Today, we first head to the pristine wilderness of North Idaho, where towering pines and crystal clear Lake Street a paradise for outdoor enthusiasts.

But in May of two thousand and five, this tranquil setting became a backdrop for one of the most horrific crimes in Idaho's history.

Wolf Lodge Bay a secluded area along the shores of Cordelaine Lake.

It's the kind of place where families go to escape the hustle and bustle of city life, where children can play safely in their own backyard, surrounded by nature's beauty.

But for the Groni family, this remote location that should have been their sanctuary, instead it became their nightmare.

Hey there, if you like true crime stories and you love being in the great outdoors, you have come to the right place.

Welcome to Crime Off the Grid.

Welcome party one to another episode of Crime Off the Grid.

I'm Tara and I'm Nancy.

This episode contains references to child abduction, murder, and sexual assault.

Listener discretion is advised.

The wolf Lodge Bay is a shallow bay on the eastern end of Lake Cordlane in Idaho, known for its spawning coconut salmon and the bald eagles that come to feed on them.

It's a popular area for fishing and bird watching and nearby trails with easy access to hiking, biking, fishing, paddle boarding, and kayaking.

The neighborhood is sparsely populated and considered a safe place to live.

There is not much for amenities in the community.

There's just the Wolf Lodge campground and Wolf Lodge Restaurant, which I've actually been to.

It's really good.

However, that burned I think last year there was a big fire and that is no longer there.

But they're very close to Cordelaine, only eight miles from the from amenities and Quarterlane.

Wow, it sounds like a really neat place though, just sounds really beautiful.

In May of two thousand and five, evil fell upon the Gronee family.

They were going about their lives as usual in the Wolf Lodge Bay area of Cooteney County, Idaho, completely unaware that they were being stocked by a serial killer.

The Gronee family, Brenda forty, her fiance Mark Mackenzie thirty seven, and her children Slay thirteen, Dylan nine, and Shasta eight, had chosen to live in this remote area for all the right reasons, clean air, natural beauty, and the freedom that comes with space.

But isolation can be a double edged sword.

For those of you who've spent time in a small Western community, you know how deceptive distance can be out there.

A neighbor might be half a mile away through the dense forest.

Help isn't just around the corner, and that's exactly what someone was counting on.

A predator had been watching the family.

A neighbor his name is mister Hollingsworth, had gone to the Gronie's house to discuss paying Shasta's brother for mowing his lawn.

Upon arriving, he noticed blood on the porch.

Recognizing the blood, Hollingsworth immediately suspected something terrible had happened and called the police.

On the evening of May fifteenth, two thousand and five, Duncan invaded the Groni home and Brenda and her boyfriend Mark and her thirteen year old son Slade were found bound with duct tape and had been brutally beaten to death by a hammer in their Wolf Lodge home.

Can you imagine walking in there as a first responder or the police getting there first and seeing that horrific scene of a small town.

I bet they had never seen something like it.

I bet they hadn't either, because.

When investigators arrived, they noticed Brenda's other two children, eight year old Chest and nine year old Dillon, were not found at the scene, so they weren't in the house.

They seemingly had vanished into the vast wilderness that surrounded their home.

Police used helicopters and search dogs in their efforts to find Chest and Dylan.

An amber alert was issued.

This soon became one of the most intensive search operations in Idaho's history.

I bet it did.

For seven weeks, authorities worked on a few leads, but had made little progress in finding the missing children or even determining who the offender was.

Seven weeks and being a parent in that community, wondering if your children were even safe playing in your own backyard.

Now, yeah, I bet they didn't.

I mean, I bet things were kind of put on hold there, won't you think.

Yeah, there was no vehicle that had been seen.

They did not have a suspect name or anything, right right, But they would later learn that Joseph Duncan hadn't stayed local Duncan kidnapped the boy and his eight year old sister and took them into the Lolo National Forest in Montana, where he tortured both children and murdered the boy.

Deep in the forested mountains near Saint Regis, Montana.

The silence of the wilderness masked the horrifying secret for weeks at a remote campsite far from civilization.

Duncan had used the wilderness as his weapon for torture, sexual abuse, and.

Worse man I kidd ah awful okay Well.

In the early morning hours of July second, two thousand and five, Shasta Croni was seen in a man's custody at a Denny's restaurant in Courtelaine.

A waitress, a manager, and two customers at the restaurant recognized Shasta from the media attention and promptly called the police.

I mean, I remember when this story was out there, it was all over the country and especially around Courtelaine.

