Duncan tried to get child porn in prison

OLYMPIA – State prison records released Monday show that Joseph Edward Duncan III, as a prison inmate in Walla Walla, protested when officials there prevented him from receiving a publication that “clearly depicted child pornography.”

“I will support the actions of the mailroom,” Washington State Penitentiary Superintendent Jim Blodgett wrote to Duncan after he had complained.

The TR Publications mailing, Blodgett said, “encouraged the activities of bondage and homosexual activities with children.” The memo is dated April 28, 1991, when Duncan was serving time for raping a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint.

The state Department of Corrections files released Monday do not include Duncan’s original complaint about the mailing or a copy of the publication itself.

The revelation comes on the heels of a Spokane weekly newspaper’s report that Duncan allegedly videotaped his abuse of Dylan and Shasta Groene. He allegedly bound and killed three older family members in May at their home east of Coeur d’Alene, then kidnapped the two children, ages 8 and 9, later killing the boy.

“A number of sources working various aspects of the case said more evidence was found in (Duncan’s) Jeep,” the Pacific Northwest Inlander reported last week. The story said the evidence included “a camcorder used by Duncan to film himself abusing Dylan and Shasta Groene during their weeks of captivity in the Lolo National Forest.”

Kootenai County Sheriff Rocky Watson said Monday that he couldn’t comment on the report.

“I’ve got a gag order” from the U.S. attorney’s office, Watson said. “I can’t talk about it.”

Inlander editor and publisher Ted S. McGregor Jr. said the paper stands by its story.

On Friday, the Fargo (N.D.) Forum newspaper reported that a week before Duncan went missing from Fargo, he went to a local Wal-Mart and bought night-vision goggles, a pocket-size camcorder and a pack of videotapes.

That was on April 13. On May 15 or 16, Duncan allegedly attacked the family at their home.