BOISE, Idaho – Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that convicted killer and child molester Joseph Edward Duncan III has confessed to killing two girls in Washington state in 1996 and a California boy in 1997.
Prosecutors filed a formal notice of intent to seek the death penalty against Duncan in a separate case in which he’s accused of kidnapping two northern Idaho children and killing one of them.
They say Duncan should be put to death because he killed Dylan Groene, 9, while his then-8-year-old sister Shasta Groene watched, after kidnapping them from their home near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; because he’s acknowledged killing three children in 1996 and 1997; and because he’d be a serious threat to others, if he’s allowed to live.
“The defendant has engaged in a continuing pattern of violence, attempted violence, and threatened violence,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson wrote. Duncan “is likely to commit criminal acts of violence in the future that would constitute a continuing and serious threat to the lives and safety of others.”
Roger Peven, Duncan’s attorney, said he had not yet seen the filing and could not immediately comment on it. Peven had met with Duncan early Tuesday, but declined to comment on the meeting. Duncan is being held in a state prison near Boise.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Duncan confessed to killing half-sisters Carmen Cubias, 9, and Sammiejo White, 11, in Washington in 1996 and Anthony Martinez, 10, in California in 1997.
The two girls were kidnapped from the Crest Motel in Seattle in July 1996. Their bones and teeth were found 17 months later in Bothell.
Anthony was forced into a white car in Beaumont, Calif., in April 1997 as his friends watched. Sixteen days later a forest ranger found the boy’s nude, bound body about 70 miles to the east. The Martinez slaying remained unsolved until Duncan’s 2005 arrest. Then, California investigators found that a partial fingerprint on the duct tape used to bind the boy belonged to Duncan.
Though Duncan had spoken to law enforcement agents about the three children following his 2005 arrest, officials with the King County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday those comments fell short of a confession.
Now, they’re interested in seeing anything new.
“Back when Duncan was first arrested, the FBI made a big deal about his confession,” said King County sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquhart. “Well, the prosecutor read the transcript, and it was not a confession. Perhaps now they have more than they had before, but we don’t know, because nobody’s told us.”
Olson of the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to elaborate on the evidence or confession.
Duncan was charged Thursday in a California state court in the Martinez death. Prosecutors there said they also intend to seek the death penalty and want to move quickly.
“We’re ready to go,” Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco said Tuesday. “Our case is 10 years old. No case gets better with age.”
Duncan is a Tacoma native who spent most of his adult life in Washington state prisons for sexual crimes against children. He was convicted in 1980 when he was 16 of raping a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint.
A federal grand jury here returned an indictment against Duncan on Thursday, charging him with 10 felonies, including kidnapping, kidnapping resulting in death, sexual abuse and firearms charges.
In those counts, Duncan is accused of kidnapping Dylan and Shasta Groene during a nighttime attack on their family’s home in May 2005 for the purpose of sexually abusing them.
The children’s mother, Brenda Groene, her fiance, Mark McKenzie, and the younger children’s 13-year-old brother, Slade Groene, were bludgeoned to death with a hammer during the attack.
In October, Duncan pleaded guilty in Idaho’s 1st District Court to first-degree murder and kidnapping for the three slayings at the family’s home. A state judge sentenced Duncan to life in prison without parole for the kidnappings, but sentencing on the murder counts was deferred while the federal government prepared its charges.
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