Joseph Duncan

FARGO, N.D. – Joseph Duncan bought night-vision goggles here two days before renting a car in the Minneapolis area and vanishing, police documents show. Duncan, a convicted sex offender whose last known address was a north Fargo apartment, was charged this week in Idaho with murder and kidnapping in the bludgeoning deaths of three members of a Coeur d'Alene family found slain May 16.

Shasta Groene spent Tuesday afternoon much like any other kid. "She's running through the sprinklers and watching cartoons," said her grandmother, Darlene Torres. "She's just playing and being a kid. That's what we want from her. It's a miracle we have her."

On April 5, 2005, Joseph E. Duncan III appeared in Minnesota District Court in Detroit Lakes, Minn., where he pleaded not guilty to two felony charges of criminal sexual assault. He appeared in court after a summons was mailed to his home in nearby Fargo, N.D.District Judge Thomas Schroeder set bail at $15,000 and ordered Duncan to check in with a probation officer once a week until his next court hearing on May 16. Moments after his initial court appearance, Duncan wrote a check for the bail amount. He checked in with his probation officer twice, but was not seen again by authorities until his arrest at 2 a.m. July 2 when he was spotted at a Denny's Restaurant in Coeur d'Alene with 8-year-old Shasta Groene. In both Detroit Lakes and Coeur d'Alene, considerable outrage has been expressed at the $15,000 bail amount set for Duncan, who has a history of predatory criminal sexual behavior. By comparison, Minnesota statutes recommend a $14,000 bail amount for felony drunk driving charges.

DETROIT LAKES, Minn. – It was at a school playground in a rural Minnesota town where Joseph Edward Duncan III is believed to have resumed his criminal sexual behavior nearly 25 years after his last known sexual assault. In the middle of the day on Saturday, July 3, 2004 – one of the busiest weekends of the year for the lakeside resort community of Detroit Lakes – Duncan pulled down the pants of a 6-year-old boy, according to court documents from Becker County, Minn.

Authorities are now backing what some kin of the triple-homicide victims thought all along – that the killer had picked the Groene family at random for his crimes. Sheriff Rocky Watson said he thinks the three slayings and abduction of two children – one of whom is now believed dead – from the home east of Coeur d'Alene was planned by a stranger.

Steve Groene called on the public Wednesday to lobby their congressmen, their senators and "even the president" to keep sexual predators off the streets. "People need to start complaining to their elected officials, and we need to get some laws changed and we need to do it quickly," Groene said during a news conference in Coeur d'Alene.