Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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Alright, welcome to another episode of the Psychopedia Podcast. I'm your co-host, Tank Sinatra, here with my co-host... Investigator Slater. Let's hear that voice. It's a good voice. I got a good voice, too. I don't love it, but people seem to like it. I like your voice. It's unique. It's identifiable, too. It's definitely unique. I was waiting on a table once. It was girls from a home who were, like, not in a good situation financially, and I was, like, trying to take care of them, and this girl goes, Yo, why you sound like a munchkin? Ha!
I was like, you know what? Oh my God. I hope you never find out. That's the most brutal thing that was ever said on this podcast. Yeah, I was like 27 years old too. It hurt, hurt. Yeah. I was like, listen, you little... All right. Charity, being nice. That's cool. No good deed goes unpunished. Exactly. And I had a complex about it for a long time. But what am I going to do? Change my voice? You don't need to. I don't think so.
So, yeah, here on the Psychopedia podcast, we get into some gnarly crimes. I'm clueless, not a big true crime guy, and it's not that I don't like it. It's just that I'm figuring out that it scares me and it puts me on edge and it makes me feel like the world is a darker place.
But I also listen to doomsday podcasts and I love those. So like six of one, half dozen of the other. I don't know why you find comfort in doomsday scenarios when the entire world is at risk of being destroyed and you can do nothing about it and you find comfort in that.
Oh, talk about the pot calling the kettle black, investigators later. Listen, with these cases, there's a lot that can be learned. Sure, there's a lot that can be learned. In an apocalyptic situation, you are helpless. Oh, just if there's an apocalypse, kill me.
Okay. Noted. Will do. I watch zombie shows and it's like, dude, just run. I know. I would run face first into a zombie. Eat me and it. Yeah. Just let me die. Living in fear and constant running and I couldn't do it either. No, just shoot me. Have my friend shoot me in the head. And then eat me. Yeah. I'd rather feed the village of the dead or the undead.
then run from them forever. It takes a village. But they're not satiable. It's not like they're going to eat one person and be like, you know what? Let's call this whole apocalypse thing off. So I just don't want to experience it. I don't want to be thirsty. I don't want to not have my pretzel crisps whenever I want them and monster energy drinks. Like I went to Turks and Caicos over like whatever it was and they didn't have white monsters. I was like, this island sucks. Oh, talk about doomsday. Yeah. Turks and Caicos without your fancy drink. Right.
Poor you. They had Coke Zeros, but they were flat. Oh, come on. Like these poor people don't get to experience like a nice crispy choking attack the back of the throat Coke Zero. That's what I want. I want to feel like I'm being suffocated by carbonation and chemicals when I drink a Coke Zero. The struggle is real for some people. Yeah. So yeah, we talk about true crime. You're the expert. You are actually, you work in the field. You are an investigator. Yeah.
I make memes for a living and make jokes and, you know, I'm dumb. So... You're not dumb. We've talked about this. You're not dumb. Okay.
Listen, if I want to be dumb, I'll be dumb. You know what? I wish I was dumb, but I'm not dumb. Why do you wish you were dumb? Because life would be so much easier. Yeah. I just have to make no decisions, just make decisions based on what I want. You'd make decisions, but they would probably be bad ones. But I could also just like choose to be a Republican or a Democrat and just like go with the party line and not have to think too hard about anything. Right. But it is what it is. Ignorance is bliss. I'm a thinker. Ignorance is ignorance and bliss is bliss.
enlightenment is bliss, but I don't know what that feels like. Yeah. So too deep. You're going to walk me through a case. I'm going to derail it with inappropriate comments because this stuff scares me and gives me anxiety. And I'm going to just try to be some comic relief in this horrific landscape of crime that you're about to lay out. And I can't wait to hear what kind of horrible case you've brought to us this week. All right. You ready?
Yeah. As ready as you're ever going to be? I'm way readier than I ever thought I could be. Okay, let's go. The idea of childhood innocence alludes to the purity of all children and the fact that they have not yet experienced the complications of everyday life, right? Kids are innocent. And the innocence of children tends to inspire a sense of optimism and hope, unspoken but universally understood, while instilling a sense of regeneration with innocence
each generation. Oh, man. I knew you would like that. She is like unbelievable. Take that, Jay-Z. Really good. Wait, say it one more time. Yes. So while instilling a sense of regeneration with each generation.
But tonight, we're going to examine all the ways in which our perpetrator completely shatters our concept of innocence and purity. So please take note that this is an official trigger warning. Tonight, we're going to be discussing the tragic murder of an entire family, including a young child, which was carefully premeditated and brutally committed by another child. Nice. God. Chucky. Chucky.
It's not a killer doll. It's a human. It's a killer human. How old was the kid? I'm sure you're going to know. We're going to get into it. This is the story of Jasmine Richardson and her downward spiral from middle class, church-going honor student and beloved child to family annihilator. What a brat. It's a whole new world for that Jasmine. Family annihilator. Wow. Yeah, she about to go on a magic carpet ride, dog. Totally.
Pull that magic carpet from beneath you and take your joke. Oh my God. Okay. So Jasmine, what was her name? Jasmine. Jasmine Richardson. Jasmine Richardson. And we're going to explore how and why such a young, seemingly typical girl carried out such an unthinkable crime and how and why she was essentially able to walk free. What? Your eyes just like bugged out of your head.
On April 23rd, 2006, death mercilessly struck three members of the Richardson family in their home in a town called Medicine Hat, Canada.
What a dumb name for a town. Okay. It's not the town's fault. I would have killed my family too. Local residents were known as hatters, by the way. Medicine hat? Yeah. What kind of psycho built that town? I don't know, but it is the sunniest city in all of Canada. The sun literally shines 330 days of the year. It's like being the smartest monkey in the zoo though. Am I right? Yeah.
