Joseph E. Duncan III

Much of what is known about the murders of the Groene family was revealed by Shasta Groene herself. According to Shasta Groene's police interview, Duncan killed her mother, older brother, and her mother's fiancé, and then kidnapped her and her brother, driving away with them in his red Jeep Cherokee.

Shasta told investigators her mother called her into the living room, where she saw Duncan wearing black gloves and holding a gun. Her captor tied her mother's hands with nylon zip ties, and did the same to her mother's fiancé and her brother Slade. Shasta and Dylan were removed from the house and placed inside the stolen rental car. While she waited with her brother, she heard her mother's fiancé scream out and then saw her injured older brother staggering away from the entrance to the home. Duncan then bludgeoned the three to death; neither Shasta nor Dylan witnessed the murders. Both Shasta and Dylan were taken to other locations, where they were repeatedly molested and tortured for six weeks. She said that they drove a long distance and stayed in two different campsites, where Duncan told her of having beaten her family members to death with a hammer.[22]

Shasta also told investigators how Dylan was murdered. Duncan insisted that Dylan's death was an accident. Initially, Shasta was standing on the other side of Duncan's Jeep when she heard a loud boom. She then ran to the other side of the Jeep where she saw Dylan lying on the ground screaming. Duncan was apparently digging through a clear plastic box looking for beer, when a shotgun that was also kept in the box went off, hitting Dylan in the stomach. Shasta said that she then saw Duncan put the shotgun to Dylan's head and pull the trigger, but it failed to go off. While Dylan begged Duncan not to kill him, Duncan reloaded the shotgun, put it back to the boy's head and pulled the trigger;[23] Dylan was killed instantly. According to Shasta, immediately after killing Dylan, Duncan started crying and told her that he only killed him to put him out of his misery. A public memorial service was held for Dylan on July 16, 2005, which would have been his 10th birthday, at Real Life Ministries.[24]

Shasta also reported that Duncan nearly killed her days after killing Dylan. She said he gave her the choice to be killed either by strangulation or with a gun. Shasta chose the former, and Duncan proceeded to wrap a rope around her neck and pull it tight. However, Shasta begged Duncan to stop, using his nickname, "Jet", and he immediately did. He then asked her if she would like to meet his mother, to which she responded yes, and the two drove back towards Coeur d'Alene and stopped at the Denny's restaurant where Shasta was rescued.[25]

On April 4, 1997, 10-year-old Anthony Michael Martinez was playing with friends in the front yard of his home in Beaumont, California, when an unknown man approached the group asking for help finding a missing cat. When the boys refused, the man grabbed Martinez at knifepoint and threw him into his vehicle.[15] After a two-week search, Martinez's body was found nude and partially decomposed in Indio, California, on April 19, 1997. Investigators noted that he had been sexually assaulted and bound with duct tape.[15] Although a composite sketch of the suspect was made available and a partial fingerprint taken from the duct tape found on Martinez's body, the case eventually went cold.

In July 2005, bloggers noticed similarities between Duncan and the composite sketch in the Martinez case, as well as between Duncan's vehicle and the one Martinez's assailant was driving.[15] The FBI and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children became involved, and in turn contacted Riverside County authorities. Riverside authorities were able to match the fingerprint taken from Martinez's body to Duncan, and on August 3 the Riverside County Sheriff officially announced Duncan's connection with the Martinez case.

FBI agents reported that Duncan confessed to the murder in an interview on July 19, 2005, describing the crime as “revenge against society again for sending him back to jail for a probation violation." [26]

After her rescue, Shasta Groene told investigators Duncan had told her about other crimes he had committed, including the Martinez murder and the 1996 murder of Sammiejo White, 11, and her half-sister, Carmen Cubias, 9,[26] who vanished on July 6, 1996, after leaving the Crest Motel in Seattle. Their skeletal remains were found on February 10, 1998, in Bothell, Washington.[27] Duncan confessed to beating the two young girls to death.[26]

Duncan first appeared in a Kootenai County court on July 13, 2005, where he was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first degree kidnapping, all in conjunction with the deaths of Brenda and Slade Groene and Mark McKenzie.[28] Kootenai County prosecutors had initially planned to charge Duncan with the kidnappings of Shasta and Dylan Groene; however, they deferred those charges to the federal courts, as transporting children across state lines for the purpose of sexual exploitation is a federal offense.[28] Trial was set to begin on January 17, 2006, but was delayed until April 4, after the district judge granted a request to the defense for more time to prepare for the trial, and then again to October 26, after the judge in the case stated that "No one wants to try this case twice, including me."[29] Duncan's attorneys blamed the multiple postponements on the prosecution's insistence on pursuing the death penalty.[29]

On October 16, 2006, shortly after jury selection began, Kootenai County prosecutors and Duncan's attorney reached a plea bargain in which Duncan pleaded guilty to all state charges against him.[30] He was immediately sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the three kidnapping charges.[30] Sentencing on the three murder charges was continued pending the outcome of his federal trial on kidnapping and murder charges; the judge said that if he did not receive the death penalty on the federal charges, he would return to Kootenai County for a death penalty phase on the state murder charges.[30] Over two years later, after being sentenced to death on federal charges, Kootenai County sentenced Duncan to three additional life sentences.[31] Duncan also agreed to cooperate with Kootenai County sheriff's detectives investigating his crimes and provide passwords to encrypted files stored on his computer.[30]

On January 18, 2007, Duncan was indicted by a federal grand jury in Coeur d'Alene on 10 counts of "kidnapping, kidnapping resulting in death, aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, and sexual exploitation of a child resulting in death," and other crimes related to illegal firearm possession and vehicle theft.[32] He was arraigned the following day at a federal court in Boise, Idaho, where a judge ordered Duncan to stand trial the following March.[32] Duncan's defense attorneys immediately requested a postponement,[32] which was granted the week the trial was originally scheduled to begin; a new trial date was set for January 22, 2008.[33]

