# Update to a Depressing Headline: 12 Year Old Girl Charged with Murder **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 17, 2007, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337 "2007-06-17T05:19:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/41 "2007-07-01T15:38:30Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] I would view it as being entirely possible that her and her boyfriend haven’t had sex, without knowing more. If so, that would pretty easily toss “molester” out the window. [/QUOTE] I doubt he hadn’t done anything at all to her but even if he hadn’t, he was grooming her. Grooming is part of molestation. Is there any qualitative difference between molesting a child and _trying_ to molest a child? ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/42 "2007-07-01T16:00:02Z")
Honestly, I don’t buy the “if she does an unthinkable thing, she MUST be crazy/abused” argument. **Dio** , I agree 100% that this girl probably has an attachment disorder or some other mental problem, but it’s plausible that she was born that way. As for the “lack of empathy, extraordinary rage against her parents (rage which goes far beyond what could be expected from a spoiled child)”, the first two parts are easily explained by the fact that she is a teenager, and the last is debatable. If her lack of empathy is extreme, then murdering in order to get her own way doesn’t strike her as being as horrific as it does you. If she thought of her family as just things and obstacles, and not human beings, then she would have been capable of doing anything to them. And nothign will convince me that wanting an older boyfriend is an automatic sign of abuse. Lots of girls want boyfriends with jobs and cars. If they’ve got a high school diploma too, so much the better. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/43 "2007-07-01T16:13:31Z")
Attachment disorder and lack of empathy are only caused by early childhood trauma. Those things are not congenital (and if they were congenital, it wouldn’t be her fault). > [@](#): > > And nothign will convince me that wanting an older boyfriend is an automatic sign of abuse. Lots of girls want boyfriends with jobs and cars. If they’ve got a high school diploma too, so much the better. For a 16-year old, maybe. But for a 12-year old, that’s a great big warning flag. Just as significantly, the fact that any parents would ALLOW a 12-year old to have this kind of sicko relationship with an adult is a further sign that something is not right in that household. Imagine this was a boy instad of a girl. Is there anyone who would not consider it extremely abnormal for a 12-year old boy to have a “boyfriend” in his 20’s? Is there anyone who would not consider the adult to be a creep of the highest order? Is there anyone who would call it normal for any parents to allow their 12-year old son to have an adult “boyfriend?” Something was going on in that house. Everything points to sexual abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/44 "2007-07-01T16:56:31Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Just as significantly, the fact that any parents would ALLOW a 12-year old to have this kind of sicko relationship with an adult is a further sign that something is not right in that household. [/QUOTE] The parents were trying to stop her from having any relationship with the guy - that seems to have been the precipitating event, from the testimony heard so far from the guidance counsellor, and the e-mails that have been entered into evidence from the girl. ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/45 "2007-07-01T17:36:59Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Attachment disorder and lack of empathy are only caused by early childhood trauma. [/QUOTE] There are related personality disorders that are caused by fetal alcohol syndrome - maybe not specifically attachment disorder, but many of the traits that lead to criminal behaviour. I didn’t want to drag out the anecdotes, but seriously, I have known personally high school girls who were not sexually abused, and had boyfriends in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s because they liked the status and the way they were showered with gifts in exchange for bjs. Is that normal and healthy? No, it’s sick and wrong, imo. But it’s bad because it’s based on crass materialism rather than genuine connection. Not because it’s a 100% reliable indicator of sexual abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/46 "2007-07-01T18:06:54Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Yes. There is no indication of psychosis in this case. No delusions or hallucinations. No misapprehension of reality. Just extreme attachment disorder, lack of empathy, extraordinary rage against her parents (rage which goes far beyond what could be expected from a spoiled child), and obvious signs of sexual abuse (like having an adult, sociopathic child molester for a boyfriend). [/quote] You may be confusing schizophrenic/psychotic behavior with