Shasta Groene Speaks On Murder Of Family, Kidnapping & Survivor's Guilt

[Sugar Cookie]

A woman who was imprisoned, tortured, and abused by the 'night-vision' serial killer for seven weeks as a child - after he brutally murdered her whole family - has detailed the harrowing moment that he forced her choose how she wanted to die, giving her the option between being strangled or shot.

Shasta Groene, now 25, was eight years old when Joseph Duncan III, who was 42 at the time, broke into her home and killed her mother, Brenda Groene, 40, her stepfather, Mark McKenzie, 37, and her brother, Slade Groene, who was just 13.


He kidnapped Shasta and her then-nine-year-old brother, Dylan, and held them captive for nearly two months while he sexually and physically assaulted them, before he ultimately fatally shot Dylan in front of Shasta.

He then asked Shasta how she wanted to be killed, telling her that she had to pick between him choking her to death with a rope or him shooting her like he did to her brother, however, she was thankfully able to talk him out of it.

Shasta was eventually rescued after Duncan took her to a restaurant and was spotted by customers and employees, who called the police and stopped him from leaving.

Now, she is opening up about the traumatic experience and how her survivor's guilt, spiraled into drug use, self harm, and an eating disorder in a new episode of People Magazine Investigates, which airs on Investigation Discovery and Discovery+.

One day, he asked me, "How do you want to die? You have two choices, I can shoot you or you can be strangled to death,"' she recalled in the show.

'I felt like there was always something guiding me, like a voice in my head telling me what I needed to do and how it needed to go.

'So I told him, "I want you to strangle me, I guess." I couldn't picture what happened to my brother happening to me, it scared me.'

Shasta said she knew if he strangled her she would have more time to 'talk him out of it,' but if he were to shoot her, he could 'just pull the trigger and it would all be over.'

She continued, 'So that's what I chose. He had me lay down on the ground and he put a rope around my neck.'

However, when the then-eight-year-old called Duncan by his nickname, Jett, it ultimately saved her life.

'He squeezed it, everything started turning white and I said, "Please don't Jett." When I said that he loosened his grip on the rope and he started crying,' she said.

'He was like, "I don't know why, when you call me that, I can tell you really care about me."

'At that point, I knew that I had gained a lot of trust with him. I was pretty much going to do whatever it took to survive.'


On May 15, 2005, Shasta said she thought she saw someone hiding in her bedroom closet while she was trying to fall asleep in her Wolf Lodge, Idaho, home.

After being comforted by her brother, she fell asleep, assuming she had imagined it. However, hours later, she was woken by her mother - who was in tears. She told her, 'Someone's in the house.'

She remembered in the show, 'My mother was crying. She's like, "[Shasta], you need to wake up. Someone's in the house."'

She then said she found her stepfather and her brother laying face down on the floor of the family living room with zip ties around their wrists and ankles, as well as duct tape covering their mouths.

A man, who wore all black and night-vision goggles, stood in the room holding a shotgun.

'I honestly have no idea what gave me strength or hope,' she told Fox News Digital recently.

'But there was something inside of me that was pushing me to say or do certain things to be on [Duncan's] good side and earn his trust.

'I believe that was my mom’s spirit guiding me. She wanted me to get out safe and alive.

'I felt like I was getting help from her spiritually. But there were times when I really thought, "How long am I going to be alive?"'

Shasta was eventually rescued on July 2, 2005, after people inside a Coeur d'Alene Denny's diner noticed her, alerted the authorities, and positioned themselves in front of Duncan so he couldn't leave.

Shasta said that Duncan took her to the restaurant after she earned his trust by 'manipulating him' and making him feel like she 'didn't want to leave his side.'

'I would tell him that I wanted to show him all the places I grew up in, where I went to school because I loved school, where I used to hang out, basically show him my life because I had no family,' she told Fox.

'That made him feel good because he felt that I trusted him. He felt that he was learning about my life and getting to know a vulnerable part of me. I was just trying to manipulate him.

'[When we got to the Denny's] I looked up and saw this guy. He looked at me, and I nodded my head. He nodded back.

'I can tell from his eyes that he knew who I was. I was trying to tell him through my eyes, that it was me.'

'[Duncan] told me, "It’s OK, you can tell him." That’s when I said, "My name is Shasta." The cop then grabbed [Duncan] and handcuffed him right away.'

'I remember feeling safe, but at the same time, I was sad about my family, and so focused on, "Where is my oldest brother, where's my dad?" Stuff like that,' she previously recalled of being rescued in a 2015 interview with KTVB.

'I was happy to be in a safe place, but there was still that part of me that was like, "What if that happens again?"'

Afterwards, Shasta went to live with her biological father. She took a year off of school, and tried her best to get back to normal while a slew of reporters and cameras followed her every move.

She went to therapy, but said she suffered from an eating disorder and self harmed as she struggled to come to terms with what had happened to her.

Before the tragic incident, Shasta said she was really close with her brothers, and that she 'always wanted to be with them' - which made it even harder for her to adjust to her new life without them.

After that, Duncan took Shasta back to Idaho, where she was eventually rescued on July 2, 2005. She is seen on a store surveillance camera with Duncan
'I had my brothers with me all the time,' she said to Fox. 'And that’s exactly how I wanted it to be. I always wanted to be with them. I was the youngest and the only girl.

'I was the little sister my brothers protected. And my mom made sure that the family was always together.

'It felt weird being in a house with my dad and his girlfriend with none of my brothers.

'I was just so alone. He was a truck driver, so it was very seldom that we saw him. But that’s how he paid the bills.

'I also became really sensitive about my weight and the things that I ate. I think it was a way to punish myself. I developed an eating disorder at a very young age.

'If I ate, I made myself throw up. I then started self-harming. I was hiding a lot from my dad.

'And then he got throat cancer. He almost died from it. So much has happened that I never fully got to heal.'

She also said she suffered from severe 'guilt' since she survived and her brother Dylan didn't, especially because she had promised him that they would both 'get out alive.'

'I had promised my brother [Dylan] that I would make sure that we got out alive. I carried so much guilt because he didn’t live, and I did,' she said.

'I felt like it should have been the other way around. I handled all of that in very unhealthy ways.

'I started drinking at age 13, smoking marijuana and hanging out with older people. I was trying to numb everything. And there was a possibility that my dad might die. I didn’t know what to do.'

Duncan was convicted and sentenced to death in 2008 and, after his arrest, DNA evidence linked him to the April 1997 killing of ten-year-old Anthony Martinez from Beaumont, California - which he later admitted to.

He was also linked to the killings of two young girls in Seattle in the 1990s, and was also accused of molesting a young boy on a playground in Minnesota in 2005.

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Woman imprisoned by serial killer who murdered her family speaks out

Shasta Groene, now 25, was eight years old when Joseph Duncan III, who was 42 at the time, broke into her Wolf Lodge, Idaho, home and killed her mother, stepfather, and brother.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[DeeDee]

Shasta has had such a hard, traumatizing life. It hurts to read it and think about what she's got inside her head. The memories of her last sight of her mother and brothers. The memories of the abuse she endured. We read the words but there aren't words for just how awful those months with Duncan were. And short of a miracle she can never forget. It's truly horrifying and honestly I hate it.

I don't blame her at all for the different methods and addictions she tried to ease her pain and its so unfortunate that she didn't get extensive and deep therapy immediately and ever since.

 

[BuffettGirl]

This was my neck of the woods. I vividly remember when this all went down and actively looking for her in every store and restaurant I went to during the time she was missing. Reading this brought that all back. This poor, brave woman. The things she has seen just break my heart...