Runaway Devil now showing “genuine remorse”

Talk about a perfect report card — J.R. was praised a second time for making progress in therapy as Canada’s youngest multiple killer.

The teenage girl convicted in the slaying of her Medicine Hat family is now expressing “significant” and “genuine” remorse for her role in the killings as a 12-year-old.

But there was no word if that means she’s admitted her role in her brother’s murder.

The sentencing reviews are the public’s only chance to learn how the girl is faring with rehabilitation.

She’s doing so well, there will likely only be three more public updates now that the judge is satisfied to meet just once a year.

The young woman, who cannot be identified, appeared over closed circuit television in Medicine Hat Court of Queen’s Bench for a sentencing review hearing Monday.

She has been in intensive therapy since being convicted of three counts of first-degree murder for her role in the killing of her parents and eight-year-old brother on April 23, 2006.

She has three and a half years remaining on her conditional intensive rehabilitative custody and supervision sentence.

She will be 22 when she is free.

Although the teen’s therapy plan is kept private, case workers say they believe her remorse appears genuine.
“It appears the IRCS order is working as you intended it to,” Crown prosecutor Ramona Robins told Justice Scott Brooker.
The judge ruled that because of the progress the teen is making with therapy, her twice-yearly sentencing reviews will be scaled back to one hearing a year.
“You continue to work hard under the IRCS order and continue to respond to it. You are doing well… All I can say is keep up the good work,” Brooker said.
“Thank you,” the teen said.
The girl had been living in a group home as she was being readied to reintergrate to society.
“All things considered, she’s doing exceptionally well,” said defence lawyer Katherin Beyak.
“She’s in the community, she’s starting to get her feet on the ground and build a life for herself,” Beyak said outside of court.
The teen is taking university classes, living on her own, and holding down a full time job, court heard. Her employer rates her “excellent” in performance reviews. She is continuing to receive psychiatric counselling.
A case worker said the teen “is doing fine in the community and I don’t anticipate that will change.” She also continues to “strive and work out issues with her therapy.”
The teen, dressed plainly in a black short-sleeved shirt and her dark hair in a ponytail, is serving the maximum youth sentence of 10 years. She is in the final stretch of a four-phase program of stabilization, intensive therapy, transition and reintegration.
In the past, it has been said the girl had a “failure to internalize” or take responsibility for her role in the killings.
The teen and her former boyfriend, Jeremy Allan Steinke, who was 23 at the time, were both convicted of three counts of first-degree murder at separate jury trials. The girl is Canada’s youngest multiple killer.
Steinke and the girl had been carrying on an illicit romance for a few months before her parents learned of it and tried to stop it.
Through online messages under their user names “soul eater” and “runaway devil,” the pair discussed killing the girl’s parents.
Steinke admitted stabbing the girl’s parents to death. The girl denied any role in the killings. Neither has ever admitted to the little boy’s murder.
On the night of the killings, court heard, the girl phoned Steinke, who arrived drunk and high on cocaine at the family’s darkened house.
Both parents confronted Steinke, who was armed with knives.
They bled to death in the basement.
Hours after the killings, the two had sex and were seen kissing and giggling at a house party.
They were arrested with friends the next morning in Leader, Sask., 150 kilometres northeast of Medicine Hat.
In the days following their arrest, the couple agreed through prison love letters to marry, but the relationship quickly crumbled when they blamed each other for slicing the boy’s throat.

Muckle Emerges

Ten times, day and night since Thursday, my phone is ringing, ringing, ringing.

Albert Muckle wants to talk.

As the Calgary Herald exclusively reports here, the convicted Banff rapist is trying to appeal his dangerous offender status. You can read extensive background here.

The 32-year-old says he’s been kept from applying for an appeal for his indeterminate prison sentence, which was handed down in 2006.

It’s not uncommon for prisoners to file their own appeals. But half a dozen years later is a bit of a head scratcher.

I’ve been writing about Muckle’s horrific crime since he left a young Ottawa victim for dead on a Banff riverbank in 2005. I interviewed him in jail, through letters and over the phone, trying to learn who he is and how he crossed paths with 20-year-old Julianne Courneya. He changed her life, and the lives of her loved ones, forever.

