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| PLEA DEAL REACHED IN GROENE/DUNCAN case! - Goto page Previous 1, 2 |
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gwen
 Posted:
Sat Apr 19, 2008 1:35 pm |
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| chance wrote: | I hope for Shasta's sake they will not let him be is own defense. Her father must be chomping at the bit about this.
This guy is so wacked. If it weren't for the cross examination on Shasta I would say heck yeah let the monster hang himself. He deserves not only the death penalty but if there were a more painful and cruel way to go he certainly deserves it. |
I agree...
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AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 14448
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| gwen
Posted:
Thu Aug 14, 2008 9:28 pm |
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Tortured Kids' Letters Shown To Idaho Jury
Anguished Father Confirms Handwriting On Notes Apparently Written At Behest Of Killer
BOISE, Idaho, Aug. 14, 2008
(CBS/ AP) The father of two children murdered and another sexually assaulted by a convicted sex offender testified at the killer's federal death-penalty hearing Thursday, showing pictures of his youngest children and choking up after confirming their handwriting on notes apparently written at their kidnapper's behest.
Steven Groene said it was the first time he had seen one of the letters, which offered a false promise. "I have good news we will be home soon," it read, "maybe in a week or 2."
Joseph Edward Duncan III pleaded guilty in December to 10 federal charges in the 2005 kidnappings of Dylan and Shasta Groene, and the slaying of Dylan. A federal jury is determining whether he should be put to death or spend life in prison without parole.
Earlier, Duncan pleaded guilty in state court to murdering the children's older brother, their mother and the mother's fiance during the attack at the family's Coeur d'Alene home. Prosecutors say he killed the three to kidnap and sexually brutalize Dylan, 9, and Shasta, then 8.
As their father testified, the letters from Dylan and Shasta flashed on a screen only briefly, and prosecutors avoided discussing the contents. But they're likely to be the letters found in the car Duncan was driving just before he was arrested with Shasta in a Coeur d'Alene restaurant weeks after the kidnapping.
Excerpts suggest Duncan directed the children to write them.
"Dear dad, I miss you very much. Me and Dylan know what happened," to their slain family members, one letter from Shasta read.
"I'm sorry you had to lose a son and an ex-wife and I'm sorry we were taken from you ... We are still alive and we are ok," read another.
After testifying about the identities of his children and confirming their handwriting, Groene stepped down, visibly choked up by the evidence. Duncan, who is representing himself, did not question him.
In May 2005, Duncan went to Idaho, broke into the home and bludgeoned 13-year-old Slade Groene, his mother, Brenda Groene, and her fiance, Mark McKenzie, before abducting Shasta and Dylan and taking them to a remote campsites and other locations in Montana. After sexually traumatizing the children for weeks, Duncan killed Dylan in front of his little sister and burned his body.
Former Kootenai County Deputy Dale Moyer, now a deputy in Spokane County, Wash., was the first prosecution witness Thursday.
He knew the family from previous calls to the house, and because when the children were playing in their front yard, they would sometimes wave him down as he drove by.
"The younger girl wanted stickers," the kind featuring law enforcement insignias, Moyer said. "And the 9-year-old, he wanted to talk about guns."
On the evening of May 16, 2005, Moyer was dispatched after the sheriff's department got a call asking them to go to the house.
As he approached the front door, he noticed blood on the porch and door, Moyer said.
While waiting for the other deputies to arrive, Moyer walked around the building and looked through a window. He could hear dogs barking inside and see blood on a wall inside the home.
"There was an odor ... of carnage and carnage smells," Moyer said. "There was a definite odor."
After other deputies arrived, Moyer said he went inside, finding the three bodies and realizing that Shasta and Dylan were missing.
One officer testified that the scene was so grisly he actually quit law enforcement for a time because "this case pushed me to the end," reports CBS affiliate KBCI-TV in Boise.
Duncan questioned FBI Special Agent Mike Geneckow, who took the stand to discuss a security video taken from a gas station in Kellogg, Idaho, on July 1, 2005, the day before Shasta was rescued.
In the video, Shasta walks around the convenience store with her arms tightly folded and Duncan nearby. At one point, Geneckow pointed out, a police car drove by the two, apparently not noticing that Shasta was the missing girl.
