Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
when a missing little girl is spotted at a store and a local denny´s , the other customers couldn´t believe there eyes. what were the chance that a child who been abducted weeks earlier was sitting right front hem in broad daylight. but as police arrived on the scene. they quickly realized the horriying case that shoiok not only the city of coeur dálene tio its core. but also entire country was far more grizzly than the´d expected.and worse than that ,the perpetrator was even more depraved tran anyoine could have ever imagined. and this was only the beginning of his crimes.
May 16 ,2005, was a a typical rainy day in the pacific northwest until an urgent 911 call cam3 in from a resident of Kootenai county , Idaho. the resident initially called 911 to report a white pickup parked on his property that he didn´t recognize.unbeknownst to the caller ,this wouls spark the beginning of an investigaton. that would sent authorities headfirst into the msot disturbing case they had ever discovered . as the 911 operator gathered more information,the caller looked isnide the vechicle and noted a few belongings.
caller:” the only thing in the front seat isan axe and a little toolbox.
than later that day.dispatch received another 911 call from the same man,and this time it was clear that something was horribly wrong.
man : i can´explaine it to you , you jsut have the guys call me quickly. there´s niothing wrong with the vehicle . that i can see.but the vehicle belongs to a guy who´s friends with the people that live in this yunky house ot here.and i went to the door to pay the little kid 10 dollar for mowing the lawn. and there´s blood all over the door.nobody comes to the door. they are friends of the guy who own the pickup i found out.
As it turns out ,the caller owned an nearby house adjacent to his propety and rented it out to a couple. brenda had three children from a previous marriage who also lived in the home.
13 years old slade, nine year old dylan and eight year old shasta. authorities raced to through the steady rainfall, to the rural wolf lodhe home.
and made their way down the dirt driveway. as they contuinued their approche. and peek inside the family´s vehicle. which was parked a short distance away from the residence.
officers glimpsed a hunting rifle lying on the front seat , and also noticed what appeared bullets holes in the rear windows.
as they moved closer to the home ,several blood stains on and around the front door became visible. deputies notice also blood in a pool of rain water that had formed in the grass next to the walkway. they attempted to elicit a response from the family by pounding on the locked front door . and demanding someone open up.
but the ony answer they received was that of dogs barking.they quckly proceeded to the back door and descovered it had been left ajar. authorities immediately took one of the vidibly frightened dogs into custody. the other ,however ,remained hiding inside the home. they would soon uncover the source behind the dog´s extreme fear.
inside the kitchen, an officer made a most grusesome discover. the body of a teenage young man was lying face down on the floor , his head wrapped and his hands bound behind his back with duct tape.
then in the area between the kitchen and living room, the officer spotted another victim, a fully dressed adult woman also lying face down on the floor.
her hands were cuffed behind her back using heavy duty zip ties ina a manner similar to that practiced by law enforcement. duct tape had also been used to restrain the woman´s ankles and feet. horrifyingly ,there was yet another body lying face down in the living room.
the adult male victim was dressed only in shorts.and zip ties had been used to bind his wrists and ankles toghether. yjr officers confirmed all three deceased. they then searched the rest of the home for additional victims where they located several firearms in the upstairs loft area , and after a thorough search , it was confirmed that there was no one esle inside the residence. little did they knwo, however, that the worst was yet to come.
Upon furthe investigation, authorities uncovered more troubling information.one officer reporterd the welfare checks at the wolf logdge home were not uncommon ,and that the family members who lived in the home frequently came and went with friends often staying over as well. therefore, authorities thought that perhaps the two youngest children had been staying elsewhere , as that sseemed to be common practice.later that night , detective went to the prosecuting attorney´s office to obtaine a search warrant for the wolf lodge property and the abandoned truck.
while they were there, unexpected call came through to the police station from a man named steve Groene. the father of the three childring living at the residence with their mother and her boyfriend.
and he was desperate for any information regarding the gruesome incident. an officer was dispatched to meet wtih steve and what he told them sent the case in a shocking new disrection.
