Book Review: Runaway Devil

OK, if you live in Canada & were a sentient being in the spring of 2006 and presumably not living under a rock, you might remember this rather disturbing tale of the 12 year old girl who, with the aid of her 23 year old boyfriend, killed her mother, father, and 8 year old brother in cold blood.  This took place in Medicine Hat, Alberta, a city of about 57,000 people.

Runaway Devil is one of those chilling true crime tales that is essentially unputdownable.  Recounting the murders of Marc, Debora, and Jacob , parents and sibling to JR (all pseudonyms because JR is a young offender and therefore her name and that of her victims cannot be named), who planned and carried out familicide with the aid of her boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke (that’s his real name as he was 23 at the time and therefore not a young offender).  The book starts out with a neighbour’s son discovering the bodies and the initial police response to the neighbour’s 911 call.  After a graphic description of the crime scene, the authors, Calgary journalists Robert Remington and Sherri Zickefoose, reconstruct the lives of the murdered family, the startling changes to JR as she began to rebel against her parents, JR’s relationship with Steinke, and details a colourful group of local youth connected with JR & Steinke.   A lot of detail is given about the couple’s iffy social millieu, their romance, and JR’s rapidly burgeoning sexuality and acting out.  On Steinke’s side of things, we are told of his alcoholic mother, abusive father & stepfathers, his ADHD – basically his miserable existence as a high school drop-out and drug addict that led him to the dark side, so to speak.

Near the end, the authors examine Canada’s Young Offenders Act and it’s complexities, as they pertained to a murderess of 12 1/2 years, and touch on a sensitive and emotional debate about youth justice and rehabilitation.  JR was given the maximum sentence allowed: six years in custody at a psychiatric facility near Edmonton, where she is receiving the best psychiatric care one can get in this country (IMO, probably way better than most of us who also need it will ever get), and then, in 2012, she goes off to a supervised halfway house for four years.  By then, she will be 22.  Her record will remain with her for five more years, and if she commits no crimes in that time, her record – all of it – will be expunged.  I found this debate far more disturbing than the crime, actually. I am on the fence about how I feel about this sentence, though I am leaning towards the “I’m uncomfortable with it” side of things.

Despite the unputdownableness of this book, I had some issues with it.  When I first picked it up, I read the back cover and saw this quote from someone at The National Frakking Post:

The book is a cautionary tale on several fronts: the perils of the Internet, Goth culture, heavy-metal music, violence in film.

All righty.  I don’t want to make too much of another reviewer’s quote because obviously that is his/her opinion and whatever, but seriously?  The perils of heavy metal music (no hyphen, for crying out loud!)? The perils of Goth culture?  I think that is just laughable.

But this leads me to my big issue with the book: my reading and interpretation of some of the authors’ comments about metal, Goths, social networking sites, and all that was that they were vilifying these things by, again, my interpretation, singling out two obviously disturbed people out of a subculture of otherwise intelligent, non-violent people.  I think there were a lot of really ignorant statements made in this book by two people who seem to me, from my point of view, clueless about metal culture and Goths in particular.

First of all, let’s straighten one thing out: JR & Steinke, and I’d have to say many of the group they hung out with, were not actual Goths; they were wannabes.  They weren’t interested in anything truly Goth; they dressed the way they did for the attention & the need to stand out & be different.  I imagine they thought it made them look edgy, intimidating, and older than they were.  They were mall rats trying to look cool, dark, and tough.  A lot of people buy into the whole act and feel intimidated & uncomfortable around guys who wear eyeliner, have shaved heads, have many piercings, etc.  But seriously, characterizing these two as Goths is an insult to actual Goths.

Secondly, and this may seem nitpicky, but as I am a metal fan myself I feel the need to speak up here, Remington and Zickefoose kept harping on metal, particularly death metal, as if it were the root of all evil.  They also had big issues getting their facts straight with some bands.  For instance, they called Stone Sour “Stoned Sour” and referred to Slipknot as “shock rock.”  It isn’t; it’s nu metal.  They refer to Marilyn Manson as a heavy metal artist; he is not.  They describe Children of Bodom, a Finnish death metal band, as an “extreme metal band.”  No, they are not. Cradle of Filth, who are harped on a lot in this book because of their dark lyrical themes, are described as “symphonic goth.” Again, no.  While they are “extreme”, actually, they are more of a black metal band with Gothic and symphonic elements.  All of this stuff could have been easily researched for accuracy, but no, the more extreme labels are applied, I think, with a lot of assumptions made on the part of the authors.  Perhaps they were trying to shock their audience a bit more themselves.

Another nitpicky thing that annoyed me was they author’s description & portrayal of cutting.  On page 35, cutting is described as “an impulsive form of rebelliousness and attention seeking.”  WTF?  This was an incredibly ignorant statement, even though in the paragraphs following it, the pathology of cutting is described by a psychologist and a psychiatrist in far more clinically accurate terms.  Again, I can’t help but feel that the authors are deliberately making something sound more extreme in order to get a more extreme reaction from the reader.

This overly negative, almost fear-mongering attitude towards music, a serious behavioural issue, and a group of dysfunctional kids dressing in black with black make-up and black accessories problem really, really irritated me.  I got the feeling they were deliberately trying to sex up their subject matter for shock value, while doing a lot of people a big disservice by making certain groups of people (metal fans, cutters, people who like black clothing) look bad.  I was quite angry at times by the rather superior, almost classist attitude of the authors, who never seemed to miss an opportunity to insinuate their negative opinions about the culture of these kids.  I almost want to write them a letter of complaint.

Anyway, despite all this, it was a gripping read and definitely worthwhile if you can get your hands on it.  Just beware that you might encounter a lot of bias in it when it comes to certain details.