CALGARY, Alberta -- When a Canadian man and his 12-year-old girlfriend were jailed for killing three members of her family, they found away to communicate across prison walls. They exchanged love letters expressing their joy in the notoriety the slayings had brought them and planned for their future as husband and wife."The world may be against us, but remember that nothing beats love," Jeremy Steinke, then 23, wrote soon after his arrest in the slayings of his girlfriend's eight-year-old brother as well as her parents, who had forbidden their daughter from dating him.Now, those letters have ended up in court. Steinke is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the case that devastated the small southern Alberta city of Medicine Hat and shocked Canada. The girl, now 15 and known only as J.R., was convicted last year of the same charges and is being treated for several mental health disorders at a psychiatric hospital as part of her 10-year sentence.Notes written between April 25 and May 3, 2006, which were passed between the suspects by police Sgt. Christopher Sheehan while they were in custody, were presented this week to the jury in the Court of Queen's Bench in Calgary.The same notes were offered as evidence in J.R.'s trial, however, a final letter from Steinke, who is now 25, which police never gave to his young lover, became public for the first time."I pray to you and 4 you every night," Steinke wrote, "The thoughts of you keep me strong. And I wish for nothing more than to just be with you. Do you think of the future? What do you see? I see you! Dreams filled with visions of us do help me."He talks about a corset he has bought for J.R. as an engagement present that he cannot wait to see her in.He expresses glee that she has accepted his marriage proposal. And he dispels any notion that he cares for another woman, who would later be charged in connection with the murders as an accessory after the fact."Ahahaha! I never though I'd find myself hysterically laughing in a holding cell in these kinds of circumstances ... or ever really," J.R. replied to Steinke's proposal, "But still! Ahaha you make me so happy! Yes! Yes! I will, I would love to."The letters, portions of which were deleted by the court, barely hint at the crimes the pair are accused of."I wish we could just go back in time and run ... run far away and never look back," Steinke wrote in one."My lawyer tells me we're ledgends, ha, closer to imortality it would seem," J.R. wrote.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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