Voices from Death Row

by Kelly Banaski

  His record shows a consistent problem of other inmates attempting to coerce Duncan into sex. He was slim, frail and only 21 at the time. He was repeatedly put into protective custody and kept out of general population. He was regularly punished for having pornography and other contraband in his cell and possession. During the late 1980s, he was nearing time for release but could not get a home plan approved. He asked to move in with his mother, step-grandmother and father. All requests were denied. The step-grandmother’s husband had been incarcerated for molesting nearly 50 children. Duncan was also denied a plan to move into two different halfway houses. He had been deemed highly likely to reoffend and in need of constant monitoring. By 1993, he was way past his release date, the system still denying his request for freedom time and again based on his continuing behavior issues. He was finally released to a halfway house in September of 1994. He spent the holidays with his mother, and when his required four months was over, he moved into an apartment of his own in Seattle, Washington.

  Duncan garnered a job as a phone solicitor in 1994 and spent much of that year and the next visiting relatives and working at his job. He made the list of top sales people that year. By December of 1995, however, he had already missed a parole appointment and failed to be home when the probation officer came for home visits. He eventually made a visit and offered enough excuses that the parole officer gave him permission to visit relatives in a neighboring town. It is also around this time that Duncan told his parole officer that he was dating a woman that was helping him to discover his feminine side by buying him women's clothes and undergarments. They eventually went to a gay men’s retreat so the officer could view his interactions with gay men.

  In July of 1997, Duncan ran upon two little girls, half-sisters, Sammiejo White, 11, and Carmen Cubias, nine. They had left the motel they were staying in to scavenge for food at restaurants. They were never seen alive again. Their bodies were found two years later in early 1998. Duncan admitted to killing them while incarcerated for the Groene family murders. In March of 1997, another little girl went missing in Washington. Only seven years old, little Deborah Palmer disappeared on her way to school. Her lifeless body washed ashore five days later. Duncan is a suspect in her death.

  Parole was violated once again and Duncan returned to prison in 1997. He had tested positive for marijuana twice and had visited his sister, who had children. Both of those things were violations of his parole. It didn’t take long after his release that he just jumped ship and disappeared. On April 2, 1997, his mother reported that he had absconded and she was not privy to his whereabouts.[vi]

  On April 4, 1997, in Beaumont, California, Anthony Michael Martinez and some friends were playing in the yard of one of the children when Joseph Duncan approached in a vehicle. He approached the boys with a photo of a long haired white cat. He said it was missing and he needed help finding it. When all the boys declined, Duncan produced a knife and grabbed young Anthony Martinez. As his friends watched in horror, Duncan dragged him to the vehicle and absconded with him. His abused, naked body was found on April 19, near Indio, California. He was bound with duct tape upon which a single fingerprint was left. It would be several years, but police would finally identify the print as Duncan’s. He ultimately admitted his guilt.

  Police caught up with Duncan and he was incarcerated for parole violations. He spent approximately another 3–4 years in prison and was released in 2000. Credited with serving his entire sentence, he was released with no parole and no responsibilities other than registering as a sex offender. He did so in Fargo, North Dakota, and was classified as a level three sex offender.

  Duncan enrolled in North Dakota State University and made the Dean’s List. Throughout 2002–03, he spent a lot of time going on camping trips and scuba diving expeditions, but he was growing increasingly enraged by what he felt was the unfair practice of registering sex offenders. He started a blog in 2004 and called it The Fifth Nail. He wrote about his daily life and the frustrations he had at being a sex offender and the way it is dealt with in this country. Some entries talked about his gay dating exploits and other personal life details. He had become very proficient with computers and email in college and set up a gay dating site, calling himself Jazzy Jet. He joined a geocaching site. Most, if not all, of his online screen names and handles used the word Jet in it somewhere. He mentioned in his blog that Jet is an alter ego he developed in prison to help him survive and cope.

  In July of 2004, Joseph Duncan gave in to another wave of pedophilic desire and attempted to molest two small boys in a Minnesota school playground. He had a video camera with him. He fled from the scene, but police were able to track him down. He wrote about receiving a call from an investigator on his blog. With a bit of braggadocio, he wrote that he told the investigator he would come in for a talk but planned to avoid him. He spent a lot of 2004 geocaching and making new friends online, but police finally charged him for molesting the two boys in the playground in 2005. The charges were second-degree criminal sexual conduct and second-degree attempted criminal sexual conduct. His first appearance in court on these charges was slated for April 5, 2005.

  He posted bail in Minnesota and began the slow descent that would end in the deaths of most of the Groene family. Always able to connive and convince people of his innocence, friends he’d met in prison and online helped cover his checks for him and provided him with cash. He bought a pair of night vision glasses and rented a red Jeep Cherokee before leaving Minnesota to go back to North Dakota. His blog entries were coming irregularly and increasingly strange. He wrote emails to friends claiming he planned to kill himself and asking neighbors to take care of his pets. His last communication with Minnesota DOC was April 18, 2005. A warrant for his arrest was issued in May. Joseph Edward Duncan III did not return the rental Jeep but instead traveled in a roundabout fashion to Idaho.

