FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

The Canadian Woman Who Had Her Family Killed When She Was 12 Is Now Free

The woman, now 22, had her boyfriend kill her parents and little brother ten years ago.

Pallbearers carry the casket of the father who was killed in the infamous 2006 Medicine Hat, Alberta murder. CP PHOTO/Gino Donato

Read: The Alberta Girl Who Had Her Family Murdered a Decade Ago Is About to Be Free

The Medicine Hat, Alberta woman known only as "J.R." who helped kill her family when she was 12 years old is now fully free. In 2006, she was convicted of first-degree murder along with her then 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke, for stabbing her parents and eight-year-old brother to death. At the time, according to CBC, J.R. became the youngest person ever convicted in a multiple murder and was given the maximum sentence—ten years.

The murder of her family was apparently provoked by the girl's parents disallowing her to date Steinke, who was over ten years older than her. Though she is now 22 years old, due to the Youth Justice Act, the woman's name still cannot be revealed as part of a long-standing publication ban.

Following J.R.'s implication in her family's murder, she was placed in a psychiatric hospital for four years, then spent the rest of her sentence under community supervision, including time in a group home.

For the past five and a half years, the woman has been living and studying in Calgary. Steinke, who confessed to the killings, is currently serving life in prison.

Follow Allison Elkin on Twitter.