Muckle’s calls are a shock after so many years. And considering he’s a psychopath who arguably suffers from the effects of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (his mother surrendered all nine of her children on the White Dog reserve due to her alcoholism), a successful appeal is unlikely.

He talks a mile a minute, bringing me up to speed on the conspiracy against him. The judge, the Crown prosecutor, prison guards, everyone is screwing him over, he says.

And, in fact, he says he received a mighty shit-kicking from Kent Institution guards after protecting a female guard from a fellow inmate attempting to rape her.

After all these years, Muckle is sticking to the same old stories with vigor. He paints himself as a victim of a grand conspiracy.

He never asks after Courneya, whose family gave up nearly everything to afford hyperbaric oxygen therapy (brain injury treatment) they believed would bring her through a wall of sleep.

In July, a fundraiser for her trust fund was held in her hometown of Kanata, Ont. It was around the seventh anniversary of the attack that put Courneya in a coma that leaves her unable to speak or care for herself.

I’ve long lost track of Juli’s progress, but it’s a safe bet the family deserves help.

Banff Cabbie Killer Gets Full Parole

 

EXCLUSIVE:

My update on the Parole Board of Canada’s decision to grant B.C.’s Ryan Jason Love full parole here.

Love, who turns 41 later this month, has served half his life in prison.

His life sentence for second-degree murder with no chance for parole for 20 years has arrived. In November, he’s on full parole.

Now, Love must abide by the usual conditions — abstain from drugs and alcohol, attend psychological counselling, avoid victim’s family, etc.

But he’s already pinging the radar for a night out at the peelers just two months after being granted day parole. A buddy flagged at a checkstop driving him home blew at a warning level, police say. Love was given a warning from the parole board and says he’s going to pick better friends.

Drugs and alcohol are at the root of Love’s past problems. This is a warning sign. He’s been making good strides, is still looking for steady work a year after being granted day parole.

He has a long road ahead of him.

Inspiration is everywhere

Writer Emily Schultz says the idea for her novel, The Blondes, was inspired by a magazine ad.

The story focuses on a rabies-like virus that turns blondes into homicidal maniacs.

From the National Post:
“While reading Vanity Fair on a flight to New York, where the author lives part of the time with her husband and fellow author Brian Joseph Davis, she was struck by an ad featuring ‘three blondes walking, almost as if they had just come out of a jungle,’ she says. “They looked very vampiric, like they might just gather together and attack you.’”

Gawd, she’s right: Gucci’s spring/summer 2009 ad campaign shot by photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin tells a story, all right.

“Schultz already had the idea to write a book called The Blondes that would deal with women and power, and toyed with the idea of a blonde illness before dismissing it as more of a joke. ‘But as soon as I saw the ad, which was almost menacing, I knew I had to write this,’ she says.”

It’s always inspiring to see magazine features and short stories turned into feature films. But a novel from an advert? Love it. Inspiration is everywhere.

The Secret Life of a Fabulist

After more than two years of squirrelling away scraps of paper and collecting interviews, my story on Daniel Clayton is here.

I’ve been fielding plenty of reader questions about my Calgary Herald story, Fanciful Secret Life Ends in Calgary Prison Cell. I will answer some of them here.

Clayton’s self-promotion and quest for publicity is not unlike the case against accused Canadian killer Luka Rocco Magnotta. Eerie similarities abound in how they both invented personas and pursued the limelight.

Q: “How did you find out? Did you get a tip?”

A: The old adage “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” fits perfectly here. In 2009, my sharp colleagues, including @stephmassinon, smelled something fishy after being contacted by Daniel Clayton, offering unsolicited commentary. Now, typically, reporters rely on dial-a-quote sources to comment on news of the day. University professors, lawyers, association spokespeople — anyone with insight germane to the story.

The thing is, we call them — not the other way around.

It was an anonymous email sent Nov. 28, 2009 that didn’t pass the smell test. The heavily detailed, two-page email came from a user called “lindhoutfacts.”

It was, in a word, desperate.

In it, the writer heaped praise upon Clayton, fawning over his career and “exposing facts” about Alberta kidnapping victim Amanda Lindhout, freshly rescued from Somalia.

The email reads:

“(Clayton) collated a full intelligence report that was submitted to Canadian Foreign Affairs in August, 2009, with follow-up reports in September and October… within the report was the current location of Amanda Lindhout, the cell phone number of the group holding her, known safe houses of the group, known associates of the group and information on Amanda’s health.”

