Duncan’s brother was a victim, too

Bruce Duncan, 41, the brother of murder/child-rape suspect Joseph Edward Duncan III, has died in Western Washington. The cause of death was a heart aneurysm. But a good case can be made that he was overwrought from the stress caused in his last year of life by being the brother of one of the most notorious men in the Pacific Northwest. In her blog, The Cellar, Easterner Jules Hammer paints a poignant picture of Bruce Duncan, one of Joseph Duncan’s lesser known victims. She knew Bruce as “Spyder.” Her blog is dedicated to keeping track of news about Spyder’s monstrous brother. Via e-mails and phone conversations, she wrote in a recent entry, she came to know Spyder “as a great conversationalist, once you managed to break past the one- or two-word replies. Yeah, he had a lot to be wary and protective about.” Bruce Duncan, according to Hammer, was taunted at the warehouse where he worked for having the misfortune of sharing DNA with the alleged Groene family killer. Kids told his goddaughter that their mothers wouldn’t let them play with her. Worst of all, blogger Hammer says, “the crap” he read about his siblings and himself on the Internet ate away at him. Hammer: “On and on went the persecution of this genuine, intelligent, caring man.” That persecution ended July 31. His Tacoma News-Tribune obituary was kind to mention only that his survivors included an unnamed brother. (You can read Hammer’s entire post about Bruce Duncan at Huckleberries Online this morning.)