Robert Remington

Remington and Zickefoose are both journalists who covered this story for the Calgary Herald. And while the journalistic writing style often falls prey to sensationalism, in this case the authors have managed to do a pretty good job of avoiding the melodramatic. Which is challenging considering the subject matter of forbidden (not quite) teenage love and family murder. Remington and Zickefoose do an excellent job of discussing the backgrounds and lives of the murderers equally, and provide many different perspectives and sources in their analysis of the crime, ranging from court records to social media postings and recorded conversations.

Please read the rest of my review here:
http://thevegbrarian.blogspot.ca/2013/05/runaway-devil-book-review.html… (altro)

I'm surprised that the Richardson family murders weren't a big headline in the U.S. despite the fact that it happened in Canada. You would think that some people would bring it up and say "See the US Justice System isn't THAT bad. Sure we let Casey Anthony out, but we would NEVER give an underage murderer a slap on the wrist!" But, nevertheless, this is my first time hearing of this case. I was intrigued by the cover, so I decided to check Runaway Devil out of the library, and was appalled by the case and the subsequent sentence that Jasmine Richardson (one of the murderers) received.

So, Jasmine Richardson masterminded this evil plan of murdering her parents and her 8 year old little brother because her parents wouldn't let her see her 23 year old pedophile boyfriend. Oh, right, I forgot to mention that Jasmine Richardson was only 12 at this time. Yep, a 12 year-old girl masterminded a plan to snuff out her parents who were only looking out for her well-being. She was manipulative, cold, and all-around sociopathic, but can't really be categorized as such because her young brain is still developing. Therefore, she is only plagued by a conduct disorder despite the fact that all accounts on this case have stated that she has shown no remorse for the cold-blooded murders of her family.

Her pedophile EX-boyfriend (these two sick "love" birds broke up while they were/are in prison), was actually the one who murdered Jasmine Richardson's mother and father. Jasmine, herself, has admitted to stabbing her brother, even while he begged for his life stating that he was "too young to die." Jeremy has received 25-to-life, but Jasmine Richardson only received a maximum sentence of ten years, two which were taken out for time served. She'll be out by 2012 (and some people say that she's actually allowed outside to prowl amongst society during unsupervised visits). And if that isn't bad enough, if she's out and doesn't commit any crimes in five years, her record will be expunged. That's right. She'll be allowed to work as a teacher with kids despite the fact that she murdered one, if she so chooses to. Jasmine Richardson's name also isn't allowed to published by the media thanks to some idiotic law that protects vicious, underage, murderers. But I'm not Canadian nor am I a journalist, so I can say "Jasmine Richardson murdered her parents with the help of her pedophile boyfriend" all I want.

Now that I got those thoughts on the case of my chest, I can finally start off about why I DIDN'T really like Runaway Devil. The authors are clearly biased. Their views on the Goth subculture, Wicca, cutting, and Jeremy Steinke come off so strongly that you can tell exactly what they feel about each one of those things. The writing was also majorly inconsistent. For example, they write that Jasmine Richardson cried while confessing to some of her crimes (this wasn't in quotations, by the way, so it wasn't taken verbatim from the recording) and then they go on to say (in quotes from the recording) that the cop questioning Jasmine was wondering why she wasn't crying. So did she cry or didn't she cry? It doesn't change my opinion either way, but that inconsistency bothered me.

Another thing that bothered me was that the author was trying to add some poeticism to his prose...and ultimately failed at it. It's clear that this was to make Runaway Devil more dramatic. But the crimes committed are already dramatic, so why would you try to add more drama to it by putting in these hokey lines like "the shards of glass reflected JR and Steinke. 7 years of bad luck" (not verbatim, but you, unfortunately, get the picture)? This book also had moments where it dragged and was dry. It also didn't stick to the facts and was plagued with things that weren't even remotely tied to the case or the town. So it seems as if they were there to fluff the book up so that it could pass the 200 page mark.

So, I don't really recommend Runaway Devil. I gave it two stars because some of the details seem to be accurate and there really isn't another book about Jasmine Richardson's and Jeremy Steinke's crimes. But all in all, I found it to be really biased and poorly written.… (altro)