I mean, I live in Idaho, and so it was all around Idaho as well, Like you could not turn on the news and not hear somebody talk about the missing children.

And so these people really understood what just to look like, and they recognized her, so they called the police.

They saw something, they said something that's right.

Well, those good Samaritans positioned themselves to block Duncan.

This is really good thinking on their part, and they prevented him from leaving, like he can walk out the door.

He was caught, you know, and he didn't try to fight him or anything.

I think was interesting me too.

Police saw officers arrived at the restaurant and arrested him and they identified him as Joseph Duncan at that point without incident.

So Shasta Groni then identified herself to a waitress.

She's like, yes, I'm Shasta Groni.

And then to the authorities she said her name, I'm Shasta Groni.

And so she was taken to Coutney Medical Center for medical treatment and to be reunited with her father.

Courtelaine police meanwhile detaining Duncan on kidnapping charges and on his outstanding federal warrant of another crime.

Apparently mm hm get this.

Duncan had been charged with July third, two thousand and four, which a year prior molestation of two boys at a playground in the Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

On April fifth, two thousand and five, just one month prior to the killings and kidnapping of the Green family, he appeared before a Becker County judge who set bail at just fifteen thousand dollars.

That's it, Wow, molesting two boys and he gets a fifteen thousand dollars dollar.

Yeah.

So some Fargo businessman with whom Duncan had become acquainted helped him post bail.

Oh like that.

Those children must have been making that up.

Here's some bail money.

For you, exactly right.

Yeah, so surprise, Duncan skipped bail and disappeared on June first.

It's you know what, huh that businessman?

Did I get his fifteen thousand dollars back or probably whatever it was?

You know, he r you know, percentage of that he had to pay.

On June first, two thousand and five, a federal warrant was issued for Duncan's arrest of the charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

So that's what his warrant was.

And so they were holding him on that and then the kidnapping charges until they were able to complete some more investigation.

But where was Dylan when Shasta Groni was found without Dylan, authorities held little hope of finding Dylan alive.

Police asked the public for tips, specifically with respect to sightings of the stolen red jeep Cherokee with Missouri license plates that Duncan was driving at the time of his arrest.

Authorities discovered that Duncan had rented the car in Minnesota and never returned it.

A gas station employee in Kellogg, about forty miles east of Cordelane, recognized the vehicle as the one that had stopped at her station hours before Duncan was arrested.

The employee suspected the girl wandering around the station might have been Shasta, but did not confront her as nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

The employee and her manager notified authorities after reviewing surveillance coverage footage and seeing Duncan and Shasta in the video.

Now many tips came in to authorities.

The were centered around remote areas along the Idaho Montana border near Saint Regis, Montana.

On July fourth, two thousand and five, investigators found burned human remains at a remote makeshift campsite off of nearby Forest Service Road in the Lolo National Forest near Saint Regis, Montana.

You know where this is going.

The remains were sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia for DNA testing and were positively identified as Dylan.

Yeah, how awesome.

Well.

St.

Regis, Montana is this tiny little community.

It's right off Interstate ninety and we've driven past it many times.

We've actually driven far for the kids to play football in Saint Regis.

It used to be a rival, I guess, but it's really really it was really really far, but it is super, super remote.

Thus surrounding Lolo National Forest spans over two million acres and includes these deep valleys, ridges and lots of isolated places to camp.

Duncan had camped with the children in the forest, where it was learned he actually recorded disturbing videos of the children.

And I was thinking, maybe we're not going to say this part, but I think we will.

Just a warning.

It's about to get even more graphic.

So if you want to pause this for thirty seconds, I get it.

You know, skip ahead for thirty seconds.

I get it.

But Shasta told investigators during your interviews, and these interviews were played for the jury, so the jury when they had trial got to hear this, or had to hear this was horrific.

Hey, disregard, disregard.

I just made an executive decision.

As I'm sitting here editing this episode, I'm not going to play that horrific stuff.

Just know that it's about the worst stuff that we have ever heard.

I'm so sorry.

Continue that is the most sick man.

Eff I'm sorry I have ever heard of.

It was hard to do research on this one.

I mean, yes, it was.

It was incredible.

Then Jet took him down and said, wake up, wake up, wake up.

According to Shasta, I mean, what a sadist.

It just this is so horrific.

Yeah, it is just almost unbelievable.

It turns out that Duncan had a long history as a violent sexual predator.

His first recorded sex crime occurred in nineteen seventy eight in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington, when he was fifteen years old.

In that incident, he raped a nine year old boy at gunpoint.