according to the concerened father , all three of his children should have been present in the home on the night of the murders. but with only one adolescent victim accounted for inside the house. that meant the two younger children were missing.
the victims were determined to be 40 years old brenda.47 years old mark and 13 years old slade, leaving nine year old dylan and eight year old shasta unaccounted for .
as a result , officer issued an amber alert for the two children jsut after midnight on the day after the bodies were found.detectives then returned to the wolf lodge home. and with a new sense of urgency began a desperate search in the nearby woodlands for shasta and dylan .
though the hoped to find the children alive, they freared the worst. that same morning as the rain finally subsided, the clesar light of day exposed ust how disturbing and graphic the interior crime scene really was
.investigators found a sizable blood smear on the back door and several blood droplets inside and outside the door.
then upon entering the home they saw many dried blood stains, some even containing grass clippings from the freshly mowed lawn.
prominent red smears on the swingling doors leading to the kitchen suggested that someone covered in blood had moved through them. the glass top coffe talbe was shattered, leaving fragments of glass scattered about the living space.
futhermore ,there seemed to be blood everywhere from the furniture to the walls. authorities followed a crimson trail of smears and stains down the hallwa to a bedroom where there found a massive quantity of blood on a bedding. finally ,whlie there wasn´t any blood in the upstairs loft area,detectives did uncover a single plastic zip tie from the floor matching thosie used on the victims.
it was clear that the evidence inside the home told a terrifying story. but it became even more horrific as authorities examined the bodies further.it becama apparent that slade initially had duct tape, covering his mouth that had either slipped or been pushed down around his neck. he also had red stains covering the bottoms of his bare feet giving the appearance that he had walked through blood at some point during the attack.
it appaeared the young man had suffered severe catastrophic injuries to his head and other portions of his body inflicted by some kind of blunt instrument. utltimately , the severe besating resulted in his death. slade´s head was lying at the fett of his mothers brenda.
unfortunately ,due to the ghastly blunt force injuries to her head, law enforcement could´nt even recognize her face,not to mention layers of duct tape were entangled in her hair and wrapped around her head to form a makeshift gag. it was only to the presence of several recognizable tatttoos that they were able to positively confirm her identity.
unlile the other two, mark had no duct tape on hid body. but similarly ,he showed several blunt force trauma wounds to his head that clearly penetrated his skull.investigators alsos supected that a bloody eprson had moved over him as he lay on the floor based on a distinct pattern of blood droplets on his body.most horrifying was the revelation that the murder weapon had been a framing hammer.
as each strike left behind a circular marking with a crosshatched pattern on its victim. meanwhile , authoritites continued to focus their efforts on findi9ng dylan and shasta. treating the situation as a possible abduction by a dangerous predator.
The kootenai county sheriff´s office requested assistance from the FBI and other resources to help locare the missing children.over the next several weeks the entire county helds its breath as the search for dylan and shasta unfolded in real time on national television.
desperate to foynd answers dylan and shastas father steve even contacted a psychic to aid in the search.unfortunately those efforts proved futile.several leads also came in from friends , family , and locals,but each failed to yield any results.
finally , on july 2nd ,2005 nearly two excrutiating months after the murders, authorities got the call they´d been waiting for. a women in coeur da´lene , Idaho belived she recognized shasta from missin person´s flyers and alerted the authorities.
the caller reported that the little girls was with an uknown male and described his physical appearance. the dispatcher waste no time and immediately sent officers to ther resturant.
Then another call came in that heightened the belief that this was infact shasta.
This caller had a strong sense of urgency and seemed even more confident that they had potentially found the missing child. authorities arrived on the scene and the man with the little girld was quickly identifed
as 42 years old joseph edwards duncan III from fargo ,north dakota soon detectives also discovered that joseph had a lengthy criminal history.
accordiung to the report , joseph had been committing violen crime since he was just 15 . and by the time he was 17, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for a crime against a 14 years old boy. he was released on parole in 1994 after serving 14 years.and then in march ,2005,joseph was charged with another crime against two boys.
after a docttor helped him post bail, he seemingly disappeared without a trace until now.