In cross-examination, Duncan asked the court to show the last frame of the video again - only to point out that a second police car had also passed them by.
During opening statements Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Tom Moss characterized Duncan as a cold, calculating killer and pedophile who terrorized the family because he wanted to "live out his fantasy" and exact revenge on society for perceived wrongs. Moss also said Duncan carefully researched police investigation procedures and took steps to avoid getting caught.
During his brief statement, Duncan told the jury that most of what Moss said was fair and accurate "up to the point of what occurred at the campground."
He said he would testify so he could try to "clarify things."
His standby legal counsel, Judy Clarke, has said Duncan doesn't plan to offer any mitigation, such as evidence of his own traumatic childhood.
Duncan's past is littered with arrests and prison time for crimes ranging from car theft to rape and molestation. He is suspected in the 1996 slayings of two half-sisters from Seattle and is charged with the 1997 killing of a young boy in Riverside County, Calif.
The sentencing hearing is expected to last up to six weeks.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/14/national/main4351726.shtml
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AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 14448
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| gwen
Posted:
Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:12 pm |
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Witness: Tortured boy didn't have to die
BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- A 9-year-old boy who was tortured and killed by a convicted pedophile in front of his younger sister might have been able to survive a shot to the abdomen had he been taken to a hospital, a doctor told a jury that will decide whether the man gets the death penalty.
As it was, the girl testified that Joseph Edward Duncan III blasted the boy in the head after accidentally shooting him in the stomach, having decided his life couldn't be saved.
The boy probably suffered excruciating pain, Dr. Sharon Cooper, a forensic pediatrician, testified.
The doctor said the description of the boy's injury -- he was eviscerated, his sister Shasta said, with his "guts" hanging out -- indicated it was "a very potentially salvageable injury."
Cooper also said Duncan might have had enough time to get Dylan Groene to a hospital from the remote western Montana campsite where the shooting occurred.
Cooper, former chief of pediatrics at Fort Bragg, a military base in North Carolina, performed a medical assessment of Shasta Groene after her rescue; interviewed her father, Steve Groene; and reviewed interviews of the girl by law enforcers.
Cooper's testimony in U.S. District Court followed the presentation of a videotaped interview in which Shasta Groene, 8 at the time, described how she and her brother were raped and forced to perform sex acts together by Duncan, whom she called "Jet."
Duncan pleaded guilty in December to 10 federal counts in the 2005 kidnapping of the Coeur d'Alene-area children and the murder of the boy. Duncan also faces the death penalty in a separate state case in which he pleaded guilty to murdering the siblings' family.
The children were abducted from their home in May 2005 after Duncan fatally bludgeoned their mother, Brenda Groene; their 13-year-old brother, Slade; and the mother's fiance, Mark McKenzie.
Duncan, acting as his own attorney in the sentencing phase, suggested in cross-examining Cooper that the girl was exaggerating her brother's injury.
"How much in your experience do children tend to elaborate or exaggerate and fill in details ... especially after a traumatic experience like that?" Duncan asked.
Children who exaggerate are typically much younger, between 4 and 6, and lack the vocabulary to describe what happened to them, Cooper said.
While it is CNN and The Associated Press' policy not to identify victims of sexual assault in most cases, the search for Shasta and Dylan Groene was so heavily publicized that their names are widely known.
Duncan, formerly of Tacoma, Washington, has a long string of arrests and convictions for crimes ranging from car theft to rape and molestation. He is suspected in the slayings of two half-sisters from Seattle in 1996 and is charged with killing a young boy in Riverside County, California, in 1997.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/20/duncan.slayings.ap/index.html
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AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 14448
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| CherokeeKid
Posted:
Wed Aug 20, 2008 8:39 pm |
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This is one of the most brutal cases I have ever seen!
I would know the proper 'penalty' for Duncan: bury him alive in a hill of fire ants! 
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Joined: 11 May 2006
Posts: 6275
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| gwen
Posted:
Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:02 pm |
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| CherokeeKid wrote: | This is one of the most brutal cases I have ever seen!
I would know the proper 'penalty' for Duncan: bury him alive in a hill of fire ants! |
I agree! So cruel and senseless. Very sad!