Sure. You're right. Canada's not a very sunny place. Okay. 330 days a year is pretty good though. That's amazing. Medicine Hat Canada. Go look it up. I'm going to look it up. Okay. The mother of the family, Deborah Richardson, was discovered lying on the floor in an unnatural position with her head slightly supported by the back of the couch.
She was sprawled out on the carpet in a pool of blood, covered in blood streaks and smears up and down her bare legs, wearing a hiked-up blue nightgown, exposing her naked body from the waist down.
Crying and whining by her side was a small black dog named Julia. No, a dog was involved in it? Yeah, and the dog's name was Julia. And I feel like that's a name you would give one of your dogs. My dog's name is Tyler. Exactly. Yeah, so Julia, poor Julia. She was probably so sad. Terrible. That's the worst part of this story. So it's another victim in this case, really. Who can't even express their grief. Correct. Except by crying and whining. Right.
Mark Richardson, Deborah's husband, was discovered past Deborah's body to the left.
He was lying face up on the ground in his boxer shorts with blood splatters and streaks covering his body. Mark's right eye socket was nothing more than a gaping red hole surrounded by slashes and cuts on the rest of his face, and his hands were clenched upward, frozen in rigor mortis as if ready for a fight. Wow. So he quite literally died fighting. Wait, so this person didn't just like poison their family. They like brutally...
Yeah. This child. There's more to it, but yes, this child premeditated everything you're hearing. Strong kid. Yeah. Well, you're going to come to hear that there was... She was on steroids. Nope. Nope. Another key player involved that assisted. Oh.
Oh, okay. I see what's happening here. I think I'm... You have no clue what's happening. Totally clueless. Jacob Richardson, the eight-year-old son of Debra and Mark, was found murdered in his bed upstairs on the second floor, surrounded by wrestling figurines, Pokemon cards, and a Star Wars lightsaber, which is by far the worst sentence I have ever uttered in my life. That is so sad. Ugh. Eight years old? Eight years old. Ugh.
All right, come on, go. Get off this. Of note was the fact that Jasmine Richardson, Debra and Mark's 12-year-old daughter, was absent from this gruesome scene. Police were initially frantic in their search to find Jasmine, and they issued an Amber Alert out of fear that she might have been kidnapped or worse. But the reality of the situation was far more disturbing than anyone had expected. So let's examine the Richardson family up to the point of...
their murders. Deborah and Mark had both recovered from substance abuse addictions and were living healthy, sober lives when they first met at a gym in Ontario. By the time they tied the knot in 1991, their lives were on the right track. The family increased in size in 1993 when they had Jasmine, and three years later, they welcomed Jacob. The Richardsons were a growing, young, middle-class family living in a prosperous suburb with plenty of sunshine in Medicine Hat.
Deborah and Mark, by all accounts, were first-rate parents. They nurtured Jasmine and Jacob emotionally, physically, psychologically, and spiritually. They took family trips together, hosted backyard barbecues, and they were described by neighbors as a Norman Rockwell family.
They had their shit together. Old reference, but okay. Really? Norman Rockwood in the 2000s? The year 2000? People don't know Norman Rockwood? We do, but it's like, you know, I'd feel like that's like an 80s or 90s thing to say. Oh, oh, oh. I see what you're saying. Yeah. So what would you say now if you were describing a totally put together... Leave it to Beaver family. What? I'm kidding. Are you fucking 90s?
Norman Rockwell's even older than Leavitt the Beaver. I know, but it's just more like known, I feel like. I think I might say like Pleasantville or something like that. Stepford, what? That's canned. That's not right either. Pleasantville is like, hi, Dottie, you know? Right, right, right. Dottie. Yeah, I don't know where that came from. Did you come up with that? Yeah, I just saw a skirt and a sweater with a collar coming out of it.
I heard Dottie. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friend's still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn.com slash results.
LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Okay. Deborah and Mark exemplified an ideal marriage, treating each other with respect and kindness and setting a good example for their children by never resorting to violence. Great. Love was always the foundation of their relationship, which is what made Jasmine's violent behavior even more shocking. So,
So we know that not every trauma creates a killer, but most killers are created from trauma. This was not the case here. Kid was just fucking crazy. Yeah, well, we're going to watch. We're going to hear, rather. And a jerk. The transformation of Jasmine Richardson.
So you're going to tell me about what she was like as a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously. Not that she's 12 years old. She was always a kid. Was she like cutting mice heads off? No. This is what's absolutely baffling about this perpetrator and this case. She really just broke the mold everywhere. She snapped.
She didn't snap. It wasn't like a... Oh, she premeditated. Right. Jesus. All right. Yeah, I got to find out what happens. So Jasmine, up until this point, appeared to be a typical preteen girl in every way. She happened to be beautiful, which is not how I remember my preteen years, but she was beautiful. She had long, dark hair, clear blue eyes, a totally delicate looking doll face like her mother.
She attended Catholic school, had good friends, and kept a typical preteen bedroom. Right? She had stuffed animals and a white canopy around her bed and knickknacks and just girlish clutter. Her best friend at the time, Aubrey, described Jasmine as understanding, decent, outgoing, and an absolutely amazing person. Yeah. Sounds like she's a good judge of character. Uh-huh.
But as Jasmine entered adolescence, she began to change in both appearance and personality. She started to use the internet, which expanded her horizons well past the sunny borders of Medicine Hat. Oh boy. It was around this time that Jasmine developed an interest in what some consider to be a bit eccentric. And here's your first pop quiz. Yeah. Was that interest A, cosplay, B, Wicca,
Or C, medieval reenactments. Wow. These are really simple choices. Really? Yeah. Like it's not things I could see a 12-year-old. Well, that makes it a good pop quiz. Oh, it's very good. I have no clue. I'm totally guessing. Cosplay, Wicca, or medieval reenactments. Right.
