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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Joseph Duncan

News about the investigation, trial and sentencing of Joseph Edward Duncan for the 2005 kidnap, torture and murder of 9-year-old Dylan Groene of Coeur d’Alene; the murders of Dylan’s mother, mother’s fiance and 13-year-old brother; and the kidnapping and molestation of Dylan’s then-8-year-old sister Shasta.

News >  Idaho

Father asks that video be limited

BOISE – Steve Groene, father of the victim, has filed an emergency motion urging U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge to reconsider his order that a graphic video be shown in open court in the Joseph Duncan case. In Groene’s motion, filed Wednesday, he asked that the video, a key piece of evidence that shows Duncan abusing 9-year-old Dylan before the child’s murder, be shown only on individual monitors rather than on the court’s projection screen. The motion also asks that only one designated reporter be allowed to view the video, and no members of the public; and that “descriptions in the press that discuss what the videotape depicts be limited to the subject matter necessary for the public, through the press, to understand the death penalty process, comprehend what evidence has been presented to the jury for its consideration, and observe the impact that the playing of the video has on the trial participants including the jury, counsel and the defendant.”
News >  Idaho

Expert rebuts Duncan’s version of shooting

BOISE – Joseph Duncan’s story that his initial shooting of 9-year-old Dylan Groene was an accident was undermined in court Wednesday, when an FBI firearms expert testified that extensive testing showed Duncan’s shotgun couldn’t fire accidentally. John Webb, an FBI firearms examiner expert from Fredericksburg, Va., told the court, “The Browning 500 is a quality firearm that’s been produced for over 100 years. … I could not make the Exhibit 41 shotgun fire without pulling the trigger.”
News >  Idaho

Duncan alternately kind, cruel, Shasta says

BOISE – Joseph Duncan repeatedly threatened to kill the two children he held captive for weeks at a remote Montana campsite in 2005, the surviving victim told police shortly after her rescue. In a videotaped interview shown to jurors in Duncan’s death penalty sentencing trial Tuesday, Shasta Groene told police that at one point Duncan brandished the claw hammer that he’d used to fatally bludgeon three members of her family.

News >  Idaho

GPS trail shows Duncan’s path

BOISE – Joseph Duncan was set to commit his crimes in northwestern Montana, with different children as his victims, before he changed his mind, drove to Idaho and targeted the Groene family. The convicted child-rapist went so far as to set up a remote campsite in Flathead National Forest near Stryker, Mont., with children’s toys and a tall tripod for a video camera, according to evidence presented in court Monday in Duncan’s death penalty sentencing trial. He cased numerous homes with small children about 100 miles to the south, even contacting children at one isolated home.
News >  Idaho

‘I wish I could kill myself,’ Duncan wrote

In a day filled with tragic photos, shocking videos and the display of the shotgun used to kill 9-year-old Dylan Groene, federal jurors also were given a closer look into the troubled mind of murderer Joseph Duncan. A handwritten two-page letter, found folded up in a coat pocket in Duncan’s Jeep, is addressed to his mother and details his struggles with “demons,” his hate for society and his desire to die.
News >  Idaho

Tapes show Duncan with kids at campsite

BOISE – Videotapes of Shasta and Dylan Groene clowning around at a Montana campsite with their abductor, Joseph Duncan, were played to the jury in Duncan’s federal death sentence trial Friday. Taken out of context, the footage plays like home videos of a family vacation. The video, however, has an ominous undercurrent.
News >  Idaho

Details revealed in tape of Shasta

BOISE – One of the big mysteries surrounding Joseph Duncan’s murderous crime spree three years ago was resolved Thursday as the frightened, tearful voice of an 8-year-old girl explained to rescuers why after nearly two months of captivity her abductor had brought her back. “He was going to take me home,” Shasta Groene told Coeur d’Alene police Officer Shane Avriett in an audio recording from July 2, 2005, that was played for jurors deciding whether Duncan should be executed or sentenced to life in prison.
News >  Idaho

Shasta won’t have to testify

BOISE – Jurors frowned, pursed their lips, some reddened visibly and one gasped out loud as U.S. Attorney Tom Moss detailed the horrific tale of Joseph Duncan’s crimes, intricately planned in advance, culminating in the sexual torture and murder of a 9-year-old boy and an attempt to burn beyond recognition every piece of his body. Federal prosecutors will call 90 witnesses over the coming weeks to show why Duncan should die for his 2005 crimes. Those witnesses, however, won’t include Duncan’s only surviving victim, 11-year-old Shasta Groene. Instead, Duncan and prosecutors filed an agreement with the court late Wednesday waiving Duncan’s right to cross-examine the girl and allowing two videotaped and four audiotaped interviews she gave to law enforcement officers after her rescue to serve as her testimony.
News >  Idaho

Shasta might not take stand

BOISE – Shasta Groene, the only survivor of Joseph Duncan’s murderous rampage in 2005, may not have to testify against her attacker after all. On the eve of today’s opening statements in Duncan’s death penalty sentencing trial in federal court, lawyers on both sides hinted that a deal is in the works.
News >  Idaho

Duncan needs just one juror to avoid death

BOISE – Here’s how high the stakes are in the jury selection under way in the Joseph Duncan case: If one juror objects in any of three different votes, Duncan would be spared the death penalty. That’s what happened in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called “20th hijacker” from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He’s serving a life sentence without possibility of release at the federal supermax prison in Colorado after a juror opposed the death penalty on the final vote in his federal trial.

Blog Posts

News >  Idaho

Child-killer Joseph Duncan still fighting death sentence

Although child-killer Joseph Duncan waived his right to appeal his triple death sentence for the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of a 9-year-old North Idaho boy, Duncan, through a team of attorneys, is now pressing a series of continued challenges. That’s in part because more...
News >  Idaho

9th Circuit dismisses Duncan’s appeal of death sentence

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has rejected claims from attorneys for multiple murderer Joseph Duncan that the killer was incompetent to waive appeals of his death sentence, and dismissed the appeal that defense attorneys filed on his behalf. The attorneys still could seek...