06:45 PM PDT on Tuesday, July 12, 2005

By kgw.com and AP Staff

AP photo

Joseph E. Duncan III, left, initially appears before First District Magistrate Judge Scott Wayman via video after his arrest in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- A convicted sex offender charged with kidnapping and murder spent days stalking the Idaho home where three people were bludgeoned to death and two young children were abducted, according to court documents filed Tuesday afternoon.

Joseph Edward Duncan III had spotted 8-year-old Shasta Groene playing in a bathing suit with her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, the documents said.

"(Duncan) told her he watched her two or three days, and at night would peer inside the home," Detective Brad Maskell told the judge, according to records from a closed-door probable cause hearing Tuesday. The records said he used night-vision goggles to learn the home's layout before bursting in.

Duncan, 42, was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in the bludgeoning deaths of the children's mother, Brenda Groene, her 13-year-old son Slade and her boyfriend Mark McKenzie.

If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

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Deputy keeps watch over a rural home near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where three people were found murdered.

Shasta's ordeal began when she heard her mother call her into the living room early on the morning of May 16, according to authorities. There, she told investigators, she saw Duncan wearing dark gloves and holding a shotgun.

Her mother, brother Slade and McKenzie were bound with zip-ties and duct tape.

Duncan then bound her and Dylan and left them on the ground outside near a swing set. Shasta said she heard McKenzie yell out several times, and at one point they saw Slade stagger, bloody and incoherent, out of the home.

Maskell said Duncan bragged to the girl about killing her family with a hammer and showed it to her.

Duncan was a known sex offender wanted in Minnesota for jumping bail on a molestation charge, but he didn't become a suspect in the Idaho slayings until six weeks later when he walked into a Denny's restaurant with Shasta a few miles from her home. A waitress recognized the little girl and called police.

AP photo

Shasta Groene and her alleged abductor, Joseph Edward Duncan III, are seen inside a convenience store in this image from a security camera.

Shasta has since been reunited with her father. Investigators who interviewed her located Dylan's body in a remote Montana campsite where authorities believe Duncan took the two children.

Duncan had been charged with kidnapping Shasta and Dylan, but those state charges will be dismissed and instead handled by the federal court system because the youngsters were taken across a state line, Douglas said.

Officials have alleged that the children were repeatedly sexually molested during their ordeal, and sheriff Rocky Watson has said he believes the motive for the killings was to acquire the children for sex.

Watson also has said that authorities believe the family was chosen at random, but that the attack was carefully planned and executed.

Duncan was released on $15,000 bail earlier this year in Becker County, Minn., after being charged with molesting a 6-year-old boy. Police in Fargo, N.D., where Duncan lived, had been looking for him since he failed to check in with a probation agent there in May.

Businessman helped Duncan make bail

Meanwhile, it was also revealed Tuesday that a North Dakota businessman wrote Duncan a $15,000 personal check to allow him to make bail in the Minnesota case.

AP photo

North Dakota businessman Joe Crary.

Joe Crary of Fargo, N.D., wrote the check to Duncan on April 5, the same day a judge set his bail at that amount, said Chad Jutz, a police investigator in Detroit Lakes, Minn. Duncan had moved to Fargo in 2000 after his release from a Washington state prison where he served more than a decade for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint in Tacoma, Wash.

Crary, 51, a former executive member of the Fargo-Cass County Economic Development Corp., explained his connection to Duncan in a statement he faxed Monday night to The Forum.

"We both enjoyed biking on the bike trails in Fargo and we became acquaintances," Crary wrote to the newspaper. "In my contact with him, I saw him like many others apparently did — he was polite, soft spoken, and seemed sincere in turning his life around."

Duncan was also having financial problems, Crary wrote.

"I was trying to help him get things straightened out, just like I have tried to help many others over the years," he told The Forum.

Minnesota jail mugshot

Jospeh Edward Duncan III.

Duncan mentions a "Joe" in a Jan. 30 post to his Web journal, Blogging the Fifth Nail:

"My friend Joe has agreed to take me by the hand financially and show me how to spend my money constructively. Now that is a good friend! I've been out of prison for almost five years now and I'm still living from paycheck to paycheck."

Jutz, the police investigator, said a subpoena of Duncan's bank records by the Detroit Lakes police revealed the connection with the Fargo businessman.

Crary said Duncan first posted a personal $15,000 check for bail on April 5, then called Crary on his way home for a loan to cover it.

In his statement, Crary listed the reasons why he believed Duncan was not a flight risk. He said Duncan was working on a college degree and holding down two jobs, and that Duncan had returned from a trip to Kansas City after receiving his court summons.

"Furthermore, he assured me he was innocent of the charges in Becker County," Crary wrote in his statement.

Crary is known as a real estate developer, investor and part owner of Fargo's Braaten Cabinets. Forum records show he served on the executive committee of the Fargo-Cass County Economic Development Corp. from at least 1996 to 2001.

Crary is the second professional with ties to Fargo who is known to have helped Duncan in Becker County.

Dr. Richard Wacksman, a pediatrician who once lived in Fargo, told police he gave $6,500 to Duncan before his first court hearing in the Becker County case to help with attorney fees.

In 1997, Wacksman asked a prison board in Washington to allow Duncan to be released to live at Wacksman's home in Harwood, just north of Fargo. The board members, who were considering whether to send Duncan back to prison for parole violations, rejected the proposal, saying they would not expose Wacksman's children to that kind of risk, prison records show.

Wacksman, now living in Florida, told the parole board he met Duncan at a San Francisco coffeehouse. It was not clear how long they were acquainted. He has not responded to several calls for comment.