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Joseph Edward Duncan IIIAmerican serial killer
Date of Birth: 25.02.1963
Country:  USA |
Content:
- Biography of Joseph Edward Duncan III
- Early Life and Criminal History
- Crimes and Capture
- Additional Crimes
- Legal Proceedings
Biography of Joseph Edward Duncan III
Joseph Edward Duncan III, an American serial killer, is currently awaiting execution for multiple death sentences and serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and murder of the Groene family members in Idaho in 2005. He was also convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Anthony Martinez in Beaumont, California in 1997.
Early Life and Criminal History
Joseph Edward Duncan III was born on February 25, 1963, in Tacoma, Washington. He began his long criminal history at the age of 15. In 1978, in his hometown, he raped a 9-year-old boy at gunpoint. The following year, Duncan was arrested for car theft. During an interview with a juvenile offender specialist, it was determined that by the age of 16, Duncan had sexually assaulted 13 boys.
In 1980, Joseph stole a neighbor's gun and then kidnapped a 14-year-old boy, whom he sexually assaulted at gunpoint. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison but was released on parole after 14 years in 1994. However, he was arrested again in 1996 for marijuana use and violated the terms of his parole, resulting in another prison sentence.
Crimes and Capture
On May 16, 2005, the authorities in Kootenai County, Idaho, discovered the bodies of Brenda Groene, her boyfriend Mark McKenzie, and her 13-year-old son Slade in the Groene family home. Two other children, 9-year-old Dylan and 8-year-old Shasta, were reported missing. Search teams combed the area for the missing children while the autopsies revealed that Brenda, Mark, and Slade had died from blunt head trauma. The victims were also found bound.
After seven weeks, Shasta was spotted with a man at a Denny's restaurant on July 2, 2005. The waitress, manager, and two customers recognized Shasta, who had been reported missing in the media, and quietly alerted the police. Duncan, the kidnapper, was apprehended, and Shasta was taken to Kootenai Medical Center for treatment.
During the search for Dylan, whose chances of being found alive were slim, authorities discovered that Duncan had rented a red Jeep Cherokee in Minnesota and failed to return it. Gas station employees in Kellogg identified the vehicle, which had stopped at their station a few hours before Duncan's arrest. Surveillance footage from the gas station captured Duncan and Shasta. The police gathered enough information to expand the search along the Idaho-Montana border. On July 4, 2005, investigators found human remains in an improvised campsite in Lolo National Forest near St. Regis, Montana. The remains were sent to the FBI laboratory, where DNA testing positively identified them as Dylan's.
Shasta told investigators that her mother had called her into the living room from the bedroom, where she saw Duncan wearing black gloves and holding a gun. The kidnapper tied her mother, her fiancé, and Slade to chairs, while he took Dylan and Shasta out of the house and placed them in the Jeep Cherokee. While Shasta sat in the car, she heard screams from Mark and caught a glimpse of her injured older brother. Duncan fatally beat all three but Shasta and Dylan were not present during the killings. For six weeks, Joseph transported the children to various locations, repeatedly sexually assaulting and tormenting them. Shasta revealed that Duncan made stops at two different campsites and confessed to her how he had murdered her family members with a hammer.
Additional Crimes
On April 4, 1997, 10-year-old Anthony Michael Martinez was playing in his Beaumont, California home's yard when an unknown man approached him, asking for help in finding his missing cat. When the boys refused, he grabbed Martinez at knifepoint and forced him into a car. After a two-week search, the partially decomposed and naked body of the boy was found in Indio. Martinez had been bound with tape, sexually assaulted, and fingerprints were recovered from the crime scene. In July 2005, bloggers noticed similarities between Duncan and a composite sketch of the suspect. After fingerprints found at the 1997 crime scene were matched to Duncan, he was officially linked to Martinez's murder on July 3, 2005. Furthermore, federal prosecutors claimed that Joseph had confessed to the murders of 11-year-old Sammiejo White and her 9-year-old sister Carmen Cubias, who went missing on July 6, 1996. Their remains were discovered on February 10, 1998.
Legal Proceedings
Joseph Edward Duncan III faced three separate trials. First, he faced the Idaho state court for the kidnapping and murder of Brenda Groene, Slade Groene, and Mark McKenzie. Second, he faced the U.S. federal court for the kidnapping of Shasta and Dylan, the murder of Dylan, and other crimes. Lastly, he faced the California state court for the kidnapping and murder of Anthony Martinez. While in prison, Duncan opened a website and maintained a blog named "The Fifth Nail," referring to a non-biblical story of how the gypsies stole the fifth nail intended for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. With the help of an unknown blogger to whom Duncan sent handwritten letters, he started a new blog titled "Fifth Nail Revelations."
