Bismarck Tribune - North Dakota News - Jury sees tape of slaying's sole survivor

Jury sees tape of slaying's sole survivor

Aug 20, 2008 - 04:06:44 CDT

By REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press Writer

BOISE, Idaho - Jurors on Tuesday watched a police interview of an 8-year-old girl that was videotaped soon after she was rescued from a convicted pedophile who she said raped her and forced her to watch him torture, molest and kill her younger brother.

Appearing composed and wrapped in a quilt decorated with teddy bears, Shasta Groene described how she and her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, were raped and forced to perform sex acts together by Joseph Edward Duncan III, whom she called "Jet."

The federal jury is to decide whether Duncan should be executed. He has pleaded guilty to 10 federal counts involving the kidnapping and torture of the children and the slaying of Dylan at a remote campsite in western Montana. He also faces the death penalty in a separate state case in which he pleaded guilty to murdering the siblings' family.

While it is The Associated Press' policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual assault in most cases, the search for Shasta and her brother was so heavily publicized that their names are widely known.

The 2005 interview presented in court was taped at the Kootenai Medical Center, where Shasta Groene, then 8, was being treated shortly after she was spotted with Duncan and rescued at a restaurant in Coeur d'Alene.

On one occasion, she recounted, Duncan took Dylan into an old shack, made him stand on a bench, wrapped wire around his neck, kicked a bench out from under his legs and masturbated as the boy nearly choked to death.

"Then Jet took him down and said, 'Wake up, wake up, wake up,'" Shasta recounted, her voice steady.

Her brother screamed when he woke up because he thought he had been in heaven, she told investigators.

News > State

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Comments

Kara wrote on Aug 20, 2008 4:29 PM:

" This is so incredibly sad. This poor girl and her brother, RIP. There is no reason he shouldn't get the death penalty, sick man. And even if he gets the death penalty, we taxpayers will have to pay thousands so that he gets a fair and moral death - stupid. A rope costs a buck at Walmart, and the neck breaks instantly so theres no pain there either, and we dont have to waste our money on a creep like this. "

lil_bit wrote on Aug 20, 2008 2:57 PM:

" This is why states like Texas have the death penalty. To bad ND doesn't.(yes i know he his being tried in federal court) of course people will argue that it is not cost effective because all the legal avenues that need to be exhausted before the deed gets done. when you add the daily costs per inmate plus the health care we will provide until they die, I would say it would even it's self out and it would bring some closer for the families of the victims. I say send him to Texas and fire up OL' Sparky for this pathetic @$$. "

lw wrote on Aug 20, 2008 12:52 PM:

" Life without the possibility of parole AND he lives with the full population of the prison. "

OMG wrote on Aug 20, 2008 10:35 AM:

" What in the world are we wasting tax dollars on this creep for? We need new laws so that when there is this much evidence the case should be dismissed and the guy should be hung...publicly! "

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