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AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 14448
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| gwen
Posted:
Sat Aug 23, 2008 10:56 am |
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'Devil' child-killer may get death wish, jury says
BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- A federal jury on Friday found Joseph Edward Duncan III eligible for the death penalty for the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of a 9-year-old Idaho boy.
The jury deliberated for two hours before issuing its unanimous ruling. When the hearing resumes next week, jurors must decide whether Duncan should be put to death.
Duncan didn't react to the verdict and opted not to have each juror individually polled to double-check their decision.
The slain boy's father, Steven Groene, and other family supporters embraced after the verdict but seemed to keep their emotions in check.
Duncan, who acted as his own attorney, will have the chance next week to convince jurors to give him life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of a death sentence.
The jury's sentencing recommendation is binding on U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge.
Duncan, 45, kidnapped Dylan Groene and his then-8-year-old sister, Shasta, in May 2005 after murdering their older brother, their mother and her fiance in the Coeur d'Alene area. The two young children were taken deep into the Lolo National Forest, where they endured weeks of horrendous abuse at Duncan's hands.
Duncan ultimately shot the boy point-blank in the head while his sister watched. He was arrested after returning to Coeur d'Alene, where a waitress recognized Shasta as the two ate at a Denny's restaurant.
Friday's verdict was not surprising after Duncan's closing arguments, in which he told the jurors they didn't yet "have a clue" about the depth of his "heinousness."
Duncan also told the panel that government lawyers helped him victimize the jurors by making them watch and listen to the grotesque evidence that was presented during the two-week hearing.
"I should actually thank the government for helping me get my eye for an eye by showing you the evidence that you've seen, the videos," Duncan said during his closing argument Friday.
Prosecutors showed jurors videos Duncan made in which he molested, tortured and hanged Dylan Groene until the boy was unconscious and nearly dead.
Duncan told jurors that by presenting the evidence, the government was "helping me to take away your heart and your innocence," Duncan said. "That's what they have done, and I should thank them but I won't."
Duncan said he wasn't in court because he was caught, but because Shasta Groene -- the sole survivor of the kidnapping and attack -- didn't judge him for his actions, prompting him to take her home.
The rampage was the culmination of years of planning, he said, and he originally intended to rape and kill until he was killed.
Duncan, a convicted pedophile originally from Tacoma, Wash., has pleaded guilty to federal and state counts including murder. The federal jury is considering the death penalty on charges related to the kidnappings and Dylan's murder, but he also could face execution on state counts for the killing of the children's three family members.
In December, Duncan pleaded guilty to 10 federal counts in connection with the crimes against Dylan and Shasta. Three of those counts qualified him for the death penalty, the jury found -- kidnapping resulting in the death of a child, sexual exploitation of a child resulting in death and using a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence resulting in death.
Duncan has a long string of arrests and convictions for crimes ranging from car theft to rape and molestation. He is suspected in the slayings of two half-sisters from Seattle in 1996 and is charged with killing a young boy in Riverside County, California, in 1997.
A witness testified for the prosecution on Thursday that Duncan had raped him at gunpoint in 1980, when the man was just 14 years old.
CNN and The Associated Press generally do not identify victims of sexual assault. In Shasta and Dylan Groene's cases, however, the search for the children was so heavily publicized that their names are widely known.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/22/duncan.verdict.ap/index.html
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AKA Gagal_05
Joined: 24 Feb 2007
Posts: 14448
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| Katie
Posted:
Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:30 pm |
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That is a sick SOB,
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Joined: 25 Mar 2006
Posts: 4970
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| Mariah
Posted:
Thu Aug 28, 2008 8:00 am |
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Death for man who kidnapped, murdered Idaho boy
By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press Writer Wed Aug 27, 6:37 PM ET
BOISE, Idaho - A longtime sex offender was sentenced to death Wednesday for the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of a 9-year-old northern Idaho boy after federal jurors who watched video of some of the brutality deliberated just three hours.
ADVERTISEMENT
The jurors' recommendation was binding on U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge, who thanked them, dismissed them and then sentenced Joseph Edward Duncan III.
Relatives of the victim, Dylan Groene, remained somber as the jury's decision was announced. Duncan murdered Dylan's mother, older brother and his mother's fiance to kidnap him and his younger sister, who was sexually abused along with her brother but survived.
