A federal judge in Boise, Idaho, sentenced him to death on Wednesday after days of terrifying testimony about Duncan's crimes.
The killing of Groene, which followed the triple murder of the boy's mother, brother and soon-to-be stepfather near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, took place in the woods far above St. Regis.
“I'd say we've got no use for him,” said Vern Gotcher, who owns an antique store with his wife Rose. “Nothing that happens to him will be horrific enough.”
Gotcher's opinion is typical in St. Regis, even with those who think the death penalty ought to be used sparingly.
“We live in a country where we have some standards of justice, and I think that's a positive thing,” said Tammy Warner, the St. Regis postmaster. “But in his case, because of the innocence of the children, I can't really have much sense of mercy for him. I think anyone who is a parent would probably share those feelings.”
St. Regis has drawn a bright, inviolable line over the killing of Dylan Groene. The line transects the use of the death penalty as a deterrent for murder in general, but then veers violently to the side of vengeance because Duncan's St. Regis victim was a child.
“I'd like them to string him up with piano wire,” said Gloria Wells, who works at Frosty's, a hamburger joint where Duncan brought Dylan and Shasta before the killing. “I'd like him to feel a worse pain than what he inflicted on that poor little boy.”
Wells' boss, Kay Hardy, shared her colleague's emotion.
“I don't think there's anything they can do to him that would be bad enough,” she said. “He's the very worst aspect of our culture, and I do think we need to do what we can to get rid of those people.”
It was Tuesday, July 5, 2005, when authorities from multiple jurisdictions swooped down on St. Regis.
Duncan had recently been caught in Coeur d'Alene, where he was spotted in a Denny's restaurant by an astute waitress who recognized him.
As the investigation progressed, it became clear that Duncan had spent time in the St. Regis area with the children, bringing them to town on occasion but mostly staying at remote campsites in the Two Mile area southwest of town.
On that Tuesday in July, authorities located the remote site where Dylan was killed. Although Duncan was already in jail in Idaho, the people of St. Regis began that day building a grudge that still flourishes today.
“People still talk about it, especially here,” said Gloria Wells, who came to work at Frosty's after the murder. “People knew he'd been here. In fact, I didn't think I'd ever work here because of that.”
The July day the campsite was found, one of Frosty's then-waitresses told her story of seeing Duncan with the children.
“Can you imagine how I feel now, knowing that little girl was in here?” she told the Missoulian.
Gloria Wells and Kay Hardy can well imagine. They watch the same tables the former waitress used to watch.
And in the wake of Duncan's crime, they find themselves more suspicious, more watchful, more likely to jot down a license plate.
“I hate to say it, but any older man that comes in with kids gets a close eye from me,” said Wells. “Even a man with a little boy. These days, you just never know.”
For some, the Groene murder shattered a veneer of peacefulness in St. Regis. Others felt that Duncan was a random lunatic who just happened to stop in town. Still others have long felt the woods of western Montana conceal too many strangers.
“We have our share of things happen out here, but I think we're the same place,” said Joann Heacock, who works at Stang's Grocery. “But I would say that maybe we're a little more watchful and suspicious now. I am.”
Said Kay Hardy: “I think we owe it to all children to be more observant. It certainly can't hurt anything.”
Joseph Duncan's legal journey to the death gurney is far from over. California authorities may be interested in trying him for a homicide there, and an appeal of his death penalty is likely.
That leaves more time for the imaginative people of St. Regis to conjure even harsher punishments than a federal needle.
Nothing, said Vern Gotcher, would be suitably horrible, though others suggested the gallows or a public stoning might pass muster.
If that seems uncharitable, the citizens of St. Regis say, so be it. Forgiveness will not be forthcoming.
Duncan did the worst possible thing - sexually abusing and torturing a child, then killing him.
“Anyone with a child, or anyone who even knows a child, would have no mercy for that man,” said Gloria Wells.
Larry Shoup works at the Super 8 Motel. He respects the law, and wouldn't ordinarily presume to take upon himself its burdensome role. But in the case of Duncan, well, just give him the chance.
“I am no man's judge,” he said. “But if this had happened to my family, there wouldn't have been any need for a court case.”
Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or at mmoore@missoulian.com.