In follow up emails, the writer lamented that Clayton had offered his services as a fundraiser: “which thinking about it, would obviously have been a great idea due to the high profile people that Daniel is involved with. He used to be the Bodyguard (sic) for Brad Pitt, Madonna and various other celebrities and in his circle of friends are local influential businessmen such as Brett Wilson, Bernard Florence, Tony Dilawri and Fabio Centini; not to mention their friends too,” he wrote in the email.

In August 2009, news outlets began crediting Clayton as a Calgary “security expert.”

But that wasn’t Clayton’s first time getting his name — and apocryphal yarns — into print.

In September 2007, the Calgary Sun ran two stinkers. Under his name Aaron Robinson (there are four identities by our count), Clayton was breathlessly identified as a British bodyguard to the stars who spied Angelina Jolie in her underwear, shopped in London with Meg Ryan, and “had the backs of everyone from ambassadors to Tinseltown glitterati in places all around the world.”

Phooey.

Clayton goes on to claim: “I’ve been stabbed, I was saved by my body armour when I was shot, blown up three times, I’ve had hypothermia twice, been in a helicopter crash and in Calgary I had West Nile virus.”

It is also the first mention of his claims at being awarded a Purple Heart one month after being injured in Iraq. Fast-forward to his 2012 trial for child pornography charges. Clayton backpeddled on the witness stand, using his testimony to clarify it was a purple ribbon. But in the pages of his self-published book, he said he never filled out the paper work to receive the Purple Heart. (Yes, I’ve read his self-published paperback, Against All Odds. No, I don’t recommend it.)

On July 30, 2010, police announced three child pornography charges against Clayton.

I may have been seen jumping up and down in the newsroom. That was the exact moment we knew we had a bigger story to dig in to. Of course, we had saved the “lindhoutfacts” emails because all good hoarders know they’re going to come in handy someday.

The results are below. Send me your questions and I’ll be happy to answer them!