  On May 15, the Groene family was last seen at a BBQ outside their home in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Brenda Groene and her live-in boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, were known as loving, hard-working parents with a taste for fun. They would sometimes host neighborhood BBQs and impromptu get-togethers, partaking of the occasional beer or joint. Brenda’s ex-husband, Steve, was the father of the children in the home and a regular visitor. Brenda, Mark, Slade Groene, their teen son, Shasta and Dylan all enjoyed the day without realizing a madman watched over them. For at least three days, Joseph Duncan used his night vision glasses and binoculars to watch the family, learning their daily routines and schedules.

  Duncan had decided that he would rape, torture and murder as many children as he could before he died or was killed. The alternative, prison for the Minnesota molestations, was unthinkable. Instead he chose to live out his ultimate fantasy of nonstop molestation, rape and torture at every opportunity. He found the Groene family by chance when he arrived in Idaho. As he came into the state, he spotted the children playing in the yard. He spent several days casing out the home from the nearby woods, complete with all the tools he had gathered in North Dakota: binoculars, night vision goggles, and an array of zip ties, a shotgun, duct tape and rope.

  Sometime in the early morning hours of May 16, Joseph Duncan snuck into the Groene home where he found Brenda asleep in the living room. Waking her with a gun pointed in her face, he demanded to know where the man he had seen was. When Mark came into the living room, Duncan had them both at gunpoint and forced Brenda to zip tie Mark's hands and feet together. He took her through the same steps with each of the children, one at a time, until he had the entire family incapacitated. He took the two smallest children, Shasta and Dylan outside while he murdered the rest of the family.

  The trip to the camp sites in Lolo National Forest took almost two hours, and when they arrived, it must have seemed inescapable to the brother and sister, which it was. Duncan took the children deep into the Montana wilderness to a spot so remote no trace of humanity could be heard. For the next month and a half, he would move from campsite to campsite torturing and molest
ing the children where no one could hear them scream.

  Later, in court, the GPS in the stolen Jeep would show several different camp sites throughout Montana and other states that Duncan had marked. Some had children’s toys in the yard. The GPS also had several stops marked that turned out to be homes of families with small children.

  He videotaped the Groene children’s ordeal, including hanging small Dylan by the neck in an abandoned cabin, burning him with cigarettes and with forcible sex acts committed on him by Duncan and with his sister, Shasta. The recordings would be found by police in the Jeep and played in court. He burned Dylan’s body in the wilderness. Spending a few more weeks with Shasta proved to be more emotionally powerful than Duncan planned for. He continued to molest her. He told her daily of how he’d massacred her family, showing her the bloody hammer he used to tear away the existence of each person. Despite the horrendous evil she lived with, she somehow broke his resolve on the course he’d set in action. She talked to him about her last remaining family member, her father Steve, and how badly she wanted to be with him. She’d given Duncan her dad's phone number, which police found on a notecard in the Jeep. [vii] [viii]

  On July 1, Duncan called a friend who had helped him since he’d been released from prison. He didn’t mention what he had done or where he was. The friend, angry that Duncan had run from the police, scolded him and hung up without hearing whatever it was Duncan would have said. The next day was a day of reckoning for Duncan.

  Shasta’s sweet nature and kind demeanor had convinced Duncan that he should allow her to live and set her free. They had traveled back to her home town of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and planned to reunite her with her father. It was 2 a.m. on July 2, when Shasta and Joseph Edward Duncan III entered a Denny’s restaurant and sat down across from each other. Shasta sat with her head down, her feet swinging under the booth beneath her. Her hands were pressed together in a prayer-like position and placed between her legs.

  The case had reached national news and locals in particular were aware of all the details. It took only one second for the waitress to realize who was sitting in front of her. She remained calm, afraid Duncan would run with Shasta if he smelled danger. Taking their order, she smiled and walked back into the kitchen where she called police.

  Joseph Duncan was arrested and Shasta was rescued on July 2, 2005. Hours after her family had been murdered, a family friend stopped by and found the back door ajar and smeared with blood. He called the police. Upon entering the home, they discovered the three dead bodies placed in a half-square formation, still bound, faces shattered beyond recognition. Every room in the house was smeared with blood and the scent of decomposition had already begun to form. Authorities in Coeur d'Alene spent the entire time Shasta was missing searching out leads and following them, only to come to one dead end after another. Joseph Duncan had ghosted into town and left under the cover of night. Had Shasta not convinced her attacker to free her, she may never have been found.

  Shasta revealed her entire ordeal to police in incredible, coherent detail. Authorities had hoped to find Dylan still alive, but Shasta had dashed those hopes. Her details allowed police to find Dylan’s remains and other pertinent information. She stayed in the hospital under observation for three days until her father completed the trip from Washington to be at her side. Little Shasta had survived a massacre.[ix]

  It wasn’t long before police used the information in the Jeep to divulge exactly what Duncan had been up to. He had planned similar incidents at daycares, bus stops, schools and homes across the country. His rage at the injustices done to sex offenders fueled his rampages. In October of 2006, he struck the first of several deals for his charges and sentencing. He agreed to explain his course of action up to and including the Groene family slayings.