Coeur d'Alene yet to heal from Duncan nightmare
By THOMAS CLOUSE and JIM CAMDEN
Spokesman Review
COEUR d'ALENE, Idaho - Before 2005, visitors knew Wolf Lodge Bay as a place to eat a famous steak, watch ospreys launch after fish in Lake Coeur d'Alene or find an easy campsite.
Now it's known for the empty house where a killer and child rapist came searching for prey on May 16, 2005. Along with the sexual assaults and four murders, Joseph Edward Duncan III also ripped the soul out of the community's sense of place.
“The impact is so far-reaching. We thought we had a quiet community,” Kootenai County Sheriff Rocky Watson said. “Now it's not unusual to drive through this community and see a ‘Kill Duncan' bumper sticker on a nice car. I can never even guess the reach of the effect on this community by this killer.”
Amber Deahn, 28, was working the late shift at Denny's Restaurant on July 2, 2005, when Duncan and Shasta Groene re-emerged after a six-week hideout in Montana, where 9-year-old Dylan Groene was tortured and killed. As Coeur d'Alene police officers led Duncan away, Deahn asked Shasta her name before lifting the girl into a teary embrace.
“Our children are our most precious gift on this planet,” said Deahn, a mother of three, on Wednesday. “To have that innocence ripped away from a child is unacceptable. Every child should be allowed to be a child.”
Deahn, whose Army Reserve husband is waiting to be redeployed to the Middle East, said she hopes to travel to California to follow Duncan's case in the killing of Anthony Martinez.
Last week's verdict in the Groene murders “is a little bit of relief. Shasta will have some closure, and justice will be done for her family when he receives the death penalty,” she said. “Ms. Martinez deserves that closure just as much as any other mother. Until there is closure for those families, for me it's not over yet.”
Deahn wants the publicity from Duncan's case to become the genesis for stronger sentences for convicted child predators.
“We know he was stalking this family. He was hanging out at playgrounds,” she said. “All you can do is take that information and protect your children and the children of neighbors.”
Relatives of Duncan's victims said they hoped the death sentence would begin to provide relief to the pain and grief that has marked their lives since May 16, 2005.
Lee McKenzie-Wood, 66, the mother of murder victim Mark McKenzie, said she was ecstatic when she received news of the verdict.
“I haven't been this jacked up in a long time,” she said. “It's like I've been locked up in a prison and my heart and mind have been locked up. When this verdict was released, it flowed out of me. Tears flowed out of me.”
McKenzie-Wood said her 37-year-old son and Brenda Groene, 40, had called for advice about canning the Thursday before Duncan bound and bludgeoned them, and 13-year-old Slade Groene, to death with a FatMax claw hammer.
“They were going to get married in a few months,” she said. “The healing will never come for me or the (rest of the) McKenzie family.”
“This trial has been awful rough on all of us,” said Ralph McKenzie, Mark McKenzie's father.
Ralph McKenzie said he didn't attend the Boise trial because didn't think he could sit through the proceedings in the room with Duncan. He wasn't surprised by the verdict - he said he didn't see how jurors could've come back with any other - but he was relieved.
“That gives us some closure,” he said. “Now we've just got to get on with our lives.”
Asked if he thought that's what his son Mark would want, he replied: “Sure he would have.”
Wendy Price, Steve Groene's sister and Shasta's aunt, said she's not sure there will ever be closure, but Duncan's death sentence will provide family members with some relief.
“Tragedy is not really an adequate word to describe this,” she said. “It's taken an awful toll.”
Among the effects, she said, are not eating, not sleeping and not looking at the world the same way she did before Duncan entered their lives. Price's first granddaughter was born about seven months ago, and she now worries constantly.
“I'm scared for her to go to public school. I'm scared for her to say ‘Hi' to people in the supermarket,” Price said.
Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas said the death sentence should give the families, and the whole community, a chance to begin a healing process.
“This has left deep scars in our community,” he said. “I think this is a good first step. Hopefully he will never return.”
Douglas said he was “very, very surprised” when Duncan demanded to represent himself, rather than using an experienced team of competent death-penalty defenders, then offered almost no defense.
“By his just laying down, one wonders if this was the result (Duncan) wanted,” Douglas said.
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