I'm guessing that she got into cosplay. No. Never get it right. Never get it right. But that was a good guess. Like you said, these are sort of all believable. As good as any. Okay, so now I'm going to guess she got into medieval reenactments.
I feel like people might think we planned for me to be this bad at this, but I- It's not planned. It's not premeditated. He's just that fucking bad at these questions. So she got into Wicca. She got into Wicca. She became a witch. By the way, guess who also dabbled in Wicca as an adolescent? Me. You? Investigators later. Oh, God. Jeez. Help. I was.
Old seances with my friends with like skulls everywhere. We went to the public library to get books on hexes. You can't see it. Really? No, I'm kidding. It's like, really? It's very dark. Yeah. I'm still a little dark, but it has less to do with witchcraft and like neo-pagan beliefs and more to do with just being an overall dark person. Yeah. Wednesday. Wednesday. You literally just called me Wednesday before we started recording. Yeah.
Jasmine was so taken by Wicca that she fashioned a pentagram out of black tape on the bedroom wall, like this big wall in her bedroom. She made a big pentagram out of like black duct tape. Maybe I was into Wicca. And she framed it. I used to draw pentagrams. Are you sure they were pentagrams and not just stars? Upside down stars with a circle? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I thought they were cool. Maybe you missed your calling. You were being like summoned. Being summoned by Wicca. Mm-hmm.
So Jasmine was in sixth grade by this point in the case, just for reference. And she had begun to question the elements of formal religion being taught at her school, including the concept of hell. And it was during this time, crucially, when Jasmine began to feel a powerful pull towards the goth community and standing out from dominant culture. Her sudden preference for wearing oversized dark hoodies, a dog collar, chains, and
Exaggerated black eyeliner, black nail polish, it all suggested to the world that she just had the freedom to break the mold. Oh, she's so unique. I mean, that's the thing, right? She started listening to horror punk music and disconnecting from everything that had previously made her, her. But more importantly than the aesthetic or musical component of goth life, Jasmine felt...
what she interpreted to be a genuine connection to the goth message, which included, amongst other things, feeling alienated from mainstream society. Yeah, like every 11 and 12-year-old, I guess. Right. I was trying to think about this. I don't think we had a goth crew at our high school. Are you kidding me? Oh, I guess you did. Your year. I cannot recall. Oh.
Oh, yeah. Yeah? Okay. I mean, listen, goth back then was different. It wasn't so goth and so emo, but there was like dog collars and... That's true. Dyed black hair and black shirts and black pants and moping around the school and... Right. You know, being weird and... Authentic followers of like true goth can be defined as those who love gothic rock, gothic literature...
Victorian and medieval history and contemporary horror film. No. Yeah. These people were not reading Edgar Allen Poe. I think they were just like listening to Nirvana and thought they looked good in black. And fuck establishment. Yeah. I'm goth. Yeah, exactly. I got a dog collar on, man. But people who belong, and this is important because when this case broke-
The people in the goth community were very, very upset by the connection to their subculture. Like when media was saying that Jasmine and this other person that we're going to talk to, that we can point our fingers at the goth community and the messages that they were being taught,
It's really not the case. Like goths are not violent. No. But do you like, you remember Marilyn Manson being brought in front of, you know, the public opinion saying Columbine. Yeah. His fault. It's not, it's never, obviously there are things that people who have an inner darkness relate to or that resonates with them. I was very into the Long Island hardcore scene back then. What is that? What did that entail? Bam.
Bands like VOD and Madball and Tension and there's no 0% chance that anybody listening to this knows these bands.
But small shows at VFW halls or whatever, like place you can get for 200 bucks a night and have a bunch of bands come and everyone pays five bucks. You pay the bands $100. Right, right, right. It's a very, very, very fun time for me at that point. So I relate to the goth mentality, not the outward expression of it. Okay.
I think a lot of this is relatable. I think a lot of preteen adolescent kids just explore in general with identifying in different ways with different groups. They want to fit in. They've been fitting in maybe means I'm going to show you that I don't fit in with mainstream society, which was definitely the case here with Jasmine. So a lot of this is relatable. Well, nobody knows who they are.
I would venture to say that a lot of adults don't really know who they are. It takes a lot of work to figure out who you are under all circumstances. And hopefully in some circumstances, you never find out who you are because, you know, who would I be if I saw a robbery happening? Like what I, you don't need to know that. So straight A, formerly conventional Jasmine, began pulling away from her friends and gravitating towards the much older goth kids who hung out at the Medicine Hat Mall.
Actually, now I can picture goth kids at the mall. Yeah. I see them in the parking lot. Yeah. Smoking cloves, by the way. Oh, yeah. Which is, I mean, such a rude thing to do. It's just gross. Those people have a sense of smell, like people who wear patchouli and smoke cloves. Oh, I like patchouli. All right. Good to know. You know that the soap in your bathroom is patchouli, right? No, it's... Sandalwood? Sandalwood.
No, it's an old molten brown brand. They used to have a toku when I worked there. It was Thai lime ver. I want you to look at what it says. Patchouli and lime. Yes. I know what it says. It says patchouli. But please, it's not, it doesn't smell like, you know. It smells like patchouli, homeboy.
Keep reading, please. Not only was she changing in ways under her control, but she was also changing developmentally in ways that were out of her control. She was beginning to stand out amongst her peers as looking more mature. Boobs. Yes, precisely. It's rough. Well, it happens and most of us turn out okay.
Yeah, I mean... But it is tough. It is. There's some studies that show that girls who experience early signs of puberty are at higher risk for delinquency and aggressive behavior. Yeah, because they get treated older by fucking stupid-ass men who look at somebody who looks like a woman and can't see that they have a child's face. Correct. Like, what is wrong with you, dude? And these girls are also more likely to be depressed, socially withdrawn, moody, and sexually active.
