Says guilty verdict is “unreasonable”
Three years after being convicted of slaughtering his underage girlfriend’s parents and eight-year-old brother, a Medicine Hat man says his guilty verdict is “unreasonable.”
Jeremy Allan Steinke is hoping for a new murder trial after filing an appeal of his 2008 conviction.
“It was an unreasonable verdict, I didn’t appeal sooner because I’m new to the system and did not know what I was doing, and at the time I could not find a lawyer who would take my case,” wrote Steinke, who was defended at his trial by high-profile criminal defence lawyer Alain Hepner through legal aid.
“Once my appeal is approved, I will contact legal aid so that they may cover the cost of the lawyer as I cannot afford one.”
Steinke, soon to be 29, is serving a life sentence in Edmonton Institution with no chance of parole for 25 years on three counts of first-degree murder in the April 23, 2006 stabbings.
The shocking case made headlines and history -- Steinke’s accomplice was his 12-year-old girlfriend, whose conviction made her Canada’s youngest multiple killer.
Steinke and the girl had been carrying on their illicit romance for only a few months before her parents learned of it and tried to stop it.
The murder plan was hatched online and through phone calls. Through online messages under their user names “souleater” and “runaway devil,” the pair discussed killing the girl’s parents, who opposed the relationship between their 12-year-old daughter and Steinke, who was 23.
The girl, who cannot be named, was also convicted of three counts of first-degree murder.
She is now 18 and is now entering the final phase of a special rehabilitative youth sentence, which is gradual reintegration to society.
When she is 22, she will be free.
She was given the maximum youth sentence of 10 years which includes a four-phase program of stabilization, intensive therapy and transition.
Steinke admitted stabbing the girl’s parents to death, but not the boy. The girl denied any role in the killings.
Steinke, who was sentenced in December 2008, filed an appeal of his judge and jury conviction Jan. 17, 2011.
Normally, appeals are to be filed within 30 days of the court’s decision.
Steinke’s request will be heard by the Alberta Court of Appeal May 15. If his appeal is granted, he has requested to attend the hearing in person. If a new trial is ordered, he is asking to be tried by judge alone.
On the night of the killings, court heard the girl phoned Steinke, who arrived at the family’s darkened house, high on cocaine and drunk.
Both parents confronted Steinke, who was armed with knives. They bled to death in the basement.
Steinke said he never touched the boy upstairs but watched as the girl slit her brother’s throat.
Hours after the killings, the couple was seen kissing and giggling at a house party.
They were arrested with friends the next morning in Leader, Sask.
Steinke told an undercover police officer he tried to talk his girlfriend out of the deadly plan but she wouldn’t have it, and he was a man of his word.
In the days following their arrest, the couple agreed to marry through prison love letters, but the relationship quickly crumbled when they blamed each other for the boy’s stabbing death.
No comments:
Post a Comment