(disclaimer tensely resonates)
- [Narrator] What is up, EWU crew?
Today, we are going to be covering
some of the world's youngest killers.
If you enjoy true crime, mysteries, and true stories,
be sure to hit the like button and subscribe.
Now let's get into it.
The first story we are going to be covering today
is that of 12-year-old Jasmine Richardson.
Jasmine was born and raised
in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada,
and was the eldest daughter to her parents,
Marc and Debra Richardson.
Jasmine's childhood was not particularly noteworthy
and she appeared to live contentedly
with her parents and her younger brother, Tyler.
However, everything changed when Jasmine became a preteen.
Unlike most 12-year-old girls
in the Richardson's neighborhood
who were obsessed with the color pink
and spending time with their friends,
Jasmine found that she much preferred
the darker aspects of life.
In fact, she considered herself to be rather edgy
and was determined to go against all of her parents' wishes
no matter what they were.
So when a 23-year-old man named Jeremy Steinke
started to express an interest in her
after meeting at a punk rock show in 2006,
Jasmine failed to see what was so wrong about his attention.
Since Jasmine was so young,
Jeremy found it easy to manipulate her
in all of the ways he wished to.
According to Jasmine's friends,
Jeremy originally told Jasmine that he was, quote,
"a 300-year-old vampire" who "liked the taste of blood
and wore a small vial of blood
around his neck at all times."
Jasmine and Jeremy both frequented a website
called VampireFreaks.com,
and usually communicated with each other
via a website called Nexopia,
which was commonly used amongst Canada's youth.
Jasmine and Jeremy hit it off right away.
Jasmine soon claimed to have fallen in love with him
despite their age gap.
Unfortunately for Jasmine,
her parents were not as excited as she was
when they discovered the secret relationship
between a 23-year-old and their 12-year-old daughter.
In fact, they were understandably furious and horrified.
They told Jasmine that she needed to stay
far away from Jeremy for her own good.
Unfortunately, Jeremy was incredibly persistent
and didn't care what Jasmine's parents thought
about his relationship with Jasmine.
Jeremy told Jasmine that her parents
were the only thing preventing the two of them
from being together and being in love.
Jasmine, who was head over heels for Jeremy,
completely agreed with him
and understood that the only way they could stay together
would be if her parents left the two of them alone.
Jeremy and Jasmine did most of their communication online
after Jasmine's parents discovered their relationship.
In their online discourse,
Jeremy wrote a message to Jasmine stating, quote,
"I have this plan.
It begins with me killing them
and ends with me living with you."
As grave as that message sounds, it got even worse.
On a Windows Live Spaces account that Jeremy had,
he wrote, quote, "Payment.
My lover's 'rents are totally unfair.
They say that they really care.
They don't know what is going on, they just assume.
As their greed continues to consume,
she is slowly going insane.
She continues to thank that I came into her life
to help her out and to stop what they keep trying to shout.
It's all total.
Their throats I wanna slit.
They will regret the they have done,
especially when I see to it that they are gone.
They shall pay for their insolence.
Finally, there shall be silence.
Their blood shall be payment."
And Jeremy was determined for payment to come.
On April 22nd, 2006, Jeremy, Jasmine,
and a few of their friends watched the movie,
"Natural Born Killers," a film about two young lovers
who go on an extremely violent killing spree for fun.
After the movie, Jeremy told Jasmine and their friends
that he believed that the two of them should indulge
in their own killing spree in the same manner as the film,
only this time they would spare no one.
Jasmine appeared angry with the world,
but mostly with her parents
and their attempts to keep her from Jeremy.
With Jeremy's constant influence,
Jasmine became convinced that her parents
were more than a problem in her life.
They were the greatest obstacle
between her and her happiness.
She too was determined to make them pay for it.
On the fateful evening of April 22nd around 1:00 a.m.,
Jasmine and Jeremy decided
that the time was right and they struck.
Jeremy was the first to make a move
when he attacked Mr. And Mrs. Richardson
on the ground floor of the Richardson's home,
where he stabbed them both to death.
Around the same time,
Jasmine located her eight-year-old brother in his bedroom
and stabbed him repeatedly in the chest.
After ensuring that her parents were dead,
Jeremy met Jasmine upstairs
where he then slit her brother's throat.
Jasmine told him that it would have been cruel
to leave her brother Tyler
without any parents to look after him.
The couple quickly fled from the crime scene
and headed to a nearby restaurant, where not even two hours
after brutally murdering Jasmine's entire family,
they found themselves in an intimate,
romantic embrace, laughing and kissing.
The two seem to have no remorse about what they had done
despite having literal blood on their hands.
The following afternoon around 1:00 p.m.,
Marc and Debra Richardson's bodies
were discovered stowed away in their family basement,
and the body of poor eight-year-old Tyler
was found in his bedroom.
When officials first discovered the bodies
of three of the four Richardsons,
they were immediately concerned that Jasmine,
who was unaccounted for, had also been a victim
of the perpetrator who had wiped out the entire family.