during this time, authoritites also learned from dispatch that joseph had a several vehicles tied to his name. joseph had driven to the resturant in a red jeep bearing false missouri plates. and as it turns out , the vehicle had been stolen from an Enterprise Rent -A -Car in st.paul ,minnesota. nesws soon broke that the little girl with joseph was in fact shasta and she had an unbelievably horrific st ory to tell. before even leacing the dennýs resturant , shasta reportedly told authorities about the deaths at wolf lodge and that joseph was the prepetrator.
then she was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment. officers contacted father steve Groene and he raced to the hospital to be by his daughter´s side.
of course , authorities immediately took joseph duncan into custody, but one important question was still hanging in the air.
Where was young dylan?
authorities soon uincovered surveillance fotage from an convenience store in coeur dalene. there findings were ominous.joseph and shasta could be viewsed seemingly traveling alone. then later that same day, an officer experienced in working with children visited shasta in the hospital.where she recounted her grueling version of the events leading to that point.
shasta recalled being abruptly woken up her mother on the night of may 16th,and told that an intruder was in the home.
then she went into the living room where her entire family had been ordered to lay on the floor , were bound ,and held at gunpoint. she identifed the intruder as joseph duncan.
a man she claimed to have never seen or met before in her life, after a few moments of silent terror,joseph tapped shasta on the head and gave her a simple shush gesture.as he picked her up and carried her out the back door.
shasta was a laid on the grass outside and warned that she would be hurt or killed if she didn´t stay quiet. she said dylan wsas brought out and laid on the grass beside her s a short time later. joseph then went back inside and that´s when things took a deadly turn.shasta told the detective that she heard mark shouting ow or ouch .
somethime after joseph reented the home ,then unaware of what had happened to her family, she explained seeing slade walking around outside acting very strangely. after that the next thing shasta were recalled was that she and dylan were being loaded int o a pickup truck and driven to a nearby property.
where jsoeph then tanseferred them to the stolen red , Jeep. shasta continue telling the detective that josepg drove them out to the remote wilderness of montana where they stayed at various capsites. she claimed joseph slapped her very hard and would chain her and dylan to a trees whenever he had to leave the campsite.shsasta aslo remarked thast would put small pills in their drinking water.but she didn´t know what was in them. furthermore ,the little girl described how joseph had forced her and dylan to write letters to their father while being held at the campsites.
one letter written by shasta indicated that joseph had been giving them some hope of safe return, saying” we might see you guys again.” .
In his letter , dyaln wtore . ” we are still alive.”we´re okay we know what happened to mom.
on one occasion ,shasta said that joseph left her chained to a trese while he took dylan away for a long time. when they returned ,dylan was notifceably injured.and shasta eventually learned thet they had gone to an abandoned cabin in the woods where joseph tortured the young boy for hours.
joseph actually showed shasta a video recording of her brother with his hand tied behind his back being assulted and hung by a wire noose from the cabin´s cross beam. in the video , joseph shouts ,
in the recoding , joseph brought dylan down and revived him promising to take him to the hospital.at one point , joseph started to sing the lords prayer. using an eerily high voice. as h e´s saying ,thy will be done, he interrupted himself and shouted;
tragically ,shasta´s nesxt admission removed any remaining hope that dylan was still alive. she told the detective about another incident in whish joseph reached inside a container presumably to grab a beer and fired a shotgun from inside the container ,fatally shooting young dylan .
it´s unclear whether or not the shot was accidental , but nevertheless, joseph then apparently burned the young boys´s body in fire at the campsite. then he packed shasta into the jeep and drove back to coeur d´alene. as they drove through the town,joseph desidet the´d make a stop at the Denny´s resturant
which is precisley when the 911 calls about a little girl resembling shasta started flooding in.before the interview ended, shasta explained to the detectives in graphic detal, what joseph had told her about he fateful night at wolf lodge and how he had killed her entire family. she also reiterated that he wsas a total stranger,not known by anyone in her family.
but then ,just when investigators thought they were nearing the end of this nightmare, chasta said one last thing that stunned the detective rigt to his core. shasta shockingly informed the investigator that joseph claimed to have commited other violent murders in the past. without any more information the interview ended.and the authorities immediately preperad a search warrant for the stolen Jeep ,joseph had been driving.
they also made preparations to search the probable crime scene in montana. forensic analysty began searching the stolen Jeep. and found evidence on the exterior that suggested it had recently been driven on dusty brush -filled roads.
next they examined the interiror and noted several perfectly normal items. such as tourist brochures ,GPS unites camping equipment ,and a laptop computer
.however ,it wasn´t long before they uncovered some moer sinister items inside the vehicle, including duct tape, rope, and video production equipment.
