On the surface, the grainy security footage looked ordinary a man in a convenience store with a young girl in a blue shirt. But something was off. She kept her distance, crossed her arms, avoided eye contact. She called him “Dad,” but he wasn’t her father.
Eight-year-old Shasta Groene was the sole survivor of a brutal attack that left three of her family members dead and her nine-year-old brother missing. For seven weeks, she was held captive by a man later revealed to be a convicted serial killer and child molester Joseph Edward Duncan III. She would endure unimaginable violence, lose nearly everything she loved, and still find a way to bring her captor down.
A Night of Terror
Shasta lived in a small home outside Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with her mother Brenda, her brothers Slade and Dylan, and her mother’s boyfriend, Mark McKenzie. Money was tight, but life was happy camping trips, fishing, and dancing in the living room to Brenda’s favorite music.
That life ended in the early hours of May 16, 2005. Around 6 a.m., Brenda burst into Shasta’s room in a panic: “There’s a man here that doesn’t want us to be here.” In the living room stood a man with a shotgun. At first, Shasta thought he was a police officer. Then he zip-tied their hands and duct-taped their wrists.
Mark tried to reason with him: “We don’t have money.” But the intruder Joseph Duncan attacked Mark, Brenda, and 13-year-old Slade one by one with a hammer. Slade staggered outside, trying to escape, only to be beaten again. Shasta and Dylan were carried to the backyard, laid under a tree, and loaded into a vehicle.
Duncan drove nearly 100 miles east to Montana’s Lolo National Forest. There, he told the children exactly what he had done: “They’re not alive and you’re never gonna see them again.”
A Frantic Search
Back at the Groene home, a neighbor arrived for a visit, saw the devastation, and called police. Investigators found Brenda, Mark, and Slade dead inside. Slade’s body lay next to his mother’s he had crawled back into the house before dying.
Dylan and Shasta were missing. An Amber Alert went out, but the leads went nowhere. Police briefly suspected the children’s father, Steve Groene, after a recent custody dispute and a failed polygraph, but digital forensics placed him at home during the murders.
Another man, Robert Lutner, was questioned after his fingerprint was found at the home, but he was cleared after passing a polygraph.
Life in Captivity
In the forest, Duncan’s abuse began almost immediately. He targeted Dylan more harshly, forcing Shasta to watch and punishing Dylan further if she cried. He made them write letters to their family never sent as part of cruel mind games.
Some nights, he forced them to take drugs and alcohol, then recounted in chilling detail other murders he’d committed, including the 1996 killings of half-sisters Sammiejo White and Carmen Cubias in Seattle.
Shasta quickly understood she might only survive by manipulating Duncan. She acted like his friend, asked about his family, and feigned affection. Using his nickname “Jet” seemed to soften him.
Then came the breaking point. Duncan promised they could go home if they caught a squirrel. When Dylan finally caught one, Duncan had them pack but instead of freedom, Shasta heard two gunshots. Dylan’s hand slipped from hers. He was dead. Duncan burned his body on a tarp.
The Predator’s Past
Joseph Edward Duncan III’s history of violence began decades before the Groene murders. was born February 25, 1963, in Tacoma, Washington, he committed his first known attack in 1978 at just 15 raping a nine-year-old boy at gunpoint.
A year later, arrested for driving a stolen car, he told a therapist he had already bound and assaulted six boys and raped 13.
In 1980, Duncan broke into a neighbor’s home, stole guns, abducted a 14-year-old boy, and sodomized him at gunpoint. Sentenced to 20 years, he was paroled after 14. While free, investigators believe he murdered Sammiejo White and Carmen Cubias in Seattle in 1996, and Anthony Martinez in California the next year killings tied to him only later through DNA.
Returned to prison in 1997 for violating parole, Duncan was released in 2000 and moved to Fargo, North Dakota. In March 2005, Minnesota charged him with molesting two boys at a playground.
A Fargo acquaintance posted his $15,000 bail; Duncan fled. A federal warrant soon followed.
On the run, he kept a blog, The Fifth Nail, where his posts grew darker foreshadowing the violence he would unleash on the Groene family weeks later.
The Turning Point
After Dylan’s murder, Duncan moved Shasta to a lower campsite, closer to passing strangers but she dared not call out. One night, he told her she could choose between being strangled or shot. She chose strangulation, hoping to buy time.
As the rope tightened, she gasped, “Please don’t, Jet.” The name broke through. He stopped, crying, and decided to spare her at least for the moment.
From then on, she reinforced his belief that she wanted to stay with him. When he suggested introducing her to his mother, she agreed and added, “Can you take me to where I grew up? I want to show you important places.”
The Rescue
On July 2, 2005, Duncan drove her back into Coeur d’Alene. They stopped at a gas station, where security cameras caught them, and then went to a Denny’s.
Inside, waitress Amber Deahn recognized Shasta from missing-person posters. She quietly alerted her manager and stalled the pair while others in the restaurant positioned themselves near the door.
Police arrived before Duncan could leave. They asked the girl’s name. She answered: “Shasta Groene.” Officers took Duncan into custody as the restaurant erupted in applause.
Shasta immediately told police that Duncan was the man who killed her family and kidnapped her. Evidence from his stolen car a shotgun and video tapes confirmed the crimes. She also provided details of Dylan’s murder and Duncan’s other confessions.
Justice and Aftermath
Duncan admitted he had scouted the Groene home for days, marking it with a GPS, and befriending the family’s pit bull to avoid resistance.
On October 16, 2006, he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and three counts of kidnapping in Idaho, receiving three life sentences. In federal court, he pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including Dylan’s murder, and was sentenced to death.
He died of brain cancer on March 28, 2021, at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Shasta’s Life After
Shasta returned home, but life was not simple. She struggled with PTSD, hated being recognized, and turned to drugs and alcohol. She spent time in a correctional facility before turning her life around, marrying, and having children including with a man related to the Seattle sisters Duncan had killed.
Her journey… is told in Out of the Woods: A Girl, A Killer and the Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home by Gregg Olsen (© Thomas & Mercer, 2025).
She remains in touch with people who helped save her, like Nick Chapman, the man who spotted her outside Denny’s. She forgave Duncan, saying, “If I don’t forgive him, then he’s gonna control my life.”
Now, she focuses on family and hopes to become a counselor, using her story to help others: “I know I lived for a reason… If there’s anybody in the world right now that’s being abused and they hear that I’m giving up, what would that do for them?”