This is obviously not a blanket rule that applies to everyone who went through early puberty. I went through, I think it was early puberty and I turned out mostly okay. But Jasmine did indeed exhibit some of these traits. Just a few months shy of her 12th birthday, she registered on a website called mindviz.com, which was a social networking website where you could message, chat, make friend requests, the usual shit.
On this page, mindviz.com, Jasmine listed her sexual orientation as bisexual, did not list her age, and had a profile picture in which she held a realistic-looking replica handgun in her right hand pointing up towards the ceiling. She was also on MySpace where she falsely listed her age as 16.
Pop quiz. Who did Jasmine list as her hero on her MySpace page? She's 11 or 12 at this point. A few months shy of her 12th birthday. Okay. Marilyn Manson. Oh boy. Jeffrey Dahmer. Oh boy. Edgar Allen Poe.
Tim Burton. Who did she name as her hero on her MySpace page? God, these are good. Can I tell you a quick story about Tim Burton? Sure. He's so good at what he does and his style is so obviously his. You see something that was made, you know, it's made by him. I may have told you this story, but we watched Beetlejuice, me and my sons and wife. And we then watched Edward Scissorhands.
Tim Burton, but my son couldn't remember. My youngest son couldn't remember the name of the movie. So he goes, dad, dad, put on that, put on that movie we watched. I was like, which movie? He goes, uh, uh, Beetlejuice, the cutter. The lines are blurry. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, that's how good Tim Burton is at what he does. He's amazing. So Tim Burton, Edgar Allen Poe, Jeffrey Dahmer, or Marilyn Manson. I mean, I'm going to reach here and say Jeffrey Dahmer.
Oh my God. I got it right? Yes. Yeah. Oh my God. I'll tell you why I guessed that. I need to know. Because that is a cry for help. And this girl was- Okay, the other ones are too in the box for a goth. Obviously going through it. Well, no, I mean, it would have been weird if she listed any of them as her hero, but
But to list Jeffrey Dahmer as her hero, it's like... I almost didn't say that because it's a little too obvious because she's obviously about to become a killer. But she was also way ahead of her time because he's everyone's hero now. He sure is. Everyone loves Jeff. Netflix's hero. Little JD. Jasmine listed her interests on MySpace as hatchets, serial killers, criminal psychology, blood, moonlight, human anatomy, and quote, kinky shit. Moonlight? I mean...
I feel like that might be my profile interest today. But remember that she's 11. Yeah, big difference. She made a bunch of other profiles on a bunch of other websites and eventually became known by the username Runaway Devil. She went on to overly exaggerate her transition from a little girl's world of ribbons and buttercups to mosh pits and kinky shit. Yeah. Also... She could write a book. Yeah.
Also, she mentions liking midgets, piercings, tattoos, suspension, plastic spoons, bitch boots, oversized tricycles, oddly colored contacts, wookie noises, fake eyelashes, and duct tape, amongst other things. Jeez, that was a lot of things. Very typical for a budding goth during this time period.
but it's reflective of her desperation to shed her innocent little girl skin and to play with the big goth kids in their black sandbox. Why was she so desperate to, you know, I guess we'll find out. Every kid I think at that age wants to be. That's what I'm saying. I think it's actually very relatable up until this point. Maybe this wasn't true for you and maybe I'm, maybe I'm like a little pathetic, but like whoever I was dating, I sort of like took on the interest and persona. What?
Well, it's so funny. Unless you're done with that. No, no. I mean, I'm just saying, you were talking about patchouli before and I was laughing because I dated like a hippie, dippy kind of guy for a little while in high school. I rocked that patchouli. I went to fish concerts. I listened to Pink Floyd. I like really, really...
It wasn't me, but it was me. It was you at the time. Right. How am I not myself? Exactly. Exactly. So my older sister was very much like that. And I remember she dated this guy who, when she was dating him, she was like a little bit like gangstered out, like, you know, matching sweatsuits and the makeup and the ponytail and whatever. Did you see Couture? No, this is like 1994. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, we're older. Your older sister. Yeah. And then...
She dated this guy who was like a metalhead and she got like, you know, Iron Maiden jackets, whatever. And then like she went through like three or four different iterations of this with different guys that she dated over the years, right? So then one day she comes out of her room and she's wearing a sweatsuit with the makeup and the ponytail. And I go to my other sister, I go, is she dating Jason again? And we fucking lost it. Lost it. Because it was like so...
obvious who she was dating based on what kind of very normal thing to do. Oh yeah. But it was this desire for Jasmine to be seen as a bad girl that ultimately drove her directly into the pale goth arms of 23 year old Jeremy Stanky. And that's actually, no, I knew I wasn't going to be able to say that. And I feel bad for laughing because he was really fucking bullied for that name. Um,
Drove her into the pale goth arms of 23-year-old Jeremy Stanky. Stanky. Yes. No wonder he fucking... Poor guy. Yeah. How do you not change your name? He's... No, no, not him. Okay, because... Wait till you hear about this guy. It's the least of his issues. They could have come from that, you know...
Giving your kid a name is a big deal. I know. Trust me. You create their identity. Absolutely. And with your kids, you just created mini yous. You send your kid out into the world with a last name like that? It's rough. I think I would have pronounced it like steink. It wouldn't have mattered. How's it spelled? S-T-E-I-N-K-E. Wait a second. So stein, S-T-E-I-N or stein. Yeah. K-E.
Stank. Oh, so you're just going to walk around like straight up German all day. Stanky. Stanky. There's no good way. I feel like... No, even if it's not even close, kids are going to stankify it. Well, so are teachers. We're going to hear about that. Oh, man. This kid had it rough, but...
