Justice??????? ( Archived) (14)

Preteen killer urged to rehabilitate herself to honour her dead family
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Thu Nov 8, 7:46 PM

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. - Canada's youngest convicted multiple murderer was given the maximum 10-year sentence Thursday for helping slaughter her parents and little brother in their southeastern Alberta home when she was just 12 years old.

And she was instructed to rehabilitate her life as a tribute to her dead family. (excuse me?!!!!!)
"You can never undo what you have done to your mom, dad and little brother," Justice Scott Brooker told the girl, now 14, in Medicine Hat's main courtroom. (You think?....geeze)

"However, what you can do is honour their memory by dedicating your life to becoming the woman your parents and brother would be proud of." (OMG)

The girl was given a rarely used Intensive Rehabilitative Custody and Supervision sentence under Youth Criminal Justice Act. She will spend four of years in custody - primarily undergoing intense therapy at a forensic psychiatric hospital in Edmonton - followed by another 4 1/2 years under supervision in the community.

Brooker gave her credit for the 18 months she has already spent in a young offenders centre since her arrest one day after the murders in April 2006.

The Alberta Court of Queen's Bench judge said his sentence, when viewed through the eyes of a 14-year-old, will provide "meaningful consequences" for her crimes. But he said it should also promote meaningful rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

With a mandatory annual review of the sentence and her progress, the girl will likely be back in the community by the time she is 18.

A jury convicted her on all three counts of first-degree murder in July following a five-week trial full of grisly details of murders Brooker described as "horrific."

The jury heard how the gory crime scene was discovered by a little neighbourhood boy when he came calling on his eight-year-old pal and instead found dead bodies and a basement literally dripping in blood.

The mother died where she lay at the foot of the stairs from multiple stab wounds including one to her heart. The father lay nearby, nearly completely drained of blood after what Crown prosecutor Stephanie Cleary said was a "tremendous fight for his life throughout the TV room."
Upstairs, the little brother lay on his bed, eyes agape with his head nearly severed by a deep gash to his throat. Seasoned police officers struggled to hold back tears as they told the jury about discovering the boy and how his blood drenched his stuffed animals and Star Wars toys. (AND THEY ONLY GIVE HER 10 YRS?)

Brooker said the boy was a completely innocent, vulnerable victim whose death was "completely incomprehensible."

The Crown portrayed the girl as a preteen who was infuriated by her parents' attempts to control her and break up her new romance with Jeremy Steinke - a man who at 23 was nearly twice her age.

Brooker described the couple as loving and wonderful parents who acted at all times in her best interest.

"They were concerned for (her) welfare and were doing everything they could to try and help (her) through a difficult time in her growing up," Brooker said during sentencing.
"They never gave up on her and I do not think that they would even now."

The Crown maintained that the girl played an integral role in planning the murders of her parents. And she confessed on the witness stand to trying to choke her little brother and stabbing him once after he ran to her for help during the attack.

Defence lawyer Tim Foster maintained that his client was a tempestuous girl who often talked angrily about death and killing, but never meant any of it. Testifying in her own defence, she told the jury that she had no idea that anyone took her comments seriously or would act on them.

The jury never did see several key pieces of evidence that Brooker ruled inadmissible, including an apology to her dead family in which she wrote that she wished it had never happened "because now I have no one."

Throughout all her court appearances, the girl has dressed conservatively and appeared older than her years. Because of the setup of the Medicine Hat courtroom, she always sat in the prisoner's box with her back to the public gallery. A wooden barrier prevented anyone from trying to read her emotions Thursday as her sentence was delivered.

Outside court Thursday, Foster said he was confident his client could be rehabilitated and that she was anxious to start her therapy and rehabilitation.

"Although she is physically large, she's a little girl. She was a little girl at the time this all happened and that should never be forgotten." (LITTLE GIRL WITH A SICK MIND)

But Medicine Hat Mayor Norm Boucher, who was the city's police chief at the time of the killings, predicted the sentence would be hard for his community to accept even though it was the maximum allowed.

"We take a more severe approach generally in the public," he said.

"Would I have liked to have it more severe? Probably a little more severe than this." (?????????????)

Crown prosecutor Cleary said outside court that the goal of the sentence was to rehabilitate the girl. (joking right?)

"The act presumes that she can be and the plan drafted by independent court-appointed psychiatrists says that she can be. So certainly we are very hopeful it will be accomplished."

The girl's former boyfriend, Steinke, faces the same three first-degree murder charges, but his trial is not expected until later 2008 at the earliest.

He also appeared briefly in court Thursday at which time a February date was set for his lawyer to argue that the trial should be moved from Medicine Hat because of the intense publicity.

One other person charged in the crimes, 21-year-old Kacy Lancaster, faces accessory to murder charges. She, too, appear in court Thursday, but her case was put over to Jan. 17.

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I just can't believe that this is all she gets as punishment????WTF???
Yes I'm angry...and I don't give a rats behind about her age.....................

Sounds like a case for the sanitarium to me......this person is clearly a danger to society and the crime was clearly premeditated on the basis that the muders were commited with a knife.Clearly the punishment doesnt fit the crime......i'd love to heard her testimony she told the judge to explain aay whay she did!

An utter disgrace to humanity.

They say that children that torture animals in their childhood are most often violent criminals as adults. Most of your seriel killers started out small with animals. Makes me wonder, what one of them may have been like if they just jumped right in and started with humans from the start.

She may have been 12 years in age , but mentally she is much older.
She was old enough to meet a 23 year old man and start up relations with him. At 12, yes kids can make adult decisions.

I feel that her punishment is way to soft. This is a person that will most likely be back in the headlines in the near future. I pray it is not for hurting anyone els.

Animal mutilation is an accepted precursor/indicator of serial killers...though in Russia they lend them to the USA as guests for study!!

Absolutely true

I couldn't agree with you more RobbieM.

The thing about these threads is that you really have to have been in court and have heard the evidence to know why a sentence was or wasn't appropriate. Also, judges and juries usually operate within sentencing rules which take account of various factors....that doesn't stop the occasional weird ruling...but when we weren't there we don't really know what was the right thing to do.

That's why we have courts and law

I truely don't see how they can even begin to think that she will become a different person with'help'.
If she could do this at that age what could she do older???
Makes me shudder.I find she's getting barely a slap on the wrist.

Sounds like she's an up and coming female version of that Myer character from the Halloween movies.
She was given the maximum allowed for her age will not be comforting to anyone ...what else could the Judge do...try and break the system's own laws and sentence her without regard to age...it would just result in the entire conviction being thrown out and the Judge removed from the bench...would this be more acceptable to people? Why not change the law, leaving the sentencing open without limits or conditions...as the old saying goes..."no matter the sentence, I'm out on parole in a couple of years..." The entire Criminal "Justice" system reeks...it is long overdue for a complete overhaul...to "popular satisfaction by consensus" not to the satisfaction of those proverbial "bleeding heart liberal" types that are only a small portion of the population....