I blogged this back in 2005 (reposted below) as it was happening, and now 2 years later the end is drawing near, but even as it is, nothing is settled, and the closure seems impossible.  How can you move on from something so horrific?

Joseph Duncan, the guy who commiitted this indescribly horrible crime pled guilty in state court previously, and has now pled guilty in Federal court.

Duncan pleads guilty to all counts (emphasis mine)

 Joseph Duncan this morning pleaded guilty to all 10 counts in the federal indictiment against him for kidnapping and molesting two North Idaho children and killing one in 2005.

“I just wanted to say that since my arrest I have never attempted to deny responsibility,” Duncan told the court.

The convicted killer faces a possible death sentence for kidnapping Dylan and Shasta Groene in 2005 and for killing Dylan at a remote Montana camp site.

 Possible?  Good God, if ever there was a poster child for the death penalty, this is it.

The prosecution and defense had agreed on a “recitation” of the facts in the case, which federal prosecutor Traci Whelan read, along with the charges, in a courtroom that was chilled into silence despite being nearly full. The recitation included a lengthy description of Duncan’s actions, starting from April 2005 when he purchased video recording equipment and stole a car and a gun, all of which he then used in the crimes against members of the Groene family in North Idaho.

The recitation also graphically identified the nature of Duncan’s sexual abuse of the two children, and detailed how he videotaped his abuse of Dylan and then shot him to death. It also included the fact that after young Shasta, the sole survivor of the attack on her family, was rescued from Duncan at a Denney’s restaurant in Coeur d’Alene, lab testing identified Duncan as her abuser.

Duncan has already pleaded guilty in Idaho state court to kidnapping and murdering other members of the Groene family at their home in May 2005. Shasta and Dylan’s mother, Brenda Matthews Groene, her fiance Mark McKenzie and her 13-year-old son, Slade Groene, were bound and bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Prosecutors alleged Duncan killed the three so he could kidnap the younger children for sex; Duncan admitted that Monday in court. It was included in the recitation of facts.

Got that?  Murder of three people, kidnapping and repeated rape of two kids, then a 4th murder.  Only luck saved Shasta, the sole survivor, and making this a clean sweep.

And all this happened while he was on the run from molestation charges in Minnesota, where a dimwitted judge let him out on a $15k bond despoite his lengthy history and him being a level 3 sex offender with an extensive history.

After the recitation was completed, the judge asked Duncan, “You admit that those facts are true?” Duncan responded, “Yes, I do.”

Duncan was sentenced to life in prison without parole for kidnapping the three older victims, because he bound them before he killed them. But the state judge deferred imposing punishment on the murder counts to give federal prosecutors time to pursue their case on events in Montana after the children were abducted.

Even if Duncan escapes the death penalty in the federal case, he still could be sentenced to death in state court for the other murders.

Could?  Frankly, even the chance he might not be executed pisses me off.

I am so angry still.  How can people be so evil?  How can our system so badly fail us? 

Whenever I talk to people about sex offenders and their constitutional rights versus the indefinite sentences and such, I keep remembering this.  When I feel some sympathy for the death penalty opposition, I remember this guy.  I Remember SHasta and the dead victims, and wonder where their rights of protection got lost.

I am often asked if I believe in the death penalty enough to throw the switch.

In this guy’s case?  Yea, I would in a second.  Read the indictment.  Then think about your kids, your mom or your siblings.  What if it was them?

Think about (now) 10 year old Shasta and what she endured, and the scars she is stuck with instead of happy childhood memories.

The ask yourself:  Would you? 

Reposting my thoughts from 2005:

I am pissed, angry and enraged.

(originally posted here)

This started in May 2005 in Coeur d’Alene Idaho, where the bodies of three people were found bound and beaten to death, Brenda Kay Groene, 40, her son, Slade, 13, and her boyfriend, Mark Edward McKenzie, 37. This is bad enough, but there were two children missing, Shasta Groene, age 8 and Dylan Groene, age 10, who were believed to have been home when the murders happened.

