Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson is a little over an hour into her closing argument for the first phase of Joseph Duncan’s death penalty sentencing trial, and is weaving a narrative that ties together the various, disparate pieces of evidence presented to the jury during eight days of testimony and arguments. Photos flashed on the screen as she spoke, and by this point, they’re familiar to the jurors – the remote campsite, the abandoned cabin, the two children. The crime’s only survivor, then-8-year-old Shasta Groene, gave detailed statements to investigators that were corroborated by physical evidence in the case, Olson told the jury. “S.G. did not exaggerate – she was amazingly and heroically accurate.”

At various points in her arguments thus far, Olson has held up items of evidence submitted in the case, including the murder weapon, a sawed-off shotgun; an array of maps of various states and remote areas found in Duncan’s stolen red Jeep, a “Fat Max” hammer of the type that Duncan used to kill three members of the Groene family and to threaten little Shasta and her 9-year-old brother, Dylan. “We know from the outset that his plan was to kidnap, sexually exploit and kill a child,” Olson told the court. “D.G. knew and was terrified of what the defendant planned to do.”

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