Idaho will seek death for Duncan

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- A prosecutor said Tuesday he will seek the death penalty when Joseph Edward Duncan III goes to trial on charges that he bound and killed three people in northern Idaho.

Kootenai County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Douglas made the announcement after Duncan's arraignment. Not-guilty pleas were entered on Duncan's behalf to charges of murder and kidnapping.

Douglas said he would seek the death penalty on all six charges against Duncan: three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first-degree kidnapping.

First District Judge Fred Gibler set a trial date of Jan. 17, 2006.

Clad in red jail overalls, with scruffy hair and a beard, Duncan did not speak during the 30-minute hearing in the Kootenai County Jail courtroom.

When Gibler asked for a plea, Public Defender John Adams said, "We stand silent on that."

The judge entered not-guilty pleas to the charges.

Duncan, 42, is accused of binding and killing three people in a scheme authorities say was designed to enable him to abduct two children for sex.

Before the hearing, Douglas said he believes Duncan can get a fair trial in Kootenai County, despite three months of intense publicity about the killings and simultaneous abductions of Shasta Groene, 8, and Dylan Groene, 9, from the home.

Shasta was rescued early July 2 while eating with Duncan at a Denny's restaurant here. Dylan's body was found a few days later in Montana.

Duncan is charged with killing Shasta and Dylan's mother, Brenda Groene, 40; her boyfriend Mark McKenzie, 37; and her 13-year-old son Slade. Authorities contend he watched their home along I-90 for days, then entered the night of May 15-16, tied up the three victims -- the basis for the three kidnapping charges -- and beat them to death with a hammer.

Court documents allege he then abducted Shasta and her brother and held them for weeks at a primitive campsite in Montana where he molested them and eventually killed the little boy. Federal charges are expected later in those crimes.

While it is The Associated Press' policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual assault in most cases, the search for Shasta and her brother was so heavily publicized that their names are widely known.

Douglas said he expected Duncan's lawyers to seek a change of venue on the grounds that impartial jurors cannot be found in Kootenai County. But he noted that he was able to keep the sensational murder trial of cop-killer Scott Yager in the county. Yager was convicted of premeditated first-degree murder in the 1998 shooting death of Idaho State Trooper Linda Huff. The Idaho Supreme Court last year rejected Yager's appeal contending the trial should have been moved out of Kootenai County.

Adams was also Yager's lawyer. Adams declined to comment on the Duncan case after Tuesday's hearing.

Public sentiment in this lakeside city of 35,000 runs heavily against Duncan, who spent most of his adult life in prison for sex crimes against children.

"Duncan, welcome to Idaho, a death penalty state," said the readerboard at a doughnut shop shortly after Duncan's arrest.

In addition, Duncan is being investigated as a suspect in the killings of a boy in California and three children in Washington state.

Duncan was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Washington state for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old Tacoma boy in 1980. Authorities said he was paroled in 1994 and moved into a halfway house in Seattle.

In 1997, after testing positive a second time for marijuana use, Duncan disappeared with his girlfriend's car, according to parole reports. He was captured and returned to prison later that year.

He was released in 2000 and enrolled that year at North Dakota State University in Fargo, N.D. At the time of his July arrest, Duncan was a fugitive charged with molesting a 6-year-old boy in Minnesota.

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