Fanciful secret life ends in Calgary prison cell
Security consultant serving time for child pornography
By Sherri Zickefoose
Calgary Herald
June 10, 2012
The way Daniel Clayton tells it, he was born to lead a life of international intrigue. At 15, he forged his mother’s signature to enlist in the British army. The dual British and Canadian citizen rose quickly through the ranks to become a decorated war hero, serving in the elite United Kingdom Special Forces in direct support to the renowned Special Air Service — all by his early 20s. He served in Afghanistan and Borneo, and survived a roadside bomb blast in Iraq while protecting officials when he served the United States Department of Defence. Then, for a change of pace, he became a bodyguard to the stars. Madonna, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are among those he says he protected. Along the way, he found time to earn two university degrees, self-publish his memoirs, run multiple risk advisory, security, concierge and public relations companies, and proposed to his girlfriend. He also dabbled as a one-time record producer, regular media commentator, entrepreneur and philanthropist — Clayton’s resume boasted all of it by the age 28. His self-proclaimed successes came to an abrupt halt after police exposed his secret addiction to child pornography. Clayton was leading a double life — one without his wife and two children, left behind when he disappeared from England in 2005 and arrived in Calgary seeking a new start. With a new name. “It’s all rubbish,” said the woman who married Clayton when he was Aaron Robinson. “I was with him between 2001 and 2004. He never went to university (in England), was never in special forces, never wounded, never got a purple ribbon.” The pair are still legally married. The woman, who remains living in England, says she is seeking compensation from Clayton for abandoning her and their children. She asked not to be named in this story. “He had left us to go to Canada alone to start his new life,” she said. But the secret life he began in Calgary has come to a shocking end. On May 18, a Calgary judge sentenced Clayton, 30, to three years in prison for distributing and possessing child pornography, the likes of which she described as “violent and repulsive.” He maintains his innocence. Daniel James Clayton started life as Aaron Luke Robinson, born Nov. 24, 1981, near Leeds, England. He was 19 when his mother, a Canadian, died there in 2000. A few years later, Clayton left his duties as a lance corporal in the British army. He says he worked for a private security and risk management company in the U.K., called Aegis. The company confirmed Clayton was a self-employed contractor for one year in 2004, but was never awarded a purple ribbon, according to sources. Clayton legally changed his name from Robinson and wrote about his tales of war, which he chronicled in a self-published paperback, titled Against All Odds. He handed copies out to impress friends and clients. But the name change confused some new Calgary pals, who say they were already growing skeptical of their charming British friend’s stories. “He said ‘I changed my name,’ and we started calling him Danny-Aaron,” said a wedding planner who met him through his company, Pinnacle Concierge. The company managed secondary tickets for events, including passes to parties at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. “He made it sound like he was going to host his own private parties. People buy the tickets and resell them, it’s down to scalping at the end of the day,” an event planner says. Clayton was a persistent networker, and had convinced a local event planner to let him handle the mailing list for an exclusive meet-and-greet during a 2007 Art Garfunkel concert. But when photographs of Clayton and the folk star appeared in the pages of another city newspaper, quoting Clayton as having provided concierge services, organizers were quick to react. “He put himself in the paper after getting his picture taken with Art, which wasn’t allowed. He made it look like he put on the show. I called him the next day and yelled at him,” the organizer said. He also befriended an aspiring young singer just out of her teens, and in 2008, he funded her demo CD of self-penned songs. He named himself CEO of NuDecade Records Inc., an independent Calgary-based recording and management company. His career as a music producer began and ended paying for friend Brittany Robart’s recording time. Clayton’s LinkedIn website profile listed a lengthy military history and two university degrees. One was a criminal justice and legal studies degree earned between 2001-2004 at Canterbury Christ Church University, followed by an MBA in risk management at the University of Calgary between 2007 and 2009. But Clayton was never enrolled at U of C, the university confirmed. Clayton’s luck never seemed to run out. And fact-checking never seemed to stop his publicity as a security expert in the local news. He was featured in Business in Calgary magazine’s 2010 Leaders of Tomorrow. He was quoted in Business Edge. When news about the kidnapping of Alberta freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout in Somalia broke, Clayton kept in touch with reporters, offering commentary with an insider’s perspective. “We have the location of where she is. We have a cellphone number for the group that’s actually holding her,” Clayton was quoted saying in the Toronto Star on Aug. 23, 2009. “We have a lot of credible intelligence. Enough to mount a rescue if the government was so inclined.” It was a bold statement, and one that newsrooms jumped on as Lindhout’s captivity dominated headlines. When the Globe and Mail published an online story Nov. 26, 2009, quoting Clayton saying that his company provided “regular intelligence reports on the case of what we found out” to Lindhout’s family and the federal government, and that “hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on that operation,” he began to backpedal. Within hours, Clayton issued a hasty news release and started distancing himself from claims he’d had anything to do with Lindhout’s release. The two-page statement said that while he had gathered intelligence on the case, he was never contracted by the family or the government and that his company Diligence “withdrew our involvement approximately six months ago, when we learned of other efforts being co-ordinated to rescue Amanda.” But he couldn’t help himself from adding: “There is no way to measure how the information we cultivated and provided to the family and the Canadian Government may have assisted in the success of Amanda’s negotiation and subsequent release.” A 250-word biography followed, noting Clayton was a published author, regular media commentator, entrepreneur and philanthropist. “He honestly caused a lot of anxiety to a lot of people and put lives at risk,” said a Lindhout family friend. “It wasn’t a game. What he was doing was untrue and dangerous.” Clayton’s exaggerated world came crashing down after an illicit Internet chat with an undercover Toronto police officer. Clayton, whose user name was Intotaboo, claimed to have had sex with his sister when she was between three and nine years old. Police found thousands of images of child pornography downloaded on Clayton’s computer. Many of them were unspeakably violent, showing children in various sex acts with adults, including an 11-year-old girl being raped by a man identified as her father. “Babies being sexually abused in every way,” said Crown prosecutor Jenny Rees. After Clayton’s arrest on April 15, 2010, investigators said he earlier participated in 74 sexually explicit web chats on 37 separate days on a peer-to-peer computer program between December 2009 and April 2010. In court, Clayton’s defence lawyer Balfour Der tried to cast doubt on the case, saying Clayton was the victim of a computer virus, and that the IP address was hacked. “This would have to be the world’s greatest hacker,” Rees countered. Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Kristine Eidsvik agreed. Clayton gave alibis trying to say he wasn’t at home on his computer on several instances, but couldn’t answer for many other times. The judge also caught him in a lie, she said, when he claimed to have been in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake. The judge called Clayton’s testimony “dishonest,” “unbelievable,” “inconsistent,” and “unreliable.” The arrest postponed Clayton’s wedding to fiancee Leah McInnis. While the engagement is off, McInnis remains his girlfriend, court heard during sentencing. Despite his double life, friends and colleagues describe Clayton as creative, caring, generous, thoughtful, reliable and dedicated. To that list he adds innocent as well. Clayton remained stoic as a judge sentenced him to three years in prison last month. He passed reporters handwritten messages, maintaining his innocence and intention to appeal. He is wrongfully accused, he wrote. Before he was led away by a sheriff, Clayton voiced one request: He asked the judge for copies of files from his seized computer. Besides holding hundreds of images of child pornography, the laptop was used by Clayton nearly every waking hour. “It’s everything I’ll probably need to set myself back up in business,” he said, already planning for the future. “It’s basically my entire life.”

