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Duncan pleads guilty to all counts

Betsy Z. Russell
Staff writer
December 4, 2007

BOISE – 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.

Duncan’s federal trial had been scheduled to begin Jan. 28. Now he will be back in U.S. District Court on that day to be sentenced for the three most serious charges. A federal jury will decide if he should die for his crimes.

It's not clear whether the guilty pleas will spare young Shasta from testifying. The penalty proceedings will focus on the aggravating factors that make Duncan's crimes against Dylan heinous enough to warrant a death sentence; Shasta is the only witness to those events.

A gag order remains in effect, barring attorneys in the case from commenting. They declined to answer reporters' questions as they left court this morning.

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.

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.

Duncan is a Tacoma, Wash., native who spent most of his adult life in Washington state prisons for sexual crimes against children.

He 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, spotting Shasta, then 8 years old, and Dylan, who was 9, playing outside. Duncan stalked the Groene family for several days, then entered the home and bound and killed the two adults and the teen.

Court documents allege Duncan took the two youngest children and drove into the mountains near St. Regis, Mont., where he sexually abused them for weeks before killing Dylan. The boy’s body was found in a remote campsite.

Duncan has said repeatedly - including in court Monday - that he was trying to return Shasta to her father when he and the little girl were spotted in a Coeur d’Alene restaurant on the morning of July 2, 2005, about seven weeks after the family was attacked.

Duncan is represented by several lawyers, including federal defender and death-penalty specialist Judy Clarke.

Clarke, the former director of the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington and Idaho, has helped keep Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, 1996 Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph and convicted child killer Susan Smith off death row.

Duncan has also been charged in a California court in the 1997 slaying of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez in Indio, Calif. Prosecutors there have said they also intend to seek the death penalty, and that the case involved kidnapping, torture and child molestation. In addition, Duncan is a suspect in two 1996 killings in Washington state – that of 9-year-old Carmen Cubias and 11-year-old Sammiejo White.

The federal charges against Duncan

Here are the 10 charges in the federal indictment against Joseph Duncan for kidnapping young Dylan and Shasta Groene and killing Dylan; three of the charges carry the death penalty:

1. Kidnapping resulting in death (capital offense)

2. Kidnapping

3. Aggravated sexual abuse of a minor

4. Aggravated sexual abuse of a minor

5. Sexual exploitation of a child resulting in death (capital offense)

6. Felon in possession of a firearm

7. Using a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence resulting in death (capital offense)

8. Transportation of a stolen firearm

9. Possession of an unregistered firearm

10. Transportation of a stolen vehicle

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