Joseph Duncan to plead guilty in kidnapping, deaths

BOISE, (AP) — Joseph Edward Duncan III, who has been charged with kidnapping two north Idaho children in 2005 and killing one of them, is scheduled to enter a guilty plea on Monday in federal court.

Court documents filed late Friday did not detail exactly which charges Duncan is pleading to. But the penalty phase of his case is due to begin Jan. 28. There was no indication that the government had taken the death penalty off the table; a gag order prevents the attorneys involved from speaking with reporters.

Duncan has been charged with kidnapping, kidnapping resulting in death and sexual abuse of a minor and related charges in the abduction of Shasta Groene, then 8, and her 9-year-old brother Dylan from their Coeur d'Alene-area home and Dylan's subsequent death in Montana.

Duncan's federal trial had been scheduled to begin Jan. 22.

He 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 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 was sentenced to life in prison without parole for kidnapping the three older victims. But the state judge deferred imposing punishment on the murder counts to give federal prosecutors time to pursue their case, which is centered on events in Montana after the children were abducted.

Depending on what happens in the federal case, Duncan could still face the death penalty in state court.

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 and Dylan playing outside. Duncan stalked the Groene family for several days, then entered the home and bound and killed the two adults and the teen, according to court documents.

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 been quoted in court documents as saying 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. Late Friday, Duncan declined an Associated Press request for a prison interview.

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.