HELLO SWEETHEART, GIMME REWRITE

The always clever Dan Barry waxes about movies romanticizing journalism, surely a time capsule if ever there was one.

It’s a scary time for journalism, but Barry provides some much needed nostalgia about ink-stained wretches and the culture that keeps them crusading to uncover and tell the next big story.

I’m in stitches as he recalls an inside joke that had generations of reporters trying to slip one past the goalie. “As if by the wave of an occult hand,” appeared on news pages undetected by copy editors asleep at the switch. The great Charley Stough and his Burned-Out Newspapercreatures Guild newsletters in the 1990s helped us cotton on to the Occult Hand Society and heady journalistic subculture of generations past; a time before Quark Xpress and health fads.

Barry makes reference to Hollywood’s take on the world of reporting, singling out All the President’s Men, His Girl Friday (which we own copies of) and The Paper (which we don’t. But should.)

He writes: “Hollywood has never tried too hard to convey a typical reporter’s work life because so much of it involves bearing witness to the actions of others. This may include trying to stay alive on a battlefield, of course, but a reporter is more often trying to remain conscious during that zoning commission meeting in Woonsocket.

“Imagine the pitch to producers:

“A reporter in khaki pants and a white shirt is working on an investigation that could blow the lid off this town. But his editor keeps sending him to cover daily news events: a house fire, a court hearing, the unveiling of the new sewage-treatment plant. This is how it goes, day in, day out. And every night he cracks a beer and reassures himself that Hemingway started this way. The end.”

Nailed it.

_________________
And speaking of Charley Stough, here is just a sample of his BONG newsletter from days of yore. This is one of my all-time favourites.

“With disaster dominating the front pages and diatribe in the politics section, we knew we would find this pair of anecdotes from decades ago. Jerry Crimmins of the Chicago Tribune told BONG that the following conversation took place between a reporter and a Trib rewrite man after a toxic fire in Indiana:
Reporter: “I’m at the gym where they took some of the evacuated people, and I got a lot of good quotes. Also, the wind has changed and they may have to evacuate this place, too.”
Rewrite: “Where are you?”
Reporter: “I don’t know. Don’t you know? It’s a school.”
Rewrite: “What’s the name of the school?”
Reporter: “You can find that out. I’ve got a lot of good quotes.”
Rewrite: “You are there. What’s the name of the school? Where is the accident from you? Which way is the wind blowing?”
Reporter: “I don’t know! Don’t you want my quotes?”
All the more tragic is that out of this exchange, beside very little news, there probably arose a reporter who goes around
complaining that the desk screwed up his opus.

HELLO REWRITE, GIMME A SWEETHEART. Different reporter, different story, same rewrite man. The fire is in an old South Side factory district near homes.
Reporter: “The fire is or seems to be spreading now to another building. It’s very windy.”
Rewrite: “What’s the address of the other building?”
Reporter: “I don’t know. Can’t get that close.”
Rewrite: “Which direction is the fire spreading?
Reporter: “I’m not very good with directions. Can’t you look on a map?”
Rewrite: “They don’t have fires on maps. Which way is downtown?”
Reporter: “I’m not sure.”
Rewrite: “Where is the sun?”
Reporter: “Oh, no. Nope. I’m not getting into that.”

