Joseph Duncan

Kootenai County prosecutors filed a reply to Joseph Duncan's attorney late Thursday afternoon to keep the death penalty on the table in the homicide suspect's case. Duncan is accused of killing three members of a North Idaho family and will stand trial in October.

Homicide suspect Joseph Duncan is not expected to appear in court next week during two days of arguments over motions in his triple-murder case, according to the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department. Sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said Wednesday that Duncan, who is set to go on trial in October for the 2005 slayings of three members of a North Idaho family, will not be in the courtroom for the hearing on pretrial motions scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Joseph Duncan isn't set to be tried on triple-murder charges until October, but his attorney is already asking for the state's protocol for lethal injection. Public Defender John Adams sent a formal request to Kootenai County prosecutors this week asking for the state's protocol for the method of execution, which has become increasingly controversial in recent years.

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.)

Denny's was proud of Amber Deahn and other employees after they helped rescue Shasta Groene from the clutches of sadistic Joseph Edward Duncan last July – so proud that it bought a USA Today ad to salute them. That was then. After the hoopla died down, Denny's canned Amber while she was on maternity leave. Seems Amber was hired the day she became pregnant, stopped working in August, and went into labor on Labor Day. She delivered the bouncing baby boy 32 hours later. She was ready to go back to work during the Christmas holiday but figured something was up on Dec. 30 when she and hubby Nathan were treated badly when they dropped by the Coeur d'Alene Denny's. She discovered only after she applied for her current job at Coeur d'Alene's AutoZone that Denny's had fired her. While the baby fussed in the background, Amber told Huckleberries during a phone interview that she's worked for AutoZone for three weeks and that she's now counting down the 545 days until Nathan returns from Iraq. He was among the 60 Army reservists from the region deployed Monday. The reward money's gone. Amber joked that she wasted it on medical bills. But she remains in the spotlight. On July 27, she will appear on "The Montel Williams Show" along with other women involved in the rescue of others. And she's often recognized by well-wishers who ask about the reward offer made by Steve Groene of his $17,000 motorcycle and $10,000 in cash. She's tired of the question. She hasn't received a dime from him.

Joseph Duncan laughed at times and cried at times in the hour after he was booked into the Kootenai County Jail nearly one year ago, according to recently filed court documents. The accused killer also told authorities he wouldn't have been caught if he hadn't wanted to be.

When the 30-day eviction notice arrived last month, he was upset but not surprised. After nearly two years on Idaho's sex offender registry list, the Coeur d'Alene man is accustomed to being ostracized – and despised. "I've lost three jobs and two housing situations," said the 31-year-old, who agreed to be identified only by his first name, Ryan.

Coeur d'Alene attorney John Sahlin became disenchanted with the legal process early in his career. He specialized in family law, an area he said many attorneys consider "one of the least rewarding areas of practice." That was the experience he had.