INDIO, Calif. — A man convicted of killing a couple and two children in Idaho was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for torturing and killing a 10-year-old boy in California in 1997.
Joseph Edward Duncan III was sentenced to two life terms in Riverside County Superior Court for the murder
of Anthony Martinez, who was abducted as he played with his brother near their Beaumont home. The boy’s battered, nude body was later found in the desert.
Duncan, who had pleaded guilty and waived his right to an appeal in an agreement with prosecutors, was sentenced to two life terms because of a prior criminal conviction before Anthony’s murder, District Attorney spokesman John Hall said.
Authorities will return Duncan to death row at a federal prison in Indiana in the next few days, Hall said.
Duncan did not speak in court. He accepted responsibility at a previous hearing and defense attorney Scott O’Meara said Tuesday was a time for victims to remember Anthony.
Duncan was sentenced to death in 2008 for the kidnapping, torture and murder of 9-year old Dylan Groene of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. He abducted the boy and his 8-year-old sister, Shasta, after killing their older brother, mother and her fiance with a hammer at the family’s home in 2005.
Duncan took the children to a remote campsite in western Montana where he raped, tortured and threatened them before shooting Dylan in the head and burning his body.
Duncan was arrested and Shasta was rescued weeks later when a waitress at a Denny’s restaurant in Coeur d’Alene called police after recognizing them as they ate.
Riverside County prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Duncan but agreed to the plea after consulting with Anthony’s relatives and considering that he already faces three death sentences and multiple life sentences for the Idaho crimes.
Riverside authorities spent years searching for a suspect in Anthony’s killing. They pursued more than 15,000 leads and were only able to link Duncan to the crime after his Idaho arrest.
Duncan previously had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 14-year old boy in Tacoma in 1980. He was paroled in 1994 but was returned to prison in 1997 after breaking the conditions. He was released in 2000 and lived in Fargo, N.D., before his arrest in the Idaho murders.
An FBI agent told a federal jury in 2008 that shortly after his arrest in the Idaho case, Duncan confessed to killing Anthony, as well as half-sisters Sammiejo White, 11, and Carmen Cubias, 9, near Seattle in 1996.
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