psychopathology, which is what you are describing here and which is qualitatively different. Psychopaths do not have delusions or hallucinations. What they do show is lack of remorse and no desire to restraint their urges, regardless of social norms or moral order. Basically, they have no concern for the feelings of others or for society; they have no conscience. > [@](#): > > For mental illness, yes. People can be born with messed up brain chemistries, but most mentally ill people are not sociopaths. Sociopaths are created, not born. Do you have a cite for this claim? Because I think you’re wrong. Some psychopaths are just born that way. In fact, it can be either congenital or acquired, or a combination of both. However, it’s rare that a kid will behave like a full-blown psychopath, so it seems likely that the boyfriend had a big influence on her behavior in this situation. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/47 "2007-07-01T18:25:44Z")
Well, those are your opinions, **Dio** , and I don’t agree with your all of your conclusions or the leaps you took to get there. Absolutely, there is a possibility that she was molested or horribly abused, but I won’t say that it is 100% a foregone conclusion. Experts certainly do not agree that sociopaths are formed from abuse; there are plenty of experts who say that they are simply born wrong. Looking at a picture of the young girl (no problem at all to find it - just google [removed - Skip]), she does not look 12. She looks about 18. My niece is 12; she looks like a 12 year old. This girl looks far more mature. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/48 "2007-07-01T18:33:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by **featherlou** > Looking at a picture of the young girl (no problem at all to find it - just google Medicine Hat murders), she does not look 12. She looks about 18. My niece is 12; she looks like a 12 year old. This girl looks far more mature. She looks older because that is a 19 year old girl that has now also been charged in the murders. [http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/05/04/family-murdered.html](http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/05/04/family-murdered.html) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/49 "2007-07-01T18:41:23Z")
Reading more about the two from that Wikipedia page links, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle; both were messed-up people, and they encouraged each other to further heights of messed-up-ness. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/50 "2007-07-01T18:42:47Z")
[QUOTE=pool] She looks older because that is a 19 year old girl that has now also been charged in the murders. [http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/05/04/family-murdered.html](http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/05/04/family-murdered.html) [/QUOTE] That’s not the same girl - this is the 12 year old. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/51 "2007-07-01T18:46:12Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by **featherlou** > That’s not the same girl - this is the 12 year old. My bad. :smack: Damn you are right though she looks way older than her age. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/52 "2007-07-01T23:26:16Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] I doubt he hadn’t done anything at all to her but even if he hadn’t, he was grooming her. Grooming is part of molestation. Is there any qualitative difference between molesting a child and _trying_ to molest a child? [/QUOTE] Without knowing anything about either of them or their relationship, I don’t see any reason to assume that she was being groomed. It’s entirely possible that the two of them were kindred spirits. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/53 "2007-07-02T00:03:33Z")
[QUOTE=Rubystreak] You may be confusing schizophrenic/psychotic behavior with psychopathology, which is what you are describing here and which is qualitatively different. Psychopaths do not have delusions or hallucinations. What they do show is lack of remorse and no desire to restraint their urges, regardless of social norms or moral order. Basically, they have no concern for the feelings of others or for society; they have no conscience. [/quote] I know the difference. I’m not confusing anything. Read my post again. I’m saying this girl does NOT appear to be psychotic, she appears to be psychopathic, which is not a mental illness. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/54 "2007-07-02T00:32:53Z")
