Motive
According to friends of the daughter, the girl's parents had punished her for dating Steinke, due to the age disparity. Her friends had also criticized their relationship. Shortly after her arrest, Steinke asked her to marry him, and she agreed.
According to friends of Steinke, he told them he was a 300-year-old werewolf. He allegedly told his friends that he liked the taste of blood, and wore a small vial of blood around his neck. He also had a user account at the VampireFreaks.com web site. The girl had a page at the same site, leading to speculation they met there. However, an acquaintance of Steinke later said the couple actually met at a punk rock show in early 2006. The couple were also found to be communicating at Nexopia, a popular web site for young Canadians. Various messages they sent to each other were available to the public, before the accounts were removed by Nexopia staff. The daughter's user page, under the name "runawaydevil", falsely said she was 15 and ended with the text "Welcome to my tragic end".
Just hours prior to committing the murders, Steinke and some friends reportedly watched the film Natural Born Killers, a 1994 film about a young couple who commit a violent spree of killings. Steinke asserted to his friends that he and his girlfriend should go about their plans in a similar manner, but without sparing his girlfriend's young brother. Steinke said to an undercover officer: 'You ever watch the movie Natural Born Killers?... I think that's the best love story of all time...'.
Read more about this topic: Richardson Family Murders
Famous quotes containing the word motive:
“In all history no class has been enfranchised without some selfish motive underlying. If to-day we could prove to Republicans or Democrats that every woman would vote for their party, we should be enfranchised.”
—Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947)
“And I envy the intransigence of my own
Countrymen who shoot to kill and never
See the victim’s face become their own
Or find his motive sabotage their motives.”
—Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
“If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men’s failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal’s natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?”
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)