Steinke aka Souleater Abandons Appeal

BREAKING:

Jeremy Steinke appeared in Calgary court today only to withdraw his longshot appeal of his triple murder conviction.

Steinke sported a blue prison jumpsuit, a blond mohawk and goatee, and according to my Medicine Hat News pal Alex McCuaig ‏ @MccuaigNews, looking trim and muscular as well as sporting several prison tattoos on his forearm and knuckles.

The bizarre timing of Steinke’s late appeal – he was convicted in 2008 — is a head scratcher. A ploy to liven up lonely days? Or did he truly believe he had a shot?

We’ll never know. When Steinke appeared before the registrar of Alberta’s top court to answer what steps he’d taken to apply for court approval to make a late appeal, he didn’t explain why he changed his mind.

He ended up signing a notice of abandonment under his given name and his new handle, Jackson May.

What are your thoughts?

My friend and colleague Daryl Slade of the Calgary Herald wrote this:
A Medicine Hat man convicted of slaughtering his 12-year-old girlfriend’s parents and eight-year-old brother at their home six years ago has withdrawn his appeal of three counts of first-degree murder.

Jeremy Allan Steinke, 29, confirmed at the Alberta Court of Appeal on Tuesday that he had filed a notice to abandon his appeal of the 2008 convictions.

Steinke, who appeared before appellate case management officer Cara Schlenker without counsel, agreed that he had filed it the appeal under the name Jackson May but had signed it ‘a.k.a. Jeremy Steinke.’

In the brief appearance, Steinke only said a few one-word answers — yes, yup and no — to Schlenker’s questions, then was returned to a holding cell.

Steinke previously had indicated he was hoping to be granted a new murder trial after filing an appeal of the verdict that sent him to jail for life with no chance of parole for at least 25 years.

He had written in his late-filed notice of appeal that “it was an unreasonable verdict. I didn’t appeal sooner because I’m new to the system and did not know what I was doing, and at the time I could not find a lawyer who would take my case,” wrote Steinke.

He was defended at his trial by high-profile criminal defence lawyer Alain Hepner through Legal Aid.

“Once my appeal is approved, I will contact Legal Aid so that they may cover the cost of the lawyer as I cannot afford one.”

Hepner had indicated he would not represent Steinke in his appeal bid.

Steinke is serving a life sentence at Edmonton Institution for the stabbings on April 23, 2006.

The shocking case made headlines and history. Steinke’s accomplice was his 12-year-old girlfriend, whose conviction made her Canada’s youngest multiple killer.

Steinke, then 23, and the girl had been carrying on their illicit romance for a few months before her parents learned of it and tried to stop it.

The murder plan was hatched online and through phone calls.

Through online messages under their user names “souleater” and “runaway devil,” the pair discussed killing the girl’s parents.

The girl, who cannot be named, was also convicted of three counts of first-degree murder.

She is now 18 and has been completing a special rehabilitative youth sentence, which is gradual reintegration to society.

When she is 22, she will be free.

She was given the maximum youth sentence of 10 years, which includes a four-phase program of stabilization, intensive therapy and transition.

Steinke admitted stabbing the girl’s parents to death, but not the boy. The girl denied any role in the killings.

Steinke, sentenced in December 2008, filed an appeal of his judge and jury conviction Jan. 17, 2011.

Normally, all appeals are to be filed within 30 days of the court’s decision.

He had sought a trial by judge alone, if he would have won his appeal.

Court heard at trial that on the night of the killings, the girl phoned Steinke, who arrived high on cocaine and drunk at the family’s darkened house. He was armed with knives when both parents confronted him.

They were viciously stabbed and bled to death in the basement.

Steinke claimed he never touched the boy upstairs, but watched as the girl slit her brother’s throat.

Hours after the killings, the two were seen kissing and giggling at a house party.

They were arrested with friends the next morning in Leader, Sask., 150 kilometres northeast of Medicine Hat.

Steinke told an undercover police officer he tried to talk his girlfriend out of the deadly plan, but she wouldn’t have it, and he was a man of his word.

In the days following their arrest, the couple agreed through prison love letters to marry, but the relationship quickly crumbled when they blamed each other for the boy’s stabbing death.