On December 3, 2007, Duncan pleaded guilty to all 10 charges against him.[34] As a condition of the agreement, Shasta Groene would not have to testify in the penalty phase of the trial. Due to a gag order, other details of the plea agreement were not released.[34]

Jury selection for the penalty phase for Duncan's federal trial began on April 14, 2008. During jury selection, Duncan dismissed his attorneys and chose to represent himself. His attorneys objected, asserting he was not competent to do so, and requested a formal hearing as to the issue. The district court ordered an evaluation of Duncan to determine his competence, and accepted the evaluator's conclusion that he was competent to proceed without counsel.[35]

On August 27, 2008, after three hours of deliberation, the jury recommended the death penalty, and the judge imposed three death sentences for "kidnapping resulting in death, sexual exploitation of a child resulting in death, and use of a firearm in a violent crime resulting in death," all related to the death of Dylan Groene.[36] On November 3, 2008, Duncan was sentenced to an additional three consecutive terms of life without parole in federal prison for kidnapping Shasta Groene and for sexually abusing Shasta and Dylan.[31]

Duncan's standby counsel filed a notice of appeal. Duncan subsequently wrote the court and informed it that any appeal was taken "against his wishes".[37]

In July 2011, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's decision to permit Duncan to represent himself without first holding a hearing as to his competence to do so and remanded for a hearing as to this issue.[35][38]

As of September 2012, Duncan is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute in Indiana.[39] On December 6, 2013, a federal judge ruled that Duncan was mentally competent when he gave up the right to appeal his death sentence.[40] Psychiatrists working with the prosecution diagnosed Duncan with pedophilia, sadistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder with narcissistic traits, but maintained that he was legally sane.[41]

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled on March 27, 2015, that a district judge correctly determined Duncan was mentally competent when he waived his right to appeal his death sentence.[42] The U.S. Supreme Court on February 28, 2016, denied Duncan's petition to hear his appeal of a federal judge's ruling in December 2013, which had been affirmed by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2015.[43]

On February 28, 2017, a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus was filed. On September 27, 2017, it was ordered that the Government's Third Motion for Extension of Time was granted in part and denied in part. The Government's response was due October 30, 2017. The Petitioner's reply was due on or before January 30, 2018.[44]

On January 18, 2007, the same day Duncan was indicted in federal court, Riverside County officials announced that Duncan was charged with Martinez's murder.[32] Despite attempts by Riverside County officials to extradite Duncan to California, including an appeal by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Duncan's federal trial proceeded. He was eventually extradited to California on January 24, 2009, five months after being sentenced to death by the federal court.[45]

On March 15, 2011, Duncan pleaded guilty to Martinez's murder, and was sentenced to two life terms on April 5, 2011.[46] As part of a plea deal, the sentence comes without the possibility of parole or right to appeal.[2][47] Although Duncan could have faced a separate death sentence in addition to the ones he had already been sentenced to in federal court, Riverside County District Attorney Paul Zellerbach justified the life sentence by stating that he had consulted with the Martinez family who wanted closure in the case and that "the federal system will kill him long before the state of California would have seriously considered it."[2]

On April 3, 2007, the community effort to build a house for Shasta reached a milestone with more than 50 people attending the groundbreaking ceremony at the site of Shasta Groene's future home. Midge Smock, owner and Foundation Board member of Windermere Coeur d'Alene Reality told attendees that the project was on phase two and that they still had to pay for the lot. Supporters raised about $50,000 and needed to raise another $85,000 to cover the cost of the lot, property taxes and building permits. The house was to be held in a trust for Shasta until she turned 25.

Fundraising efforts began after Shasta's father, Steve Groene apparently told Smock that he and Shasta were homeless. This is a statement that Steve Groene later said he resented because he and Shasta had actually been renting at the time.[53] Fundraising efforts such as a car wash as well as a dinner and auction called Shasta Fiesta was held.[54]

Shasta Groene grew to have a troubled history with law enforcement. In February 2014, Shasta was arrested and sent to juvenile detention for 12 months following a drug-related crime. She stated that the sentence saved her life,[55] but in October 2017 she was accused of leaving methamphetamine where a 1-year-old could have access to it. In December 2017, she was charged with two misdemeanor charges to which she pleaded guilty in April 2018 and handed an 18-month unsupervised probation with withheld judgement. Upon successful completion of her probation, Shasta could petition to get the charges wiped from her record. A month into her probation however, she violated her probation and admitted the violation on June 21. Her probation sentence remained at 18 months, but it was changed to supervised probation.[56]

In 2016, Shasta Groene (then 19 years old) started a petition called Slade and Dylan's law for her two brothers who were murdered by Duncan.[3] In the petition description, she stated that convicted sex offenders not be let out of jail. This would effectively mean that the three-strike rule for violent sex offenders be reduced to 1 strike. By the time the petition closed, it had 51,820 supporters.

On September 30, 2018, Shasta's father Steve Groene posted on the National "One Strike" Law for Slade and Dylan Groene[57] Facebook page. In this post he stated that he and Shasta were being evicted from the house that was built for him and Shasta. According to him, Shasta tried convincing the trustees (Shasta Groene Charitable Trust[53]) to call off the eviction but was unsuccessful in doing so.

Shasta, now 21, was living in the Boise area and her father Steve was served an eviction notice. The managers of the trust stated that their obligation is to Shasta and not to her father. Ownership of the house is to revert to Shasta on her 25th birthday when the trust expires, unless the trust sells the property before then. One of the trustees, Midge Smock stated that the trust needs to sell the house in order to continue supporting Shasta while she lives in Nampa, near Boise.