Jeremy Allen Stanky was a high school dropout who lived in a medicine hat trailer park with his mom. Oh, I forgot we're in medicine hat. Anything. And unless you a rap God from eight mile, it's not a great place to be. He had bigger issues going on, including an alter ego that he claimed was vicariously liable for his actions and behavior. Pop quiz. Hmm.
With respect to his alter ego, did Jeremy A. Believe himself to be a dark balance to Jesus Christ himself, like the yin to Jay-Z's yang? B. Believe himself to be an undead being brought back to life by a supernatural crow? Or C. Believe himself to be a 300-year-old werewolf? He was one of those. He had an alter ego that was one of those. He was Jesus Christ's dark side. Right. Right.
Undead brought back to life by a crow. Right. Or a 300-year-old werewolf. Right. Oh, my God. I'm going to say that he was, in his brain, an undead person who was brought back by a crow. No. That's literally the plot to The Crow. Okay.
An undead vigilante brought back to life by a supernatural crow is the premise for The Crow. I thought maybe that's where he got the idea from, even though I've never seen that movie. That's why I put it in there. I'm like, ah, he's... He's not going to... He's going to fall for this one. Wait a second. That's literally the plot of The Crow. Okay. All right. What's the right answer?
He considered himself a 300-year-old werewolf. Not what I thought you were going to say. I would have guessed the other one. Yep. So he considered himself part of the, quote, Lycan Brotherhood, whose empire would one day rise. And he wrote about this on his personal blog. Of course he had a blog. Yeah. He would warn people in Medicine Hat to avoid the thick underbrush of the nearby river valley when the moon was on the rise, else he might eat them. Yeah. Which, by the way, never happened because nobody ever died on a full moon. So like...
At least if you're going to like talk shit, have something to back it up. I mean, you're asking a lot of this guy. Considering. Fair. But here's the sad reality of Jeremy Stanky's childhood. Don't call him that. It's his name. All right, fine. He was abused by an alcoholic father and two subsequent stepfathers. His birth father used to whip him with a belt and drag him to his bedroom by his ears.
So it's no wonder he dropped out of school only three months into the 10th grade. Jeremy started using marijuana, ecstasy, mushrooms, and alcohol at the age of 14. In fact, when he was only 15, he became so inebriated that he passed out outside and needed to be taken to the hospital for hypothermia. Wow. Yeah.
Jeremy would also cut himself. Now, I'm not a mental health professional, but my research on cutting explains that people cut themselves to feel something when they otherwise feel numb. Yep. It validates that they're alive and it also helps to release overwhelming tension stemming from intense feelings that they struggle to communicate. Yeah. And it can also be a form of self-punishment. And I think probably all of that applied. Yeah.
Yeah. To Jeremy. He worked several dead-end jobs and began dating younger and younger and younger girls. Now, some theories...
that he did that because he had learning difficulties and maturity-wise, he was just younger. So he was attracted to younger girls. Other research suggests that he intentionally sort of groomed younger girls so that he could manipulate them. They're easier to manipulate. He got really into heavy metal bands like Slipknot and Cradle of Filth. And by 2005, he had fully embraced a goth lifestyle with a heavy splash of werewolves and vampires. And
And being 300. Right. The ironic thing is that in this ever-growing violent internet bravado that he was developing...
He was really going against what we talked about earlier, true goth culture, which is generally nonviolent and just about being your own person, like live and let live. And reading poetry. Edgar Allan Poe. Itry. Itry. Yeah. But for the first time in his tragic life, Jeremy found acceptance and a community where he felt he belonged. He was popular and he was well-liked and he was looked up to by baby goths at the mall, which he loved. The Hot Topics store. Seriously. No joke.
All Jeremy needed now was a super young girlfriend. As such, he wrote and posted a poem that read, I live inside an ice empire where my heart is cold and sheltered. I wish I could find a queen who I can trust to melt it, who can light my way through the darkness of day and save this kingdom from falling. Enter Jasmine Richardson.
That spoke to her. That spoke to her. Well, she's very advanced for an 11-year-old. She wants to be. She's also just in the goth community. She's drawn to this guy. Apparently, lots of little young goth girls were into Jeremy. So there's conflicting reports regarding how the two actually met. Some sources say that they met on VampireFreaks.com. Are you fucking kidding me?
Are you serious? Yeah, it's a site geared towards uniting the goth community. Others say they were introduced at the mall by a mutual friend, but most sources say that they met at a punk rock concert. So we're going to go with that. Sure. But anyway, here's all that matters. They met in 2006 when Jasmine was 12 and Jeremy was 23. Okay, I'm glad you brought that up because we're going to get to that. What is she doing at a punk concert? Jasmine's parents
parents understandably took issue with everything that they were seeing. Okay. Particularly with the fact that her new boyfriend was 23. Oh, yeah. Even though her mother used to joke that Jasmine was 12 going on 20. Also, I did read something interesting. I want to bring this up because I think this shit is interesting. Adolescence is typically the only time in life when people feel older than their age. The only decade where people identify with their true age is during the 20s.
After 30, the average person feels younger than their chronological age. Oh, yeah. It's interesting. You don't find it interesting? No, it isn't. You do? Okay. I didn't know if you were being like facetious. No, because I'm 42 years old. I don't feel 42. I think I've told you I turned 22 and then I turned 36. Right. My twin sister and I always, when people ask how old we are, we say 26. We're 40. Yeah.
Yeah. 26. We're locked in. Yeah. But I also really do feel better and healthier now than I did when I was 26. Oh, I was a disaster at 26. Yeah. I mean, I was not a disaster. Like I had my shit together, but like,
definitely psychologically. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was not able to stand still for even a second or keep a thought from entering my head and dominating the space. Yeah, it's a tough place to be in. Yeah. Of course, like the more Jasmine fought with her parents and raged against the machine, the more she sought solace in Jeremy. Yeah, she was going to become a slayer. Yeah.
