Friends say Medicine Hat girl threatened to kill her parents

A girl on trialcharged withslaying her family told friends she wanted to kill her parents because they had grounded her for seeing a man almost twice her age, a Medicine Hat court has heard.

Four girls, who can't be identified, tearfully testified Wednesday in the trial of their 13-year-old former classmate, who is charged with the first-degree murder of her parents and younger brother.

The girls were all in Grade 7 in April 2006 when the family was found dead of massive blood loss in their home in Medicine Hat, southeast of Calgary.

All but one of the girls avoided eye contact with the accused Wednesday when they each took the stand to testify.

Two told the courtthat the accused was a nice girl at first,but shechanged after she started dating Jeremy Steinke, now 24 years old.

Steinke will face the same three charges of first-degree murder at a later date.

The twowitnesses cried as they testified that their friend had told them several times she wanted to kill her parents and move away to live with Steinke because they had grounded her to keep the pair apart.

One girl said theaccused's parents took away her phoneand computer, as wellas forbidding her to wear makeup.

Anothergirl said she overheard the accused talking to Steinke on a phone, asking him to help her kill her parents.

Athird testified that the girl never used the word kill when talking about her parents, only that she wished that they would die.

She said she never had a good feeling about Steinke because of the age difference. He also wore eyeliner at times and dressed in dark colours, she said.

"I never thought of him as dangerous, just older, but very immature."

Under cross-examination, all of the friends admitted they never took their classmate's threats seriously.

The13-year-old and Steinke were arrested two hours east of Medicine Hat in Leader, Sask., a day after the bodies were discovered.

One of the RCMP officers who made the arrest also testified Wednesday, saying that the accused and threeother girls were put in the back of a police car where they yelled obscenities and giggled.