IMHO, I do not believe that the founding fathers would have included the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment in the Bill of Rights if they had realized that it would prevent pedophile murderers from being drawn, hung and quartered.
Court Documents: Idaho Missing Children were Sexually Molested
Posted: July 6th, 2005 02:03 PM EDT
NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
Associated Press Writer
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) -- An abducted 8-year-old girl told authorities that a violent sexual predator repeatedly molested her and her 9-year-old brother, who remains missing, according to court papers released Tuesday.
Joseph Edward Duncan III, 42, of Fargo, N.D., was charged with two first-degree kidnapping counts and ordered held without bail.
Shasta Groene and her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, had been missing since May 16, when the bound and bludgeoned bodies of their mother, older brother and mother's boyfriend were found at their rural home near here. Early Saturday, employees and customers spotted the girl eating breakfast with Duncan in a Denny's restaurant in Coeur d'Alene.
Authorities have said they believe Dylan is dead, and that human remains found in western Montana earlier this week may be his. On Tuesday they continued to wait for DNA test results on those remains.
''Shasta and Dylan were repeatedly molested,'' Kootenai County Sheriff's Sgt. Brad Maskell wrote in a terse, handwritten affidavit. ''Shasta saw Mr. Duncan molest Dylan.''
The girl reported ''genital to genital contact'' and ''rectal penetration'' of her brother, according to the affidavit.
While it is the Associated Press' policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual assault in most cases, the search for the children and Shasta's recovery were so heavily publicized that their names were already widely known.
The two-page document also contained sparse new details from the abduction.
The girl recalled being awakened by her mother and watching Duncan tie up her family before she and her brother were placed in a pickup truck. The children were later transferred to a Jeep and taken to the first of three campsites.
''She knew how she left home,'' the affidavit said. ''Her mother woke her up, went to living room. Man forced family in ligatures.''
The affidavit makes no mention of the savage beating deaths of the girl's family or whether she witnessed the killings.
On Tuesday, a shackled, unshaven Duncan, wearing a yellow jumpsuit, looked intently at 1st District Magistrate Judge Scott Wayman during a brief court hearing. Duncan, who participated via video link, said little, other than to acknowledge that he understood the charges against him and to ask if he could consult his public defender, Lynn Nelson.
The pair of first-degree kidnapping charges do not say who the victims are, but identify them as 8-year-old ''S.G.'' and 9-year-old ''D.G'' because they are minors. The abductions, charging papers said, occurred during the period of May 15 to July 2, and added that the children were held both in and out of the state of Idaho.
The intent of the crimes, the documents said, was to rape, seriously injure or commit a lewd and lascivious act on a child under 16 years old. Convictions can carry the death penalty or life in prison.
Duncan, who was raised in Tacoma, Wash., had spent more than a decade in prison for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint in Tacoma and was a fugitive at the time of his arrest, accused of molesting a 6-year-old boy in Minnesota.
Authorities, meanwhile, were reviewing video of Shasta and Duncan at a gas and convenience store in nearby Kellogg hours before she was rescued.
Kootenai County Sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said it appeared Shasta was ''wanting to be recognized by the patrons there in the store.''
''In the small takes I saw out of that surveillance video, she's walking around, stopping, looking right at the faces of the different patrons there,'' Wolfinger said on ABC's ''Good Morning America.''
Ted Beamis, owner of the Cameron Conoco in Kellogg, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Duncan ''acted like he didn't have a care in the world.
''He was walking around. You could see him kind of watching her. One time in the store she's wandering up and down the aisles and he kind of loses track of her and you can see him looking around in a panic looking for her. But then he picks up the local newspaper and he's standing there, thumbing through the local newspaper.''
At a news conference in St. Regis, Mont., FBI Special Agent in Charge Tim Fuhrman of Salt Lake City confirmed Tuesday that the children were with Duncan in the Lolo National Forest of northwestern Montana sometime over the past six weeks. But he said officials had not yet confirmed whether Duncan was with them for the entire period.
''We're asking area residents and visitors to search their memories and remember if they've seen Shasta and Dylan and Mr. Duncan in and around the forest,'' he said.
Officials have not positively identified the remains found over the weekend as those of Dylan Groene, Fuhrman said, nor did officials say exactly where the body was found, other than in a remote, rugged area of the forest.
Jackie Allen, 26, a gas station and convenience store clerk in St. Regis, told AP she recognized Duncan after seeing his photo, telling law enforcement he had come into the store several weeks after the children's disappearance.
Allen said she told the FBI Duncan bought gas and a 12-pack of beer and asked her about area campgrounds. Neither Shasta or Dylan was with him and she did not see his vehicle.
Other sightings of Duncan and his red Jeep Cherokee have also been reported in St. Regis.
''It's been crazy. I mean, if I would have known I probably could have saved those babies,'' said Allen, a mother of two.
The sheriff's office released a photograph showing a smiling Shasta hugging her father, Steve Groene, at Kootenai Medical Center. Another photo showed her holding a doll.
The children were missing when authorities arrived at their home May 16 and found the bodies of their mother, Brenda Groene, 40, brother Slade Groene, 13, and their mother's boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, 37.
Associated Press writer Sarah Cooke in St. Regis contributed to this report.
I saw a made for tv movie recently and the plot reminds me of the abduction and murders in Idaho. Has anyone else seen this movie?
Plot Summary for
Intensity (1997) (TV)
Chyna Shepherd is a twenty-six-year-old psychology student who survived an extremely troubled past. While visiting Laura Templeton's house, a farm in the Napa Valley. A serial killer named Edgler Foreman Vess breaks into the house, killing Laura and her parents. Chyna survives, but she learns of Vess's captive: a girl, just as innocent as Chyna, trapped in Vess's home far from the Napa Valley. Chyna feels a great sense of responsibility for this girl, and she travels deeper into her nightmare.
Go to:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118350/