If she filleted her family, then regardless of whatever she is, and regardless of whatever caused her to become that, I hope she is never let out of custody again, unless it can be proven to a high degree of certainty that she will not do something similar again. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/55 "2007-07-02T02:00:27Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] I know the difference. I’m not confusing anything. Read my post again. I’m saying this girl does NOT appear to be psychotic, she appears to be psychopathic, which is not a mental illness. [/QUOTE] You’re right, I misread that part of your post. However, you are taking that as some sort of proof that she was abused, because psychopaths are made, not born. I think you’re wrong about that, at least in part. Some people are just psychopaths, without an overt, external reason for it. I don’t know if this girl is one of them, but then, neither do you. I wouldn’t assume that she was molested as an explanation for her behavior. Lots of people are molested but don’t murder their families, including an 8 year old brother. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/56 "2007-07-04T13:13:59Z")
Well, looks like she’s trying to put the blame on the boyfriend. Trial resumed yesterday, and she testified that he killed her parents, and forced her to stab her brother, and then he finished the brother off. [Chilling Testimony - Teen accused of killing younger brother says he begged for his life](http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Alberta/2007/07/04/4311225-sun.html) > [@](#): > > MEDICINE HAT – Moments after his sister stabbed him, a young boy begged for his life - only to have his throat slashed, the girl told her murder trial today. > > "He was going … ‘I’m scared, I’m too young to die,’ " the youngster’s older sister testified about her brother’s final moments alive. > > The girl, then 12, said she had been forced to knife her little brother by her adult boyfriend, who only moments earlier had slain both her parents. > > “He was yelling at me to stab him, stab him, stab him, slit his throat,” the accused killer said of her then-lover, Jeremy Steinke. > > “He was screaming,” she told defence lawyer Tim Foster. > > "I was thinking, ‘I can’t, I can’t do that,’ I think I said it and he was like, ‘you have to do it,’ " she testified. In this and other articles, she admits that she and her boyfriend talked about killing her family, but insists they were just joking around; in her circle of friends, people talked about killing people regularly, :eek: but it was just talk, she said. :eek: But she admits to stabbing her brother: > [@](#): > > Ordering her brother to stay put, she went down to investigate herself and was able to see her mother’s prone body on the family room floor. > > “I saw … my dad and Jeremy fighting,” she testified. > > After retreating upstairs she grabbed a kitchen knife from her bedroom she had earlier used to cut herself. > > She also said she tried to choke her brother unconscious before Steinke emerged from the basement. > > "He was like pleading to me and wrapping his arms around me … ‘I’m scared. What’s happening, what’s going on?’ " she said of her only sibling. > > She then stabbed her brother in the upper torso before Steinke slit the boy’s throat, she said. And then: > [@](#): > > Afterwards, Steinke fled and she took a taxi to his trailer. > > They then went to the apartment of a cocaine dealer, where they had sex, the second time they had done so, the accused killer said. The trial continues with the Crown cross-examining her today. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/57 "2007-07-04T14:35:47Z")
Lock her up and throw away the key. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/58 "2007-07-04T16:24:19Z")
Well it sounds like it’s all on the pedophile “boyfriend.” This girl is a victim (if it happened the way she says it did). ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/59 "2007-07-04T18:40:57Z")
Of course she’s saying what she’s saying; any defense lawyer defending a 13-yo girl (12 at the time of the crimes) would be incompetent if she didn’t tell her to say what she’s saying. It’ll be the word of a very pretty 13 year old against the word of a young man who by all accounts is basically an unstable loser. **Dio** , the way I look at it there are two possible explanations here. One is that [Name removed - Skip] was abused so badly that she found a loser to kill her parents for her (the emails are evidence that it wasn’t all Jeremy’s idea). The other is that she was born messed-up in the head and found someone as messed-up as her and they did this together. That’s what I’m leaning towards, since we haven’t seen any evidence yet that the family was anything but normal except for the daughter. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337/60 "2007-07-04T19:22:40Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] Of course she’s saying what she’s saying; any defense lawyer defending a 13-yo girl (12 at the time of the crimes) would be incompetent if she didn’t tell her to say what she’s saying. [/QUOTE] That’s simply not correct. Any lawyer who tells her client what to say while testifying is in breach of professional ethics and possibly committing the criminal offence of suborning perjury, for which they can be disbarred. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/update-to-a-depressing-headline-12-year-old-girl-charged-with-murder/408337.md?page=4)