FBI Special Agent Mike Sotka testified in court today that Joseph Duncan, in a conversation with authorities at the Kootenai County Jail on July 19, 2005, told him he killed Carmen Cubias and Sammiejo White as his “first revenge.” “He told me that these two girls were his first revenge, and that it occurred in 1996,” Sotka told the court, “his revenge for going to jail the first time. … I think his actual quote was ‘sheer unadulterated revenge.’ ” Sotka said Duncan told him of taking the girls to a wooded area, and taking a crowbar out of his car. When 9-year-old Carmen asked what it was for, he told her he liked to hit trees with it, and he then hit several trees with the crowbar. Then he hit 11-year-old Sammiejo in the head, and Carmen saw what was happening. “When he went to hit her, he said all he remembered was her yelling ‘no,’” Sotka told the court.

Sotka said Duncan told him his abduction and murder of Anthony Martinez a year later was “revenge against society again for sending him back to jail for a probation violation.” Duncan complained that by going back to jail for a month, “he lost a good job.” Sotka said Duncan told him he had learned a lesson from his crime against the two girls. “He didn’t want to hear them talk. That girl’s voice saying ‘no’ affected him.” So when he kidnapped Martinez, Duncan taped over his mouth with duct tape, Sotka said, and kept the tape in place while he kept the child alive for a day in the desert before hitting him in the head with a rock and leaving him. The child was still breathing when Duncan abandoned him, wounded and naked in the desert, Sotka told the court.

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