Joseph Duncan Extradited to California for Murder of 10-year-old Boy

January 29, 2009

When I wrote Stolen in the Night for St. Martin's Press couple of years ago, I found myself wishing and hoping since that time that the subject of my book, serial killer scumbag Joseph Edward Duncan III, who is clearly among the worst sexual deviants to ever walk the face of the earth, would eventually be extradited to California to stand trial for the 1997 Riverside County murder of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez after his case in Idaho had been adjudicated.

Readers will recall that Duncan was singlehandedly responsible for the 2005 slaughter of Shasta and Dylan Groene's family - their mother, her boyfriend, and their older brother - before vanishing into the night with Shasta, then 8-years-old, and her brother, Dylan, then 9-years-old - in a case that culminated with the ghastly sexual abuse of Shasta and Dylan for several weeks and Dylan's eventual torture and murder while Shasta was forced to watch.  If not for Shasta's early-morning rescue inside a Denny's restaurant in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, a similar fate almost assuredly awaited the terrified young girl. 

Finally, this past week I got my wish, as did many other people, when Duncan was brought from his death row cell at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana to California on Friday, January 23, 2009 to face the Anthony Martinez murder charges.

Duncan had been previously convicted of raping and torturing a 14-year-old boy in Tacoma, Washington, and allegedly committed the Martinez murder after the system turned him loose and allowed him to move on to commit the atrocities in Idaho.  To recap the Martinez case, investigators looking to match Duncan's profile to criminal activity in other areas of the country placed him in Southern California at the time of Martinez' disappearance in April 1997.  Martinez, according to detectives in Riverside County, had been kidnapped by a "mustached man" in Beaumont, California on April 4, 1997 while playing with his younger brother and several friends in an alley behind their home.  A man fitting Duncan's general description had approached the children and offered them money to help him look for his supposedly missing cat, an obvious ruse to try and gain the trust of the children.
 
"He first went after Anthony's brother, but that boy got away," said Beaumont Police Lieutenant Mitch White.  "He got Anthony."

Finally-An Indictment in the MySpace Suicide Case

May 19, 2008

In a case that has been in and out of the news somewhat regularly since 13-year-old Megan Meier committed suicide by hanging herself on October 16, 2006 after becoming the butt-end of a cruel hoax that was allegedly perpetrated by an adult and a juvenile, the case appears to be moving forward-at last-with the indictment of Lori Drew, 49, on one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing computers without proper authorization, handed down by a Los Angeles federal grand jury on Thursday, May 15, 2008.

To recap for those readers who are not familiar with the story, when the case began some nineteen months ago young Megan believed that she had made a new friend in Josh Evans, described as a cute teenage boy who began exchanging messages with Megan on MySpace.  Josh claimed that he was born in Florida and had recently moved to O'Fallon, Missouri, located east of St. Louis and not far from Megan's residence in Dardenne Prairie.  Megan, who suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder and was on medication, continued the correspondence with Josh for several weeks before he suddenly broke off his friendship with her on October 15, 2006 by telling Megan that someone had told him that she was cruel and unpleasant toward her friends.  The problem was that Josh didn't exist, and the following day Megan hung herself.  She died a day later.

On the day that Megan hung herself, she had received very cruel messages from someone logged into "Josh's" MySpace account.  The messages that were being posted were stating things such as, "Megan Meier is a slut; Megan Meier is fat."  Megan, upset, told her mother about the messages as her mother left the house for an appointment.  When she returned home, she viewed the messages in question and was surprised to see that her daughter had engaged in vulgar language in her responses.  She expressed to Megan that she was upset over the language that Megan had used.  Megan went to her father in another area of the house because she was feeling so badly about what had happened, and he attempted to raise her spirits by telling her that everything would be okay.  Less than half an hour later, Megan was found...

Continue Reading: Finally-An Indictment in the MySpace Suicide Case