They were shocked to find out just how wrong they were.
On April 24th, 2006, investigators located
Jasmine and Jeremy in Leader, Saskatchewan,
a little under 81 miles away from the crime scene.
Both Jasmine and Jeremy were arrested
for the murders of Marc, Debra, and Tyler,
and taken into custody immediately.
There, Jeremy accidentally admitted
to the murder of Jasmine's parents
while speaking to an undercover police officer.
In fact, Jeremy even asked the undercover officer
if he had ever seen the movie, "Natural Born Killers,"
noting that he thought it was the, quote,
"best love story of all time."
In 2007, when Jasmine was 14 years old,
she went on trial for the murder
of her parents and her younger brother.
At trial, Jasmine pled not guilty
to all three counts of first degree murder,
but by July of that same year, the jury decided
that Jasmine was guilty on all three counts.
At Jeremy's trial in November of 2008,
he was also found guilty
of first degree murder for all three counts.
Jeremy was sentenced to three life sentences
with possibility of parole after serving 25 years.
Because Jasmine had been a minor at the time of her crimes,
she was only sentenced to serve 10 years in prison,
the maximum sentencing allowed by Canadian law.
Jasmine's specific sentence
included credit for 18 months for time served,
with four years to be spent in a psychiatric facility,
followed by four and a half
under conditional supervision in the community.
In 2011, Jasmine was actually released to serve time
under conditional supervision as per her sentencing.
By September of that same year,
she was given a completely new identity with an unknown name
so that she could live free without association to her crime
and started attending university.
In 2016, Jasmine's limited sentence was completed
and she was fully released into the world
as a civilian once more.
The next case we have in store for you today
is that of sweet little Mary Bell.
Mary Bell was born on May 26th, 1957,
and raised in Newcastle upon Tyne, England,
and lived with her mother, Betty Bell.
Betty Bell was a 17-year-old worker
and was often out of town
when she traveled to Glasgow for work.
Mary had never known who her biological father was,
though her mother ended up marrying a man
by the name of Bill Bell when Mary was very young.
Mary was mostly ignored throughout her childhood
and the neglect seemed to deeply affect
the way she perceived the world around her.
She was known to be rather shy, reserved,
and never took much interest
in making proper friends in school.
By the time she was 10 years old,
Mary felt as though she was an outcast
with no outlet to express herself.
On May 25th, 1968, Mary was particularly excited
as the following morning was her 11th birthday.
Mary wasn't interested in receiving
a specific present to celebrate her birthday;
rather, there was only one thing she wanted to do.
She wanted to take a life.
So 10-year-old Mary Bell set out to do just that.
In Mary's neighborhood, there was a derelict house
where a four-year-old boy
by the name of Martin Brown resided.
She let herself into his house,
and before Martin could even begin
to understand what was happening,
Mary already had her small hands around his neck.
Within a few moments,
and very little struggle from the four-year-old boy,
Mary had successfully strangled Martin to death.
Just like that, 10-year-old Mary became a killer.
But she wasn't finished with her crime spree.
Just two months later, on July 31st, 1968,
Mary decided to partake in another endeavor,
accompanied by her friend, Norma Joyce Bell,
whom she had no familial relation to.
The girls ventured into some local wasteland
in the Scotswood area, where they came across
a three-year-old boy named Brian Howe.
Mary held Brian down and choked the boy to death
while Norma allegedly did nothing to stop it.
After ensuring that Brian was dead,
Mary cleaned up the crime scene to the best of her ability.
The very next day, investigators ended up interviewing
1,200 children in an effort to determine new information
regarding the recent deaths in town.
When police interviewed Norma and Mary,
they found that the two girls answered the questions
in rather evasive ways, leading investigators
to become increasingly more suspicious
of their potential role in the crimes.
When the girls went through multiple interviews
investigators found that they both
changed their stories twice.
Eventually, both girls ended up blaming each other
for accidentally squeezing Brian's throat,
but ultimately both were arrested on August 1st.
At Norma and Mary's trial in December of 1968,
Norma appeared confused and guilt stricken,
which led to her being declared not guilty.
Mary, however, was described by a psychiatrist
as displaying classic symptoms of psychopathy,
and she was found guilty of manslaughter
and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Rather than a murder charge,
Mary was found to have diminished responsibility,
resulting in the lower charge of manslaughter.
Mary spent eight years in various young offenders institutes
before eventually being transferred
to Moor Court open prison.
There, she actually ended up escaping
alongside two other male inmates.
The three escapees were at large for two whole days
before all three of them were returned to their sentencing.
In 1980, Mary Bell was released from prison
with a new identity at the age of 23 years old.
Upon her release, Mary was granted anonymity
and even given a new name
in order for her to be able to live a normal life.
The concept of a killer is terrifying enough,
as it is hard for most people to fathom
why someone would want to kill anyone,
let alone kill multiple people.
But perhaps an even more horrifying reality
is the fact that age does not define a killer.
It only defines their prison sentence.
And when they get older, they often return to society.
They may be walking among us and we are none the wiser.