Duncan confessed, feds say

A decade before Joseph Duncan allegedly abducted and killed Dylan Groene, he killed two girls in Western Washington and a boy in Southern California – crimes to which he has confessed, federal prosecutors said.

Duncan, 43, has admitted to the 1997 slaying of Anthony Martinez in Riverside County, Calif., and the 1996 slayings of 9-year-old Carmen Cubias and 11-year-old Sammiejo White in the Seattle area, according to federal court documents filed Tuesday and reported first at spokesmanreview.com.

The documents also confirm reports that Shasta Groene witnessed Duncan torture and kill her 9-year-old brother as he held the children captive at a remote Montana campsite.

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday filed the notice of intent to seek the death penalty for Dylan Groene’s slaying. They said capital punishment is warranted in the case because of aggravating factors, including Duncan’s confessions to the earlier homicides and Shasta seeing her brother killed.

Duncan was charged in federal court in Boise last week for crimes against the Groene children – the same day prosecutors in Riverside County announced they would seek the death penalty for Duncan in the death of Martinez.

Jean McNeil, a spokeswoman with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boise, declined to comment on when and where Duncan allegedly confessed to the crimes.

Among additional aggravating factors federal prosecutors allege:

“Duncan’s conviction for the May 2005 murders of the Groene children’s 13-year-old brother Slade, their mother and her fiance. Duncan later described to Shasta Groene how he killed them with a hammer, causing her to suffer emotional trauma, according to court documents.

“The “especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner” in which Dylan Groene was killed and the “substantial planning and premeditation” involved.

“Duncan’s previous convictions for sexual assault and a violent felony involving a firearm.

“The “future dangerousness” of Duncan.

Trial in the case is set for March 20 in Boise, though Federal Public Defender Roger Peven said last week he will seek an extension.

Peven told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he had not yet seen the federal filing and declined to comment on it. He said he had met with Duncan early Tuesday but also declined to comment on the meeting.

Riverside County prosecutors are seeking to have Duncan extradited to California immediately to be tried in the Martinez case. A spokesman with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office said Tuesday that extradition paperwork is pending.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter’s office said they had yet to be contacted by California authorities regarding the effort. U.S. Attorney Tom Moss said last week that the federal case in Idaho will move forward.

Though Duncan is a “person of interest” in the slaying of sisters White and Cubias, a spokesman with the King County Sheriff’s Office said the case hasn’t been forwarded to prosecutors because – contrary to the allegations of federal prosecutors – Duncan hasn’t confessed.

“This is the first we’ve heard of it,” Sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquhart said Tuesday. “We’re shocked and amazed that we know nothing of any supposed confession, and we’re the lead investigator on this local homicide case.”

The two sisters disappeared July 6, 1996, after leaving a Seattle motel. Their skeletal remains were found in February 1998.

Urquhart said the FBI interviewed Duncan shortly after his arrest in July 2005. Though the FBI said Duncan had confessed to the killings in that interview, Urquhart said King County authorities don’t believe a transcript of the session supports a confession. While Duncan offered details about the crime, Urquhart said he didn’t confess.

“It was called a confession in some newspapers,” he said. “The FBI called it a confession, but it was not a confession. The details (Duncan) offered, he could have got from a cellmate.”

A Justice Department source told The Spokesman-Review in August 2005 that Duncan had incriminated himself in the deaths of White and Cubias during the interview with FBI agents.

The source said Duncan provided enough specific information to the agents to verify that he wasn’t confessing to a crime he hadn’t committed – something experts say killers sometimes do to boast or throw off investigators.

McNeil said Tuesday afternoon that federal prosecutors had “straightened it out” with King County officials and that the U.S. Attorney’s Office maintains that Duncan confessed to killing all three children.

Duncan is serving a life sentence in a Boise prison for kidnapping charges related to the May 2005 murders. The victims were bound with duct tape and zip ties and bludgeoned to death with a framing hammer.

Duncan pleaded guilty and was convicted in Kootenai County for the murders, but sentencing in that death penalty case was postponed until after the federal case is completed.

Duncan is charged in federal court with kidnapping Dylan and Shasta from the family’s home near Coeur d’Alene the night of the murders. Authorities say he took the children for sex. Federal prosecutors say Duncan videotaped the torture and sexual abuse he inflicted on the children.