The following year, he was arrested driving a stolen car.

He was sentenced as a juvenile and sent to Disland's Boys Ranch in Tacoma, where he told a therapist who was assigned to his case that he had bound and sexually assaulted six boys, according to report by the Associated Press.

He also told the therapist that he estimated that he had raped thirteen younger boys by the time he was sixteen years old.

I wonder what the therapist did with this information.

I don't know, because I think that's something you don't surely you don't.

There's no confidentiality for I would.

Think, yeah, unless was this interview going on while he was still a juvenile.

Or was it yeah but still but still well?

I don't know.

Could the court seal it?

I don't know.

I was yeah, I'm sure we don't know.

That information's not out there, right, Maybe they did something.

In nineteen eighty, also in Tacoma, Duncan stole a number of guns from a neighbor and then adopted a fourteen year old boy and sodomized him at gunpoint.

Duncan was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but was released on parole in nineteen ninety four after serving fourteen years.

While out on parole, Duncan is known to have lived in several places in the Seattle area.

He was arrested in ninety six for marijuana use and released on parole several weeks later, with new restrictions that ought to help him out.

Sure authorities believe that during his parole, Duncan murdered Sammy Joe White and Carmen Kubis in Seattle in nineteen ninety six and Anthony Martinez in Riverside County, California in nineteen ninety seven.

However, both those cases went cold and were not tied to Duncan until after his arrest to the Grone Family.

Duncan was arrested in Kansas and returned to prison in nineteen ninety seven after violating terms of his parole.

He was released from prison on July fourteenth of two thousand with a time off for good behavior, and he moved to Fargo, North Dakota.

How is that possible?

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know how that's possible.

Like, clearly he's got a track record of doing this, and what's the good behavior for?

He already violated his parole, so why are they like, well, but you know for the last few months, you know, you swept the floor and then called back to the guards.

Yeah.

I don't know what good behavior is either, but yeah, that's amazing.

Somebody that's murdered and molested.

And like you said, with his track record, I'm like, come on.

Well, we also told you about the two thousand arrests for the molestation of the boys in Minnesota.

So I think here is a good example of how our criminal justice system really fails our children.

Tiny, tiny bail amounts here getting out for good behavior.

Let's try this again.

You violated patrol.

Oh, well we'll put you back in prison, but then we'll let you back out.

I mean, these are children, and are justice systems failing them?

Yeah?

Yeah, they are.

And how many times can you violate parole?

You know, the dope is won and then whatever he did on the other it's just like hello.

So Duncan was convicted by three separate courts, first by the state of Idaho for kidnapping and murders of Brenda and Slade and Mark McKenzie, second by US federal court for the kidnapping of Shasta and Dylan Grony, the murder of Dylan Grony, and various other crimes.

And third by the State of California for the kidnapping and the cold case murder of Anthony Martinez.

On October sixteenth, two thousand and six.

Shortly after the jury selection process began, Coutening County prosecutors and Duncan's attorney reached a plea bargain in which Duncan pleaded guilty to all state charges against him.

He was immediately sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the three kidnapping charges.

Sentencing on the three murder charges was continued pending the outcome of his federal trial on kidnapping and murder charges.

The judge said at the time that if he did not receive the death penalty on federal charges, he would return to Cootney County for a death penalty phase on the state murder charges.

Well that's good, yeah, it is.

The judge wasn't messing around.

Yeah.

On December third, two thousand and seven, Duncan pleaded guilty to all ten charges against him.

As a condition of the agreement, Shasta would not have to testify in the penalty phase of the trial.

Due to a gig order.

Other details of the plea agreement were not released.

Duncan confessed to investigators that he had seen Shasta and Dylan while driving by their home.

He then stalked the family for weeks leading up to the murders and the kidnapping for weeks for weeks wow.

The penalty phase for Duncan's federal trial began on August thirteenth of two thousand and eight.

On August twenty seventh of two thousand and eight, after three hours of deliberation, the jury recommended the death penalty, and the judge in the case sentenced Duncan to three death sentences for kidnapping resulting in the death, sexual exploitation of a child resulting in death, and the use of a firearm in a violent crime resulting in a death, all related to the death of Dylan Groeney.

On November three, two thousand and eight, Duncan was sentenced to an additional three federal life sentences for kidnapping Shasta and for sexually abusing Shasta and Dylan.

Duncan confessed the murders of three other children in Washington State in California.

The confession was revealed in court papers filed by federal prosecutors supporting their effort to seek the death penalty in the Grownd case.

