced to the maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment. Her sentence included credit for eighteen months already spent in custody, to be followed by four years in a psychiatric institution and four-and-a-half years under conditional supervision in the community.
On 15 December 2008, Steinke was sentenced to three life sentences on each of three counts of first-degree murder. The sentences are to be served concurrently; Steinke will be eligible for parole after serving twenty-five years.
In September 2011, the girl began attending classes at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta during the final years of her sentence. The killer was released from a ten-year sentence at a psychiatric hospital in the fall of 2011, and in October 2012 it was reported her rehabilitation was going well, and she expressed remorse for her actions that experts considered genuine.
The Richardsons' daughter is believed to be the youngest person ever convicted of a multiple murder in Canada. Steinke admitted to the murder of the parents in conversation with an undercover police officer while in custody.
The accessory to murder charge against their friend Kacy Lancaster was dropped and she pleaded guilty to an obstruction charge in Medicine Hat provincial court. She received one year house arrest as part of the plea bargain, and was ordered to refrain from drugs and alcohol.
Read more about this topic: Richardson Family Murders
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