Further Reading for Derek and Alex King & Jasmine Richardson
A Perversion of Justice: A Southern Tragedy of Murder, Lies and Innocence Betrayed
Girl Gone Bad : The Richardson Family Murders
Episode: 6
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A fire is reported at Terry King’s house in the 1100 block of Muscogee Road at 1:39 a.m. While one side of the house burns, firefighters find King’s body in the other half. Dr. Gary Cumberland determines at the autopsy that King died of blunt force trauma to the head, later determined to be blows from a baseball bat.
Family friend Rick Chavis drives Derek and Alex King to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, where they turn themselves in. Officers obtain confessions from both boys to their father’s death. Derek said he bashed Terry King’s head with an aluminum baseball bat. Alex said it was his idea. He told deputies the boys were afraid their father would punish them for running away from home.
Three members of the Richardson family were murdered in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada in April 2006. The murders were planned and committed by the family’s 12-year-old daughter Jasmine and her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Steinke, now going by the name Jackson May. Jasmine Richardson and Steinke were each convicted on three counts of first-degree murder. The daughter, who had turned 13 before being convicted, is thought to be the youngest person in Canada ever convicted of multiple first-degree murder counts. Her 10-year sentence was completed on May 6, 2016.
At 1:00 p.m. on April 23, 2006, the bodies of husband Marc Richardson, 42, and wife Debra, 48, were found in the basement of their home, and the body of their son Tyler Jacob, 8, was discovered upstairs. Absent from the home at that time was the couple’s 12-year-old daughter Jasmine Richardson. For a time it was feared that she might have also been a victim, but she was arrested the following day in the community of Leader, Saskatchewan, about 130 kilometres (81 mi) away, with her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Allan Steinke. Both were charged with the three murders. Later, on May 3, 2006, Steinke’s friend Kacy Lancaster, 19, was charged with being an accessory, for driving them away in her pickup truck later in the day and for disposing of evidence.