Took a pet Pantera. Her tragic life, that's sarcastic, was filled with rules and curfews and in direct opposition was her escape route from all that in a Jeremy-shaped package. And love and caring parents. Her parents really, really tried to rein her in, which I'll get to in a little bit. But she saw her ticket out and she saw a really loud way of saying fuck you to her parents by continuing to date Jeremy. Stanky. Right.
He had it all in her eyes, from the goth look to the fuck establishment attitude to the ability to make the final and fatal move against her family. Pop quiz regarding Jeremy's aesthetic. Yeah. Did he, A, wear a vial of blood around his neck?
B, grow his fingernails and toenails long? Or C, did he have a tattoo of a Marilyn Manson quote saying, quote, I wasn't born with enough middle fingers? The tattoo. No. Don't tell me he grew his toenails. No, but I put that one in there because I figured a werewolf would have long...
Yeah. I was visualizing long toenails and I didn't like it at all. Yeah. It's gross, but it could have been. But he wore a vial of blood around his neck. Wow. What a real interesting guy. Yeah. He claimed that he loved the taste of iron-rich plasma and that he wore the vial in case he ever got a craving. Oh, he's a werewolf. He's a werewolf, but that's a vampire. Yeah, I know. But it was on VampireFreaks.com. This guy's shot. Yeah.
God doesn't know who the fuck he is. He also gifted Jasmine a vial of his own blood to wear around her neck, and she did. What a guy. So keep in mind that Debra and Mark monitor Jasmine's computer use. Listen, also first, by the way, just real quick, red flag.
If somebody wears blood around their neck and they give you blood to wear around your neck. I mean, it was good enough for Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton. We saw it happen with MGK and Megan Fox too, though. Look what happened with them. And Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie. True, true, true. It doesn't work amongst those types of people. You're right. It can't work. Also, tattoo rings. Yeah. They don't work. No. Don't do it. No. Nice idea. Don't do it. Don't do it. So Mark, Jasmine's dad,
even took her computer to a local shop to have them hack into her MSN account. And when they weren't able to help, he took the entire computer away from Jasmine. They were on her. They really were. Listen, we're parents, right? It's really tough to know how much of a lead to give them, how much of a lung of a leash, if you will, to keep them on. Because if you close the ranks on them too much, then...
rebellion is definitely going to face you. But if you also let them just live their lives according to the fucked up ways they want to do it, you're also putting them in harm's way. It's just a delicate balance and they tried. Well, in their defense, I don't think they could have parented her better. Right.
And they did try to rein her in and prevent her from seeing Jeremy. They grounded her. They cut off her phone privileges. They took her MP3 player away. They took her eyeliner away, her hair straightener away. They were trying in the ways that they knew how. Well, she's a 12-year-old dating a 23-year-old. Listen, you got to try and keep your kids, obviously, out of harm's way. Safety first. You got to talk to the 23-year-old, too. Right. You got to say, dude, come near my fucking daughter again. We're going to have a real problem. You goth freak. Yeah.
you're into blood. You're into blood, son. I'll show you. Very into blood. Yeah. I probably like it. They continued seeing each other, Jeremy and Jasmine. They fantasize about getting married, having a goth wedding, getting tattoo rings and living in a castle in Europe.
Nightmare. Then on March 20th, 2006 at 7.10 PM, Jasmine messaged Jeremy on the computer. She wrote, Roar, I hate them. So I have this plan. How did she spell roar? How do you think? R-A-W-R? Yes. Yeah. God. She's so good. We are good at this computer thing. So she said, Roar, I hate them. So I have this plan. It begins with me killing them and ends with me living with you.
And Jeremy responded with, Jasmine, on many occasions and often in front of mutual friends, openly discussed her wish for Jeremy to annihilate her family. One of Jeremy's friends later indicated that Jeremy told him that he was worried that if he didn't do it, Jasmine would break up with him. On March 24th, Jeremy posted a poem on one of his pages that said,
A few weeks later, Jasmine lost her virginity to Jeremy, and the two entered into the phase of plotting the massacre of Jasmine's entire family.
So now it's the night of April 23rd, 2006, and Jeremy is tweaking on cocaine, high on pot and ecstasy, drunk on beer and vodka and vampire Syrah wine. Oh, Syrah. Syrah. Apparently Alice Cooper bought the initial 200 cases of that type of wine or something.
He's out of his fucking head. Oh, yeah. He throws a pine cone at Jasmine's bedroom window to let her know that he's outside. I don't know why he didn't put his head through it, but he threw a pine cone at it. Such a weird choice. Every part of the couple's brand coalesced within them that night. The anger, the rebellion, the morbid poetry, death metal lyrics, internet bravado, alter egos, and rage. And of course, bloodlust.
Jasmine left the basement window open for Jeremy to climb into. And this is when Debra, Jasmine's mother, heard a noise.
And this brings us full circle right to the top of the episode. Dressed in her blue nightgown, she went down to the basement and turned on the light. There, she was greeted by a terrifying figure wearing black clothing, a black mask, black fishnet arm stockings, a neck bandana, and light eyes colored in black eyeliner. The cocaine-fueled Jeremy lunged at Debra, slashing and stabbing her exposed torso with the knife that she brought in her hands, like defensively up to her face. Jesus. Jesus.
This is when Mark bolted out of bed in his boxer shorts and went to defend his wife, who by that point was slumped on the ground and covered in blood. There was a brief moment when the two men, so Mark Richardson and Jeremy, were neck and neck in battle. But Jeremy gained the upper hand after gouging a screwdriver into Mark's right eye. Oh, that's how the eye thing happened. Yeah. Ugh.
After being stabbed repeatedly and just moments before he breathed his last breath, Mark uttered the word, why? Yeah. To his killer. Great question. And Jeremy's reply would be the last words Mark ever heard. And he said, because you treat your daughter like shit. It's what your daughter wanted. Oh, that's rough. I hate it. Yeah, I don't like that either. I hate it.
