Shooting details revealed at Duncan hearing

BOISE – The night she was rescued from killer Joseph Duncan, young Shasta Groene gave such a vivid description of Duncan’s killing of her brother, Dylan, that it left little doubt that 9-year-old Dylan was dead.

Nevertheless, authorities anxiously hunted for Dylan out of fear he might still be alive. Kootenai County Sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Brad Maskell said Duncan earlier had left both children chained to a tree in the forest and “our concern was that that situation still existed.”

Maskell was cross-examined Tuesday by defense attorney Thomas Monaghan in federal court in Boise. Duncan’s defense team is trying to suppress evidence gathered using search warrants issued shortly after Shasta’s rescue for a computer and other items in Duncan’s vehicle.

Monaghan told the courtroom Tuesday, “She (Shasta Groene) had reported that Mr. Duncan had killed D.G. (Dylan Groene) by shooting him two times. And the first shot was described by her as an accident.”

Maskell said that was correct.

“But the second shot, she talked about … how it struck the young man’s head and gave a very vivid description of what that did to him,” the attorney said, adding that he didn’t want to be too graphic. “Just listening to that, it would be difficult to imagine someone surviving that?”

Maskell responded, “As described, that’s correct.”

Maskell was among an array of witnesses called by federal prosecutors to argue against several defense motions to suppress evidence taken from Duncan’s red Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, which he was driving when he brought then-8-year-old Shasta to a Coeur d’Alene Denny’s restaurant in July 2005, where he was apprehended.

Court documents show that Shasta told authorities that while Duncan held the children captive at a remote campsite, he pulled a handgun out while the three were sitting around a campfire, and it discharged, striking Dylan in the chest. He then walked close to the boy and fired a single additional round into his head, killing him.

Duncan already has pleaded guilty to killing Shasta’s mother, Brenda Matthews Groene; her fiancé, Mark McKenzie; and Shasta’s 13-year-old brother, Slade, in a bloody attack at the family’s home just east of Coeur d’Alene. He also has pleaded guilty to kidnapping the family’s two youngest children, holding them captive and molesting them for weeks, and killing Dylan. Duncan awaits only sentencing hearings now, in which he could face the death penalty.

In advance of those hearings, set for April, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge is holding hearings this week on pending motions, including the motions to suppress evidence.

So far, the prosecution has called four witnesses: Maskell; Duncan’s former landlord in Fargo, N.D.; an Idaho State Police detective who helped search the Jeep; and FBI Special Agent Michael Gneckow.

The landlord, Jeff Ware, testified that Duncan left his apartment in disarray, with writings on a mirror and desk blotter saying, “Sorry you missed me” and “Without forgiveness there is only insanity.”

Defense attorneys are disputing whether papers Duncan left behind at the apartment were abandoned, and therefore open to search. Ware said he boxed the abandoned belongings and sold some of Duncan’s furniture at a garage sale.

Testimony Tuesday also focused on two separate warrants to search the Jeep and its contents. One was issued after a magistrate judge signed it at 7:30 a.m., just hours after Shasta was rescued on July 2, 2005; the other was signed later that afternoon.

Monaghan suggested there might have been some deficiency in the first warrant as far as searching the contents of Duncan’s laptop computer, GPS and digital microdrives in the Jeep, but Maskell said the second warrant was merely sought “in an effort to exercise an abundance of caution.”

Gneckow testified that one of the two four-gigabyte microdrives contained digital photos of the children, while the other, found in a video camera, was blank.

In a partial transcript of a videotaped interview of Shasta Groene by police shortly after her rescue, the girl told police that Duncan took “bad movies” of himself molesting the children, but then “got rid of them on his computer … he erased them.” The transcript was submitted into evidence in court Tuesday.

The hearing continues today.