"We're happy with the verdict, but it's a shame — this should have been limited to one death," said Steven Groene, the father of the children. "He should have had the courage and the guts to kill himself before killing anyone else."
Duncan showed no reaction other than smiling as the verdict was passed to the judge.
He took Dylan and the boy's then-8-year-old sister, Shasta, to a remote western Montana campsite where he raped, tortured and threatened them before shooting Dylan in the head and burning his body. Jurors viewed horrifying video Duncan made of him sexually abusing, torturing and hanging Dylan until the boy lost consciousness.
"This defendant is dangerous. He is a predator who takes pride in his work," prosecutor Traci Whelan said. "He earned this day. His actions ... call out for the death penalty."
Duncan acted as his own attorney but had offered no response to prosecutors' closing argument.
"I have no argument," he told the court.
With an eye toward kidnapping the two children, Duncan stalked their family. In 2005 he entered their Coeur d'Alene-area home and used a hammer to fatally bludgeon their 13-year-old brother, Slade Groene, his mother, Brenda Groene, and her fiance, Mark McKenzie.
Duncan was arrested and Shasta rescued weeks after the kidnappings when a waitress at a Denny's in Coeur d'Alene called police after recognizing the two as they ate.
Duncan pleaded guilty in December to 10 federal charges involving the kidnappings and the murder of Dylan. He pleaded guilty to the other three murders in state court, where he also could be sentenced to death.
After the verdict, the jurors were whisked away from the federal courthouse in two white vans so they could avoid the phalanx of media covering the hearing.
"The jury speaks the mind of the community," U.S. Attorney Tom Moss said. "By the verdict today, they have given voice to the victims."
In closing arguments, Whelan reminded the jury of Duncan's lifelong "pattern of violence," including a conviction for raping a boy at gunpoint in 1980. Duncan has told investigators he killed two half-sisters from Seattle in 1996, and he is charged with killing a young boy in Riverside County, Calif., in 1997.
Duncan may now be brought to Riverside County to stand trial in the death of Anthony Martinez.
Darlene Torres, Brenda Groene's mother, said she is glad the federal case is over.
"Justice has been served," Torres said. "It's been very painful."
She said that when she saw Duncan in court, "I seen nothing but an evil, empty, coldhearted shell."
It's hard to tell if the end of the federal case will offer any comfort to Shasta, her father said.
"I can't speak for Shasta, I can't get inside her head," Groene said. "Possibly now we'll have to be dragged through a court proceeding in California. If they go ahead with the prosecution, it would be such as waste of taxpayer money because he'll never spend a day in a California prison."
The heinousness of the evidence in Dylan's murder made it particularly difficult for the jurors to remain impartial as they deliberate, said Art Patterson, a jury consultant and senior vice president of the trial consulting firm DecisionQuest.
"Generally, for human beings, it's pretty hard to maintain impartiality when confronted with such horror," Patterson said.
"How could any juror not want to see this person removed from our list of living human beings? How could you live with yourself as a juror if there's any chance this human being could escape from jail and do something like this again?" Patterson said.
http://tinyurl.com/647a5e
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| prolific
Posted:
Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:10 am |
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This case has to be one of the most horrific cases that we've heard about.
Those precious babies, I don't know how the jurors were able to handle seeing what happened to them.
I wish he hadn't gotten the DP though, I would have liked to see him living in the prison population and go through what he put those two innocent babies through.
Oh it just makes me ill... 
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 9108
Location: Living happily in my "clueless" little world.
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| Mariah
Posted:
Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:46 am |
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| prolific wrote: | This case has to be one of the most horrific cases that we've heard about.
Those precious babies, I don't know how the jurors were able to handle seeing what happened to them.
I wish he hadn't gotten the DP though, I would have liked to see him living in the prison population and go through what he put those two innocent babies through.
Oh it just makes me ill... |
While I agree with how you feel, I am just glad DP doesn't take as long with the Feds. Plus general population is totally different in Federal prison than state prision. He wouldn't sugger in Federal prision like he would in state prision.
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| gwen
Posted:
Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:54 pm |
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Duncan showed no reaction other than smiling as the verdict was passed to the judge.
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AKA Gagal_05
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