Jeremy, now completely soaked in Debra and Mark's blood, made his way upstairs where Jasmine greeted him with kisses and words of, "'I love you.'"
They made their way to the top floor of the house and entered little Jacob's purple bedroom. Skip this part. I'm skipping it. They took his life. I can't get into the details. Why did they do that to him? Well, Jasmine in interviews said that she knew or felt she knew that her brother could not live without his parents. He was a scared little boy. He was eight years old. Of course. Well, we know this. She almost implied that she was doing it out of mercy.
But obviously, no. She did it or? So she stabbed him in the chest and Jeremy slit his throat. It was fast. It wasn't fast. Well, throat slit is pretty fast. No, it was not fast. If you read accounts about how forensics kind of broke down, there was blood in the hallway. He tried to get out. He ultimately, he took his lightsaber to try to defend himself. I can't.
Jasmine told Jeremy that she needed a few minutes and after she got her shit together, they would just hightail it out of there. But by the time Jasmine went downstairs to meet him by the back door like they agreed upon, Jeremy had already gone, leaving behind a blood smear on the door handle and leaving behind Jasmine.
So, remember, he's tweaking. He's like totally fucked up. He's just murdered everyone. Jasmine took her mother's ATM card. So she robbed her dead mother, which is not cool. The least of... The least of what happened, but also so not cool. It's like insult to injury. She went to a nearby 7-Eleven, withdrew cash, and then took a cab to Jeremy's trailer.
They sat on his bed and made out before packing Jeremy's bag and driving off in his mother's pickup truck to a friend's apartment barely one kilometer away from Jasmine's house that had the bodies inside. Did she ask him why he left? No. I mean, he was... Well, he was... First of all, she had zero reaction at this point to what was going on, whether she was in shock or whether she's just...
You can't diagnose psychopathy in a girl that young. Yeah. But the way she describes herself in that state to me reads you're either completely psychopathic or in shock. Yeah. Okay. Or maybe both. I don't know if you can be both actually. At this point, Jasmine and Jeremy are on the run.
And the police are investigating. So they go to Jasmine's school because they think she could have been kidnapped. They're still trying to find her and they gain access to her locker. When they open her locker, they realize that they might be dealing with something far more sinister than they thought. In Jasmine's locker was a drawing depicting a stick figure family of three.
all burning alive with two people watching, laughing, and running towards a vehicle that was labeled Jeremy's truck. What a fucking idiot. It's such a 12-year-old thing to do. Yeah. You know, like, what the hell? Not even great at drawing. It's like a, that's so weird to picture, that drawing, just stick figures and Jeremy's truck. And they're burning alive, and she and Jeremy in the picture are laughing. Not subtle. No.
It was at that moment when Jasmine Richardson went from missing to murder suspect. Ah, yeah. Great police work. At 7.51 the next day, this next part is great police work.
In a town called Leder, which was less than 100 miles away from Madison Hat, Constable Aaron Ewart spotted a truck pulled over at a gas station, which contained four people inside, two of whom were Jasmine and Jeremy's friends, and the other two were Jasmine and Jeremy. And on the side of Jeremy's truck, it said Jeremy's truck. It was this picture. Yeah.
Jasmine didn't have pants on. Just a little side note. In the gas station? In the truck in the gas station. Oh, okay. Now, this police officer had seen the pictures of Jeremy and Jasmine the day before, and he recognized them. So he drew his service pistol, he ordered them out of the vehicle, and he cuffed them. And he arrested them. And as Jeremy was being placed into the back of the police car, he yelled out to his friend, tell my mom she can have my TV and that I love her.
Like he knew it was over. Oh, yeah. Less than 30 hours after the massacred family was discovered by a six-year-old neighborhood boy peeking through the window of the Richardson house, he went to see if Jacob wanted to play. Oh, my God. Jeremy and Jasmine were in custody and each charged with three counts of first-degree murder. It was determined that Deborah suffered from 12 stab wounds, the fatal one being to her heart.
Mark suffered 24 stab wounds and died of blood loss, fighting like a warrior until the very end. And little Jacob, five stab wounds to his chest and his throat was slit. I can't even talk. It's so bad. About to cry, huh? Yeah. It's terrible. Yeah.
At 12 years and six months of age, Jasmine Richardson became the youngest person charged with multiple homicides in Canada. As set out in Canadian law, a person can be found guilty of murder in four ways. One, by directly committing the murder. Two, by aiding the perpetrator, as in like physically assisting the killer to commit the murder or helping them to gain entry into, right? Which is exactly what she did. She left the basement window open for him.
Three, by abetting the killer or like encouraging, inciting, which she did. Or four, by counseling the killer, such as coaching him or her on how to carry out the crime. She's pretty guilty. She's pretty fucking guilty. She pleaded not guilty, however, and her defense tried to convince the jury that she was essentially groomed by this disturbed older man and that like she was under his love spell, pun intended.
Her defense team claimed that Jasmine was just joking about wanting to kill her parents and that Jeremy took things too far, but the jury didn't buy it. They returned a verdict with astounding swiftness. They deliberated for just three hours and they found Jasmine Richardson guilty on three counts of first degree murder.
But Canadian law under the Youth Criminal Justice Act states that the sentence imposed on Jasmine given her age had to be the least restrictive possible while still holding her accountable for her actions.
So the maximum custodial sentence that Jasmine could receive was just six years, followed by another four years of conditional supervision in the community, like parole. Wow. She was also eligible to receive rehabilitation services geared towards violent young offenders suffering from mental illness, a psychological disorder, or an emotional disturbance. I mean, she's going to grow up in jail, so she's going to, I mean, her life is... Oh.
