Feds file charge to keep Duncan in Idaho
BOISE – Federal prosecutors have filed their first charge against convicted murderer Joseph Duncan, but it’s not for abducting two North Idaho children and killing one of them.
Duncan has been charged with illegally driving a stolen Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo across state lines. Federal investigators say he rented the car from a rental car agency in Minnesota and never returned it.
Duncan was still driving the vehicle when he was arrested in 2005 at a Coeur d’Alene restaurant, sharing a meal with then-8-year-old Shasta Groene.
The charge is a placeholder to make sure that other states where Duncan is being investigated for crimes cannot extradite him before he is tried for the 2005 kidnappings of Shasta and her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, and Dylan’s subsequent slaying, U.S. attorney’s office spokeswoman Jean McNeil said Tuesday in Boise.
“As you know, there’s been interest in him in other places. It’s possible that somebody could try to get him down there,” McNeil said.
“We want to make sure he remains in the state.”
Duncan is also the prime suspect in the slayings of two children near Seattle and one in Southern California in the 1990s.
A Tacoma native, Duncan was on the run from a child molestation charge in Minnesota when he drove past the Groene home on Interstate 90 east of Coeur d’Alene and spotted the children playing outside.
Duncan stalked the family for several days and, on May 16, 2005, entered the home and bludgeoned the children’s mother, Brenda Matthews Groene; her fiance, Mark McKenzie; and her 13-year-old son, Slade.
According to court documents, Duncan kidnapped Shasta and Dylan, traveling into the mountains near St. Regis, Mont., where he kept them for seven weeks, sexually abused them and allegedly killed Dylan.
Attorneys chose to file the car theft charge first because the evidence involved is simpler than in the kidnapping and murder cases, McNeil said.
The car theft complaint was filed Saturday with a detainer, which allows Idaho to hold Duncan until the charge is resolved, McNeil said. A grand jury is expected to hear the case, including the more serious charges, in the next few weeks.
Duncan pleaded guilty in state court in November to three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree kidnapping for the murders at the Groene home.
A judge sentenced him to life in prison without parole on the kidnapping charges.
However, the sentence on the murder counts will be deferred while the federal government pursues its case against Duncan.
Federal prosecutors have said they intend to seek the death penalty.