Posted on 07/03/2005 5:11:22 PM PDT by TheOtherOne
Troubling Questions Surround Case of Idaho Girl Found After Six Weeks
Published: Jul 3, 2005 COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) - A day after missing 8-year-old Shasta Groene turned up with a registered sex offender at a Denny's restaurant in her hometown, investigators struggled with a troubling question: What happened to her 9-year-old brother Dylan?
The man with Shasta, Joseph Edward Duncan III, was arrested and charged with kidnapping, but he has requested a lawyer and is refusing to talk to authorities, Kootenai County Sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said Sunday.
Duncan won't be appointed a public defender until a court hearing Tuesday, Wolfinger said.
In the meantime, the search for Dylan continues, though investigators say the information they have points to the boy being dead.
"Our goal is to find Dylan one way or another," Wolfinger said.
Investigators haven't revealed what they believe happened to Dylan or how long they believe the boy was alive after the children's mother, 13-year-old brother and their mother's boyfriend were bludgeoned to death in their home on May 16.
There was no sign of the boy when Shasta was found around 2 a.m. Saturday in the restaurant with Duncan.
Shasta was recognized by a waitress at the restaurant, who called police, and the little girl was reunited that afternoon with her father, Steve Groene. She was reported in good condition at the hospital Sunday, Wolfinger said. The girl's father has declined requests for interviews.
The arrest of Duncan, a 42-year-old from Fargo, N.D., who had spent more a decade in prison for raping a boy at gunpoint when Duncan, has raised many questions and provided few answers.
"Where have Duncan and Shasta and Dylan been the last six weeks? Was Duncan involved in the triple homicide? Were other people involved? Is so, who and where are they?" Wolfinger said.
"I think why is probably the biggest question we have," he said.
Shasta spoke at length with investigators on Saturday, but authorities are treating her gently, Wolfinger said.
"She's a little girl who's been through who knows what in the past six weeks," he said.
Authorities believe Duncan, who was raised in Tacoma, Wash., remained in the Pacific Northwest with the children during the six weeks they were missing. Wolfinger hasn't said if authorities believe Duncan was involved in the slayings, and it wasn't known if he had any connection with the victims.
Half way across the country, officials were facing another tough question: Why had Duncan been released on bail earlier this year after being charged with molesting a 6-year-old boy at a Minnesota school playground.
Prosecutors in Becker County, Minn., where Duncan was released, did not return calls seeking comment. Police in Fargo said they had been looking for Duncan since May, but had no indication he had fled to Idaho.
Days before the children disappeared, an ominous message was posted on a Web site that officials said Duncan maintained.
"I am scared, alone and confused, and my reaction is to strike out toward the perceived source of my misery, society," the May 11 entry said. "My intent is to harm society as much as I can, then die."
Forty investigators were working the case Sunday, with the FBI and Idaho State Patrol backing up city and county police.
A search of the stolen Jeep Duncan was driving has been completed, and the evidence was forwarded to the FBI, Wolfinger said. He declined to describe that evidence.
The astonishing emergence of Shasta more than six weeks after she disappeared, countered by her brother's continued, ominous absence, created mixed emotions here.
"We're happy about Shasta," Bill Todd, owner of Davis Donuts, said Sunday. "But I'm sad there's no good news on Dylan yet."
"There can be happy endings," employee Darcy Furey said hopefully.
Todd's business was one of many that taped up posters of the missing children and displayed readerboards praying for their safe return. The case dominated conversations in this northern Idaho resort community of 35,000, decked with flags for the sunny Fourth of July weekend - a big event in tourist-dependent Coeur d'Alene.
Investigators had interviewed hundreds of people, searched through 800 tons of trash and fielded more than 2,000 tips.
In the end, the restaurant where Shasta was found was just a few miles from her family's home.
AP-ES-07-03-05 1945EDT
Nor do I.
there's just something real fishy about this whole case. If they truly believe Dylan is dead, then why haven't they charged this guy with murder?
And tell me why the g/mother got so confused to report that her g/son had also been found?
And again, why was the sheriff so quick to report that Dylan is deceased?
1+1=2...Not in this case though.
I'd say he's accomplished the first part of his mission, and it's time to finish it.
Isn't it a fairly well-established fact that this child molesting behavior is self-perpetuating, and that whenever a child is molested or raped, he's messed up enough to "carry on" with other kids?
If that is true, then something must be done to stop this cycle. I personally don't care whether we execute them or send them up for life without parole, but we have to put a stop to this.
The scumbag? I hope they're going to work on him with a pair of rusty pliers and a blowtorch, to get Dylans's location out of him.
If a dog is rabid, we don't give it therapy. We put it to sleep. Same principle should apply to these animals.
Maybe, but why not be sure and execute them?
There are many reasons we punish people: punishment, retribution, deterrence . . . I can't think of a reason to give a child molester a 2nd chance. (that being said, there is a need to classify the crime. So that we differentiate against the 'sure thing' criminal and the 'questionable crime'. Sure thing being the admitted molester the person where we have video, photo, evidence, etc.)
Well put!
We ought not believe anything reported in the media. They rush to be the 'first' with the news and are more often than not having to retract their story.
I was thinking about her and her burden too! She lost her mother and a brother (maybe both brothers). Although she will be physically okay, she's going to need a lot of love and prayers to heal emotionally. It's gotta be rough for her.
They need to turn out the lights, cameras and microphones in the interview room, and start explaining to Mr. Duncan that there are far worse fates than dying (since he more or less admitted on his godawful blog that he wants to die), and begin by demonstrating how easy it is to suffer electrical shocks to the groin when those pesky power outages take place, causing the lights to go out.
Then point out firmly but fairly that as he remembers where that boy Dylan is, that the power spikes curiously begin to lose some of their potency.
If that demonstration of jailhouse electrical safeguards fails to impress Mr. Duncan, there is always the demonstration of the risks of being near a toilet bowl full of water when those lights go out. Awful easy to slip and go headfirst into said bowl. And your groin is even more exposed, so we're back to the dangers of sudden electrical shock.
Gosh Mr. Duncan, you seem to be having a streak of bad luck.
Now TALK you child-molesting, bound-for-Hell, sick sonuvabitch!
Yes, very frightening stuff. While not balanced, he is also not stupid.
This may sound as trite as those who blame Bush for every sort of thing that irritates them, but the answer to your question is the liberals. We can easily blame it on the liberals.
What I don't understand is how this guy could keep the children for weeks right under their noses, and they did not catch him. If he killed the boy a few days ago, then that adds a screw up to a tragedy.
Of course, there was already a screw up. The guy should have been in jail.
Donning my flame suit once again...that is one of the few mistakes I feel that Reagan made as Govenor of California...closing State mental hospitals. Keep them there or in prison. Just keep these sickos off the street.
There's a judge who let him out on bail after his latest child-rape. Maybe we should torture the judge as a lesson to the others.
This happened back during the early years of the Reagan Administration anyway, and the Dems usually blame Ronaldus Magnus for the catastrophe.
I am a fan of removal and public shame. The city should sponsor a parade of injustice on how this judge valued the once convicted molester/rapist's right to be free on bail more than the communty's right to be safe. (check my new tagline)
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