But thet wasn´t all .investigators also found a sawed – off shotgun with duct tape wrapped around the handle, a handsaw , and a plastic zip tie bag matching the brand used in the murders.
authorites sent a the digital media found in the jeep to the FBI forensic unit for analysis. who were able to narrow down the search area in montana.
then on july 3rd ,just one day after shasta´s rescue authorities located a cabin in the montana wilderness that seemed to match the one fron joseph´s recordings. stil,despite extensive search efforts dylan´s remains were nowhere to be found. meanwhile ,the FBI computer forensics laboratory continued to pull evidence from joseph´s film equipment. inclulding extremely graphic video clips from inside the old montana cabin.
depiciting the horrendous torture of dylan , the following day ,desperate to find dylans remains, authorities began to consider to taking shasta to montana to aid in the search. before that could happen ,however, they received a call that Changed everything.
FBI personnel searching in st. Regis , montana alerted deputies i back in Idaho that human reamians suspected to be those of dylan had been located in a mountainous area matching that which shasta had previously described. the same day dylan´s remains were found . joseph requested to speak with a chail chaplin telling him wanted “talk about forgiveness” because he ” killed three people in a house.” for days later, he sat for a long -awaited interview with kootenai county detectives regarding the wolf lodge case. Authorities discovered that joseph kept an enctypted journal online called the fith nail, which he started in 2004. decades later , the journal wsas broken into revealing joseph´s twisted mindset. he wrote on the blog just days before the attack at wolf lodge. one post written on may 11th , 2005 , reads
even more disturbing , on february 17 th,2005 , joseph wrote
” as long as we keep attacking the symptoms of social disease- the so called offenders – then our problems will keep getting worse. some day (soon i hope) society will be forced to “wake up ” and recognize how it porpagates its own misery by denying the truth that criminals are victims too. “
he exoanded on these thoughts writing 11 days later
” yeas , i know a lot about abuse from all three sides, the victims , the offenders , and the systems. i´m not saying let offenders do their thing. i have no problem with taking direct measures to stop people from hurting people. but i think it is more effective to take direct measures to stop people from wanting to hurt people.”
” we should offer free offender counseling and even amnesty for certain types of offenses if the offender agrees to treatment ( before they are caught) . that would be a very practical and effective way to reduce s*x crimes dramatically”
” i doubt it will ever happen though , because our society loves the excitement that s*x offenders bring into our living rooms through the media and we would be lsot without someone to point our fingers at.”
It´s important to rememberthat just days after writing this , joseph was torturing and assaulting dylan prior to murdering him.
when speaking to detectives ,joseph told them that he just happened to pass by the wolf lodge home and noticed shasta and dylan playing in their swimsuits in the yard. that´s when he decided to pull over and surveiy ther residence thus putting his evil plan to abduct the children into motion. he may have been driving around and searching for his target as he was prepared with items in his vehicle to subdue the victims.
it´s likely that he´d fantasized about a scenario like this many times. and when he spotted the kids. he saw this as opportunity to act .
they asked him to provide his account of exactly what happened on the night of may 16 th joseph said he arrived on the wolf lodge property in the stolen jeep sometime between two and 3:00 a.m.
with plans to approch the residents through the open field. at this point, joseph went into great detail about te extra mesasures he took to ensure he left no trace behind stating he was very knwoledgeable of criminal proceduress and crime scene processing.joseph proudly explained how he intentionally bought disposable shoes much larger than his actual size to throw off the investigation.