Duncan had been in custody on death row at the Terahute Federal Correctional Institution in Indiana, when on March twenty eighth, twenty twenty one, he died from brain cancer.

Apparently he had declined treatment while in prison.

And here's something that's actually bothersome.

Duncan kept journals and maintained a blog while on death row.

These writings have been curated and published in a four volume series titled The Journals of Joseph Edward Duncan.

The third and the Journals delve into the details of his crimes, his views on society, and his life in prison, and these writings kind of offer a glimpse into Duncan's mindset and attempt to rationalize his actions.

According to media.

Reports, so I got a question, why would they sensationalize that by writing a book series.

That's a good question.

Like he in his blogs, you know, he had a website.

So he talked about his own persecution, and one of the things he wrote was, I've decided to give up on trying to convince people that I'm a real person with honest and good intentions, not some evil monster they should be afraid of.

Really, yeah, really, why should we not fear you when what you do.

And he also wrote a lot about losing to his demons, which you know, he had demons, of course he did.

Yep.

And Duncan's prison blog posts were maintained by an outside associate.

I don't know who, but it's probably that businessman that bailed him out for fifteen thousand.

Dollars wrote probably yeah.

I mean, he had a website or something where his blog posts live.

And I'm guessing, you know, I mean, I don't think Duncan could have possibly uploaded this stuff to the internet.

His third party buddy, I think probably got his letters, which you know, whatever, you know, the prisoner prison was probably allowing these letters to go out.

I think sometimes they monitor that and read those things.

But he was the one putting those on the blog posts, I'm sure.

And they called his journals that were all compiled.

They called it the Fifth Nail, and of course that's some allegory that has to do with Jesus and being nailed on the cross.

I'm not even going to go into that, but that's what it was about.

That's the reference.

And reports said that very few actually saw his website, so that's sort of something to be a little grateful about.

But sure, you know, I'm sure enough saw them.

They're probably all the psychopathic psycho and sociopathic sex offenders who use his journals like a bible.

I bet I wouldn't be surprised.

I wouldn't either.

I mean, that's just that's incredible.

I just sometimes I don't understand why.

Well, I'm you know what, I couldn't find anything about his early childhood other than those crimes he committed.

But he learned that stuff somewhere.

I mean, I know as a child, this guy was seriously abused.

Who was that?

And I wish they would be punished or they're probably dead by now, but hopefully they're being punished now.

But that's I you know, I wish we could look at that and go because almost all of these, very few of these people we talk about Nancy ever come from good homes.

Yes, sure it can happen, but to this level of depravity and abuse and like violence, and you know that was happening to him.

Oh a child, absolutely, I mean you look at the pictures that we've seen, I mean, he just doesn't look like a monster in those pictures.

You know someone created that.

Yep, Yeah, you know, most definitely the Wolflage Bay home where the murders occurred, was eventually demolished.

The IDEHO Transportation Department on that particular Saturday, destroyed the wolf Lodge Bay home of Mark Mackenzie and Brenda Matthews Groney, bringing some closure to the couple's family and to their friends that you know have to drive by that and see that all the time.

I have to see that.

That's like the house in the where the University of Idaho is.

Oh right, yeah, yeah.

That that right there off of just off campus.

And they destroyed that actually pretty quickly, I think, and they just you know, I think it was very that was controversial to the family, you know, as far as getting rid of that before the trial was over, which, by the way, spoiler alert, he finally played guilty to all four councept murder.

If anybody's following that, I'm sure that's been all over the news too.

Yeah, but that was the story too, And you know it makes sense.

That's a hard thing to in a hard reminder.

People can't heal when they have to walk by that or drive by that every single day.

You know, and even you and I talk about, oh you remember when I on the other side of this bridge that's where that bad accident happened.

You know, we still do that.

You know, I'll drive by a house and say, oh, I had a medical identa and you know so yeah, I mean you know that those people, that's exactly what they're thinking every time they drive.

Back, every single time.

Yeah, it's impossible not to exactly.

Yeah.

Well, well, thanks for everybody.

If you stuck with us on this story, thank you.

And I know it was hard, but things, horrific things do happen to our children.

And again, thank goodness for the people in that Denny's restaurant.

They saw something, they said something, they took action, Yeah they did, and at least she was safe.

And I hope she's living a private life.

I hope she's healing.

I hope she's got all kinds of help and support.

Just no child should ever have to endure anything like she has had to endure.

Oh, man, lonely, that's just it's awful.

We'll stay safe and in all places, watch out

And if you see something, say something,