I mean, you might hear, not many people take that thought process. Well, she's 12 to 18. She's going to be in jail. Like her life is fucked. I don't think that's the case. So it's over, right? Her period. So it was determined that she suffered from a conduct disorder, by the way, just getting back to why she was sentenced, what she was sentenced and whatever. Conduct disorder is like the pediatric version of an antisocial personality disorder. She was also diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder.
Someone under the age of 18 cannot legally be labeled a psychopath or a sociopath. Instead, they get the label of conduct disorder. She was sentenced to four years in custody since she had already served 18 months in custody during the trial and four and a half years of community supervision, which was the maximum sentence that they were allowed to give her. Under Canada law, youths cannot be punished, only rehabilitated.
Jeremy was given the mandatory prescribed sentence, which was life without parole for 25 years. So in 2033...
He'll be eligible for parole. Obviously, he should not get it for so many reasons. And today, Jasmine is living quietly in an unknown community somewhere in a secret location. But she's described as being the poster child for rehabilitation. So to me, it would seem that she's doing just fine. Where does she live? Medicine Shirt? Sorry.
Good one. Medicine jacket. Where it rains 330 days of the year. Wow. So she's, listen, I mean, it's a bad story. It's rough. It's really rough. It's funny because I related to everything but the brutal parts. Like I related to her...
draw to the goth community i related to her having this alter ego i related to going through puberty very young and dealing with that i get all that yeah i don't get the rest of it yeah well obviously you're not a thankfully i don't get it you're not a killer maybe dark but i'm not violent fun dark right not like you know right right dark not scary dark right
So I want to end on a pop quiz. Great. Which movie largely inspired Jeremy to follow through with the mass murdering of the Richardson family? Can't wait. A, Heathers. B, Natural Born Killer. C, Fear. Hmm.
Heather's natural born killers or fear, Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon. Let me in the fucking house. Oh, fear. And Alyssa Milano. Fear. Right. So it's not fear, but the whole premise of fear is that there's this like middle class teenage girl who's dating a bad boy, which is Marky Mark. Yeah. And,
He wants to kill her father because he doesn't allow, but no, it's not that. So I don't know why I'm going into this whole plot. It's not fear. It's natural born killer. Oh. Sorry. You weren't going to say heathers, were you? That was probably going to be my- Really? Yeah. Damn. Have you ever seen Natural Born Killer? Yeah. It's about like a romantic couple that goes on a spree killing escapade. Yeah, but like they were out on the road doing that.
I think they hit the road after these murders and maybe intended to keep going. Oh, wow. That was like the beginning of their... Could have been. I don't know. Yeah, I mean... I'm glad I don't know. I haven't thought about that movie, Fear, in a long time. Yeah, it was a good one. Let me in the fucking house! I hated the decapitation of the German Shepherd. I don't remember that part.
I literally just remember Let Me in the Fucking House. That's all I remember because it was like so scary to me. It was scary. It was a scary movie. Oh, yeah. That was his second best movie he's ever made. First best is I Heart Huckabees. Yeah. Best movie. So that's what I'm going to be thinking about. I'm just going to try and see. I got to like unpollute my brain now. Yeah. Well, this was tough. I think anytime a child is involved and one of the victims obviously being a child, but also one of the perpetrators being a child.
Yeah, and listen, Jeremy's not an adult necessarily either. There's obviously something very wrong with him that he was 23 years old, thought it was okay to date a 12-year-old. He thought she was 14, but whatever, still. That doesn't make it any... It does not make it any better. I thought she was 13. But he was very immature. He had learning difficulties. You know, I'm not excusing him for one second. He's exactly where he should be right now. But I always empathize with...
mental illness and just things that are out of people's control that prompt them to behave in outlandish ways. I think that was at play here. Yeah, we can have obviously empathy for the people in the story that committed the crime and still believe that they got what they deserved. Yeah, like I just because somebody's mentally ill doesn't mean that they should be in society. Like most of the time people that are in jail are not
mentally healthy people. Right. Something's missing. Something along the way got turned the wrong way and misinterpreted, or maybe they were given bad information or bad modeling by parents or whatever drugs, you know, and with Jeremy, he was abused in his childhood by multiple people. All of it, you know, right. He had all of it. He really had all of it. He was primed to go to jail. Yeah. He was going to go to jail for one reason or the other. Probably, probably, you know,
It happened to be a cocaine-fueled murder spree. Correct. On his 12-year-old girlfriend's family. Ugh. Whatever. Yeah. I was going to say, what a piece of shit. I mean, he is a piece of shit, but we understand maybe why he's a piece of shit. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't look at a piece of shit and be like, listen, don't call it a piece of shit. Yeah.
It's still a piece of shit. Yeah, it is what it is. So let's call it what it is. So yeah, thanks for doing this to me. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you to all of our listeners for sticking it out. I hope everyone can forgive me for this one. It's a very well-known case. Yeah? Yes. But it really is very fascinating if you, and we won't get into it because it's not a legal podcast, but like the case law around this case, it's just very interesting stuff.
It's a very well-known case in the true crime community, but for those who didn't hear it, I am so sorry. And for those who have heard it before, I hope that we brought maybe something new and different. Yeah. And they, you know, obviously I make jokes. I'm not trying to make light of the kid being killed. No, you were, you were like, you turned white. It's got me a little messed up. You turned whiter than you already are. I'm so white.
This is what you came for. Right. This is what you asked for. This is what you fucking look for a true crime podcast and click play and you got what you wanted. So I hope that you're happy. And if you're not happy, that sounds like a you problem. But if you are happy.
rate it, review, subscribe, tell your friends about this new true crime podcast with an incredibly buttoned up professional investigator named Investigator Slater and a wild meme making maniac named Tank Sinatra because we're just trying to bring some fun to the true crime space because there is none. It's very scary and I'll be reeling from this episode for quite some time. As will I. Thanks for listening.