he boasted that he used gloves to avoid leaving any fingerprints. then he continued to tell detectives that he surveyed the wolf lodge home withs night vision goggles s he moved acrosss the large field surronding theresidence.
josef said he took extra care to be quite.because he knew dogs were inside the home. however ,while he expressed concern over establishing where the parent´s room was located. he appeared to already know exactly where the children slept at night. detectives surmised that he likely gathered this information from stalking the tow children before the attack.
nevertheless, once he felt confident that there was no movement inside and everyone was asleep,joseph placed himself directly outside shasta and dylan´s room. he stood on a lawn chair and appeared intently inside the window ready to enter and snatched them from their beds. but then something happened that sent the night in a deadly new direction .
one of the family´s two dogs suddenly entered the bedroom and seemed to sense something was wrong as it begans sniffing around the room. then the dog unexpectedly looked directly up at the window where joseph stood frozen an began to growl. joseph instsantly jumpef off the chair and rsant o a fence line on the property saying at this moment he thought to himself
” shit ,he made me.”
it seemed as though he was blaming the dogs for what happened next as being made is slang for being caught or seen . joseph say je waited by the fence for approximately one hour to see if anyoine had been alerted by the dog.but no one came out to investigate. and he didn´t notice any movement inside the home.joseph told detectives of this time spent waiting outside
” i kept looking for excuses to not do what i wa going t o do .”
joseph also claimed he was nearly ready to abort the entire plan looking for any excuse jsut to leave , but ultimately decided that if he returned and found the back door unlocked he would go through with the crime
.but if the door wsas locked , he would leave the family alone. so joseph said he walked back to the home and the faith would have it, the doore was slightly open. he entered ther residence carrying the sawed -off shot gun. with the first round being at a bird shot to scare off the dogs if necessary .
the second round ,he said , was a slug intended to for the man. much to his suprise ,the dogs didn´t seem to notice as he opened the backdoor. but joseph said he still retreated to the fence line for roughly a half hour to build his nerve. then he equipped himself with duct tape and zip ties from a backpack he left in the field and quitetly approached the back door again wearing a hat and a mask.joseph said when he entered the home. he found brenda asleep on the sofa. he then stated
“i froze.i din´t expect anyone to be in the living room.”
joseph ecplained that he felt scared for a brief moment as he backed into the kitchen. and waited to see if she would move.but the house remained quiet so he continued to look around for the two dogs and as he moved down the hallway. the dogs abruptly charged toward him from inside slade´s bedroom.
joseph described swinging the shotgun in their direction fully prepared to shoot.but said the dogs quickly scampered away at the sight of the firearm.joseph duck down to hide saying he could see from that position that brenda had woken up.
however , while she appeared to be looking directly at him,joseph said hshe didn´t seem to sense, that anything wass amiss yet as she turned the light off and returned to lying on the couch .joseph reported that her eyes seemed to be fixed on him. but he couldn´t tell whether they were open or not so he decided it was time to make a drastic move. he made his way over to brenda and with the shotgun trained on her ,joseph harshly whipsered in a low voice.
“where´s your´husband.”
He said that brenda looked up at him with a confused expression on her face, so he repeated the question with more intensity. this time brenda replied that her husband wasnt in the house.so joseph instead demanded that she bring him to the man. then joseph siaid brendsa quickly got onto her feet and dashed up the stairs to where mark was sleeping. he instructed brenda to wake up mark, and she did so by shaking him ans shouting.
“there´s a man here with a gun”
joseph told detectives that mark then rolled over and locked eyes with him but for unknown reasons,the cold blooded killer became overwhelmed with emotion at this point in the interview.
after regaining his composure joseph described grabbing two sets of zip ties. he had earlier interlocked in a police-type fashion. to restrain the adults. however .
he hadn´t anticipated marks size and soon realized he would need to use both sets to secure his wrists. futhermore .he fumbled with the zip ties at the top of the stairs. dropping the one that crime scene analyst later found while searching the home. joseph said mark complied and continued to lie face down on the bed as brenda wsas ordered to fasten the zip ties around his writs and ankles.
next , with mark immobilized,joseph asked where the guns were wanting the couple to believe his sole mission wsas to steal them, not to abduct the children. he likely said this to prevent the adults from trying to fight back.most people want risk their lives over a robbery.but would in order to protect their children fom abduction.
mark and brenda couldn´t run because they werent going to leave their children behind and they were likely afreaid to fight joseph. because he had such a clear advantage with the weapon.
