Canadian girl, 13, found guilty in family murder

MEDICINE HAT, Alberta, July 10 (Reuters) A jury found a 13-year-old Canadian girl guilty of first-degree murder for helping her adult boyfriend stab her parents and little brother to death in revenge for being grounded and having her computer privileges revoked.

The girl, 12 at the time of the killings, pressed her hand over her mouth after the jury convicted her of all three murder counts following a month-long trial in the small city of Medicine Hat.

The girl's lawyer put his arm around his client -- believed to be Canada's youngest triple murderer -- and she pressed her face against his shoulder. She cannot be named under Canadian laws protecting minors.

She faces up to six years in detention and four months of probation. A sentencing hearing is set for August 23.

The bodies of her father, 42, mother, 48, and brother, 8, were found in the family home in April 2006, stabbed 41 times.

The judge, the defense and the prosecution all agreed that the girl's boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke, a man 11 years her senior who had claimed to friends he was a werewolf, killed them in an early-morning attack. His murder trial date has yet to be set.

But prosecutors contended the girl helped plot the grisly crime, stabbed her brother a few times during the attack, then fled with Steinke to a neighboring province.

''The jury really only had to grapple with one main issue -- her intent: What did she mean when she said what she said?'' prosecutor Stephanie Cleary said after the verdict.

Defence lawyer Tim Foster had tried to show that the girl talked to friends about wanting her parents dead for forbidding her any contact with Steinke but never believed the killings would be carried out.

On the stand last week, the girl said such talk was just idle ''venting.'' ''She always felt responsible. The question was whether legally she was responsible,'' Foster said.

Testimony included details of how her brother begged for his life before his throat was slashed. The girl testified her brother said, ''I'm scared. I'm too young to die.'' She said Steinke broke in before dawn, attacked her parents and ordered her to stab the boy. His body was found in his bedroom among blood-soaked toys. Her parents' bodies were in the basement.

After the killing, Steinke left the girl at the scene. She met up with him hours later and had sex with him, she said yesterday.

The girl and Steinke, who is now 24, were found the next day sleeping in a truck parked in a small town in Saskatchewan.

With them were a bag of bloodstained clothing, knives and a purse belonging to the girl's mother.

REUTERS AGL HS1126