Duncan’s teacher: ‘Didn’t seem to have a friend in the world’
Joseph Duncan’s 10th grade biology teacher in Tacoma, Wash. has been writing to him, providing him with a religious article and telling him that he feels “very sorry for not only his victims but him as well.” “I told him that a lady who I thought was working for one of his attorneys had contacted me a year ago and told me that he was going to be on trial for the crimes and the prosecution would be asking for the death penalty,” the teacher, who asked that his name not be published, said in an email. “I told her that I didn’t remember him well, but his face jumped right out the minute she showed me his picture. I told her that I remember him as being rather shy, very quiet but very polite.”
The teacher, who taught in public school then but now works for a Christian school organization, said, “Of course I feel more sorry for his victims and their families than Joseph, but I don’t think a young man like Joseph can turn into the kind of person he became without a lot of help along the way – someone sure failed him, that’s for sure.” Asked if he had any sense, back when the 15- or 16-year-old Duncan was in his class, that something already had gone wrong for him – within a year he’d be arrested for his first violent sex crime and sentenced to 20 years – the teacher said, “The one troubling thing that I can remember was that he didn’t seem to have a friend in the world. Other than that, no. I thought he was just very shy.”