The Groene Family home before being torn down
Credit: spokesman.com
mark made his way down the stairs on his backside.and onec they were both in the living room,joseph prompted him to lie face down on the floor. then he advised brenda to wake up the children and bring them out.joseph resaclled hearing slade shout “why,why,why,?” as his mother alerted him to the danger.
with slade out of his room, brenda went into shasta and dylan´s room. and guiided them back to the living area. where joseph bounded their wrists using duct tape and zip ties. when the entire family was secured on the living room floor,joseph todl the detectives
” stood for a moment and surveyed my work.i thought how easy it was .”
the folliowing sequence of events lined up precisely with what shasta had told investigators about joseph carrying her and dylan outside and leaying them on the grass.
after bringing the children outside,joseph reurned to his backpack at the fence line and retrieved a framing hammar beforre reenting the home.once inside ,the removed the duct tape from slades ancles and guided him outside to a spot where he was out of sight of the other children.
without warning joseph violently hit slade in the back of his head with the hammer. he immediately fell to his knees . and at thatpoint joseph struck him again . prompting the 13 year old to fall face down on the ground.assuming he was dead , joseph went back inside the house and told brenda to stand.
but because she was bound at the ankles , joseph had to help her up. once she was upright , josepg said he tried to use the hammer´s claw and end to cut through the duct tape around her ankles so she could walk but instead, brenda was sent face first back onto the floor when he pulled up on the weapon.
joseph stated that brenda was clearly injured fro mthe fall, so he decided itwas time to end her pain. at this point in the interview he briefly spoke about his empathic side saying.
” what i did next was an act of compassion”
then he expressed hitting brenda two or three times in the head with the hammer. after he was satifisfied that she was ni longer alive.
and he move over to mark,who he stated was still realizing what was happening and struck him two or three times on the top of his head.
joseph said mark cried out! ” ouch” before going still,just as shasta had previously told detectives.joseph
then went back outside and noticed that were both propped up against their orders to remain laying down and were speaking with slade who joseph was shocked to find alive and moving around the house´s exterior presumably attempting to flee the scene and get help.
he demanded the two yung children to stay still as he ran after slade ,and for a moment, he actually thought the teenager had gotten away.unfortunately, joseph caught up slade in front of the house where he was standing frozen in confusion from the traumatic head wounds he had endured.joseph mercilessly struck him in the head, neck and shoulders several more times with the hammer until he finally dropped to the ground.
before leaving the home, joseph went back inside to check on brenda and mark. he said both were making snoring or mumbling sounds, so he struck each victim´s head a few more times. he described not wanting to look as he hit brenda so he laid a blanket over her head and swung through it.this is unusual as most perpetrators only cover victims that they know well.
it´s possible that joseph sturggles to kill women more so than men ,because of his description of killing brenda. because of his description of killing brenda additonally ,josef let shasta live.
we dont know if he planned on eventually killing shasta.but he didn´t murder her right away like he did with dylan. joseph insisted t hat while he knew the law enforcement would probably label his crimes rage killings, he wasn´t acting out of rage. instead ihe offered the demented explanation that he´d been trying to put his victims out of their misery.
neveless ,joseph said he finally departed the residence along with the two children in mark and brendas´s white pickup truck.
he de drowe the short distance to the additional property. where he left the stolen red jeep. there ,je abandonned the pickuptruck, loeaded the children into the jeep, and took off later thet day , upon locating the unknown truck on his land, the propery owner placed his 911 call .
still based on josep´s depiction of the events.investigators were left woundering how the the blood staisn came to be disttributed throughout ther rest of the home,if most of the killings were isolated to one room.so thay asked joseph and his response sent a chill down their spines.
as he was driving away, joseph told investigators that he notice slade was standing up again in the front yard. he told them he elected not to stop,because dsaylight was breaking. he knew slade would die soon from his injuries.
due to the fact that slade´s body was found inside the home next to his mother the following day . authorities sepculated that he had managed to reenter the house and leave blood evidence in various location before ultimately succumbing to his injures at his mother´s feet. it was also believed that he had left the droplets of blood on mark´s body.