Amber alerts and manhunts, searches and tips turned up nothing. Then, July 2nd, an alert waitress at a Denny’s in Coeur d’Alene saw a girl she believed to be Shasta. She notified authorities and delayed their order till the police arrived. It was her. Her brother Dylan was not with them, and is presumed dead. Investigators have found remains they believe are his in Montana. DNA tests are pending.

She was with a man named Joseph Edward Duncan, 42, who has been charged with kidnapping, and is the only suspect in the murders.

Duncan is a convicted, high risk sex offender. In 1980, when he was 16, Duncan stole several handguns in a burglary. Later that same day, he abducted a 14-year-old boy who was walking to the grocery store. He raped him a couple of times, dry fired the gun at him, beat him with a stick and burned him with cigarettes. Duncan pleaded guilty in adult court to first-degree rape and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. On the recommendations of a Pierce County probation officer, a judge suspended the sentence and ordered Duncan to enter the sexual offender program at Western State Hospital in Steilacoom, Wash. In 1982 after he left the hospital grounds and peeped in the windows of nearby homes, a judge revoked his suspended sentence and Duncan began serving his time in a state penitentiary. He was released on parole in 1994 but violated it by not registering as a sex offender and was sent back in 1997.

Just last July, he was charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct and attempted criminal sexual conduct accused of molesting a 6-year-old boy at a school playground in Minnesota.

In that case, he was accused of approaching two young boys with a video camera at a playground, and pulling down the shorts of one of the boys and touching him. He was released by Becker County, Minn., authorities in April on $15,000 bond and ordered to stay in touch with a probation agent. In May, authorities said they were seeking Duncan on a warrant after he failed to do so.

$15,000 dollar bond? For a level 3 sex offender? What were they thinking?

You know, recent news stories have really forced me to test my beliefs in many ways, one of which is on the subject of sex offenders and indeterminate sentences.

It seemed to me that people needed the chance to rehabilitate and society owed people the chance for redemption. Now I wonder. Maybe we should just lock the bastards up.

If the authorities had used that method in April, and cuffed and stuffed him instead of letting him out on a measly $15k bond, then maybe Shasta would not have had to watch this guy tie up her family, murder them, and she wouldn’t have had to endure him raping her and her brother repeatedly over the course of several months as they were fugitives.

She is with her father now, and she is safe, but the wounds of her ordeal and the loss of her family will remain. Not much of a happy ending, but I will take one survivor over none.

Question to the reader: Is our society too easy on sex offenders? At what point do they deserve a chance to be rehabilitated and returned to society?

And as I read the accounts of his past cases, over and over I see leniency and compassion leading us to this horrible tragedy.

At a 1997 parole revocation hearing in Olympia, Wash., Richard Wacksman, a Fargo doctor Duncan had met at a coffeehouse in San Francisco, testified on his behalf. Wacksman said he would support Duncan financially and let him live in his home if he was released. (wonder what he thinks now) In 1999 another psychologist rated the risk of Duncan repeating his crime or being violent as medium. (same question) And in the recent case, a $15K bond and promise to keep in touch with a parole officer.

It’s sad and sick. We as a society want to be loving and supporting and nurturing. We want to heal the sickness, and make the criminal productive. We argue for civil rights and due process. Did all that contribute to the death of 3, possibly 4 and the traumatic rape of an 8 year old girl?

What if there are people like this SOB, who are by all appearances just plain evil?

I don’t like the answers any more then the questions.

For now I will pray a special prayer for Shasta.

Forget. 

 Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson’s Website, The Virtuous Republic, Mark My Words, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Right Truth, Stuck On Stupid, The Amboy Times, Chuck Adkins, The Uncooperative Radio Show! Special Weekend!, Adeline and Hazel, Pursuing Holiness, third world county, DragonLady’s World, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Stageleft, Church and State, AZAMATTEROFACT, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, Big Dog’s Weblog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, Nuke’s, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Global American Discourse, CORSARI D’ITALIA, The Yankee Sailor, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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