  Joseph Duncan represented himself in his trial. The jury was forced to watch videos of the torture of Dylan Groene. They heard him tell the small boy that he was the devil himself and he’d come to make him hurt. He was sentenced in under three hours to three consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole. This sentence was pending the outcome of the federal cases against him, and Idaho reserved the right to bring a death sentence against him. His guilty pleas were not retractable. A year later, the federal court had its say. Duncan was given three death sentences in federal court. He also received nine life terms under a variety of charges for the murders of four members of the Groene family and the kidnapping of its youngest members, Shasta and Dylan. He was also charged with the murder of Anthony Martinez and received a life sentence for his murder after he was matched to the partial thumbprint on the duct tape authorities had preserved for so many years. [x]

  Shasta Groene not only survived but played a major part in Duncan’s sentencing. He had bragged to her about killing her family and forced her to watch him abuse and kill her brother. He had bragged, also, about killing other children and told her every detail. She remembered the names of all the children he’d killed and made sure their deaths were brought to light.

  Joseph Edward Duncan III sits on federal death row as of 2017. It remains to be seen if any charges from other murders, both known and unknown, will be leveled against him. His latest appeal in March of 2016 was denied. He will die on death row.

  I had read much of Duncan’s Fifth Nail blog and found an entry he’d written saying he would cooperate with a writer one day if he found one with a different sort of agenda, and I thought I fit the bill. Duncan asked me to call him Jett in the first letter I received from him, and I did from then on. From the beginning, he was a bit petulant and exuded something that seemed like a kind of guarded arrogance. He wasn’t as cooperative as his post led me to believe.

  He spoke of some “friends” he had on the outside who had perused my blog and read my entry on him, in which I had expressed my horror at his crimes. He asked me why I said he made me sick. I was a bit bumfuzzled. Did I really have to tell him? He fired question after question at me in what he had deemed a quest to determine my level of sincerity. He has a tendency to ramble a bit, and more than once I found myself backtracking in the letter to remember what he was originally talking about.

  He told me one of his friends also wanted to write about him, and I assured him we could both do so in hopes it would assuage anyone’s bruised ego. He spoke of their warnings as to my “actual intentions” and threw the fact that they’d bought my books at me like rounds of ammunition.

  In one moment, Jett would seem eager to get his thoughts out to the world but in the next, he would express doubt and scorn, questioning my reasoning behind everything I asked him. It became tiresome and I considered excluding him from the book more than once. The hope that he could tell me why he had committed such horrifying crimes continually prodded me forward.

  When his first set of answers to my questions came, I was not surprised. Duncan is a pedophile, a murderer, a rapist, but he is not an idiot. Like many of his ilk, he is intelligent. His ideas on why and how he ended up murdering and raping children are startling and sometimes confusing, but he does have answers. I spent the next few months trying to make sense of it all. While it is sometimes hard for an outsider to understand, Duncan legitimately tries to give reason to what he has done. He admits guilt and places no blame, as he told me more than a few times. He has cyphered out what he believes are the life experiences that pushed him along the path he chose. He also uses his intelligence to steer others away from the glaring, horrific nightmare he created and into safer waters where he can talk to you about the studies conducted he feels prove his point or at least illustrate it further, and books about the natural origin of pedophilic tendencies in hopes of eliciting some sort of understanding. Whether he does this knowingly or not, I cannot attest.

  His urges and proclivities occur organically in his body, and so he searches for a biological remedy and would often direct me to research like the Rind Study and books such as Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex by Judith Levine. Af
ter we had exchanged a few letters, he explained that he could not claim to have remorse as he wasn’t sure what that was, but does feel bad for what he’s done and for the pain felt by all affected. “I don’t cry about it, but I do genuinely care” is how he put it to me. It could be said that fact is shown most significantly in his decision to allow Shasta to live and not only release her, but turn himself in when there is a good indication he could have absconded undetected. He has some form of conscience.

  One of our ongoing topics of conversation was about blame and responsibility and how he sees the two differently. Blame, as he described it, is like a hand with a finger pointing away, giving all control to another person or set of circumstances.

  Even when we blame ourselves, we are still effectively pointing outward… away from our ability to control who we are and what we do.

  He described responsibility as someone claiming they have had control all along.

  He uses his intelligence to his benefit but it is more like he stumbles over it and uses it to pick himself back up again. He knows that what he did was wrong and that he cannot blame any of it on society or his past life experiences, and yet he realizes that it all had a hand in what he became.

  I asked him if anything could have stopped him along the way, once the rapes began. He replied that he had tried to answer this same question before, on his blog, The Fifth Nail. The more he thought about it, he wrote, the more convinced he became that it might be the wrong question to ask. This is the first instance where I really began to notice that he was a pro at deflecting the question. Although, he would deny he does it. He wrote it was like asking, “What holds up the Earth?” and that any answer you give only begs the question to be reiterated. He thought I needed to reframe the question and asked me what I was really asking? He wrote for several more pages about how people once thought the idea of gravity was evil and demonic although it was accurate, people weren’t ready to hear it. He equated this knowledge with what the real answer to my question would be, and how people would think it only evil although it would be accurate.