Joseph admitted to washing the hammer off in the sink before leaving. authorities were desperatae to locate the murder weapon.however his attorney´s prohibited him from disclosing its location.
the interview concluded , and while detectives were relieved to have received a full confession to the wolf lodge murders , they still had many unanswered questions amongs them, why did mark and breanda´s truck appear to have been riddled with bulets holes?
while awaiting his federal trial in prison .yet another hunting revelation emerged several disturning videos from joseph´s personal social media page. still, no one could have predicted the new set of nightmares about to surface. a document tittled autobiography of ed duncan was given was given to investigators by a former landlord of joseph´s who said it had been left behind in Fargo.
the chilling document,which appeared to have ween written during his incarceration as a teenager, detailed his childhood and other significant life events. with strong psycho undertones alluding to his deviant desires. 101 pages of journal entries written by joseph during his time spent in prsion in the 1980s shed even more light on his dark side. around
this time in the 80s he had seemingly developed an alter ego named Jazzy Jet. and would post photos of himself online. in drag and lingerie for male admires.
then after serving 14 years in prison investgators learned that joseph was released on parole in 1994. he spent a few additional weeks in jail in 1996 for drug charges.but was released on parole once again after just a few weeks.it was during tihs time that he apparently crosed paths wtith 10 years old anthony martinez.
On april 4, 1997 , anthony was playing with his friends and younger brother in beaumont, california when he suddenly abducted at knife point countless law enforcement agencies came together to search for the little boy in the following weeks and tragically on April 19th his body was found by park ranger roughly an hour from his last known location.
anthonys body showed clesar signs of violent assult , and similar to the wolf lodge victims he had been bound by duct tape. despite obtaining sa partial fingerprints from the duct tape and releasing a composite sketch of the supposed killer . anthony´s case went cold.it wasn´t untilafter his arrest for the wolf lodgde murders , that authorities connected joseph to the evidence in anthony ´s case.
on july 12th ,joseph was formally charged with three counts of first -degree murder and three counts of first-degree kidnapping.joseph confessed to anthony´s murder on july 19th, just a few weeks after shasta´s rescue. but that wasn´t the only brutal unsolved murder he was tied to.joseph also confessed to murdering two young girls in the Seattle area in july 1996, alleging he beat them both to death.
carmen cubias and sammiejo white.
based on the details he disclosed and the girls having benn in close proximity to his residence at thet time, authorities believed he was referring to 9 years old carmen cubias an 11 years old sammiejo white. the pair disappeared after leaving a motel parking lot and their skeletal remains were found roughly 17 months later on a muddy hills slide in washington.
with very little evidence at the time,the csase quickly went cold. investigators were skeptical and speculated that joseph´s confession could be like some of those others serial killers who have claimed credit for things they haven´t done.
in any case, on october 16th , 2006 joseph entered a guilty plea to the murder and kidnappning charges in court before a judge and was immediately sentenced to three consencutive life sentences without the possibiltiy of parole.
finally on august 27th ,2008 a federal grand jury recommended the death penalty for joseph.
Then in november of the following year he was given three additional life terms.joseph was also charged with murder of 10 years -old anthony martinez from beaumont ,california. and sentenced to two life terms on april 5th ,2011,after entering a guilty plea.
It´s notable that joseph is wearing a bulletproff vest during his sentencing hearing, this is sometimes done when a prisoner needs to be trasnsported outside of the courthouse, and there is a risk that he will be shot at . while joseph confessed to the murders of the two young girls ,sammiejo white and carmen cubias,he was never charged with those crimes possibly due to insufficient evidence. the nightmare finally ended on march 28th ,2021 when joseph died in prsion from a termina brain tumor.