#597 - Talkative Serial Killer - Kellogg, Idaho

Summary

Podcast Summary: Small Town Murder Episode #597 - "Talkative Serial Killer - Kellogg, Idaho"

Introduction In Episode #597 of Small Town Murder, hosts James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman delve into the chilling case of Joseph Edward Duncan III, a serial killer whose reign of terror in Kellogg, Idaho, left a lasting impact on the small community. Released on May 22, 2025, this episode combines in-depth research with the hosts' signature comedic flair to explore the dark events that unfolded in this tranquil town.

Background of Kellogg, Idaho Kellogg, Idaho, once a booming silver mining town with a population of 6,000 in 1960, transformed over the decades. Following the tragic Sunshine Mine fire in 1972 that claimed 91 lives, the town grappled with economic decline and environmental contamination. By the time of Duncan’s crimes, Kellogg had shifted towards becoming a resort town, capitalizing on its scenic landscapes and outdoor activities, albeit still bearing scars from its mining past.

Early Life of Joseph Edward Duncan III Born on February 25, 1963, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Joseph Duncan III, known as "Jet," experienced a tumultuous childhood. As the fourth of five children in a military family, frequent relocations led to social isolation. According to Duncan, he felt perpetually mocked and struggled to form meaningful relationships. His academic performance suffered, culminating in dropping out during his sophomore year with a GPA of 1.7. Duncan's early exposure to substance abuse—marijuana, acid, amphetamines, and more—further complicated his adolescent years.

Criminal Beginnings and Escapes At 15, Duncan's rebellious nature led him to attempt running a police roadblock, resulting in a severe facial injury and harm to several officers. Subsequent encounters with the law saw him involved in multiple rapes of minors from as early as age 8, showcasing a disturbing pattern of predatory behavior. Despite being diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and sexual sadism, Duncan's attempts at rehabilitation were futile, leading to multiple incarcerations and eventual recaptures.

The Kellogg Kidnapping and Murders On July 17, 2005, Duncan targeted the Groni family in Kellogg. Armed with a claw hammer, he brutally murdered Brenda Groni and her son, Slade, before abducting Brenda's daughters, Shasta (8) and Dylan (9). Duncan held the siblings captive for approximately seven weeks in the rugged terrains of the Lolo National Forest, Montana. During this period, Shasta endured unimaginable trauma, witnessing the murder of her brother and enduring further abuse. Duncan's erratic behavior was marked by his attempts to rationalize his actions, attributing them to societal rejection and personal grievances.

Investigation and Apprehension The investigation into the Groni family's disappearance was extensive, generating over 2,200 tips. Key breakthroughs came when Shasta was spotted at a Denny's in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, with Duncan. A vigilant waitress intervened, offering Shasta a milkshake, which facilitated her rescue and Duncan's subsequent arrest. However, Dylan's fate remained uncertain, with authorities later discovering his skeletal remains in a remote campsite.

Trial and Sentencing Duncan pleaded guilty to all charges, including first-degree murder and kidnapping, to spare Shasta from testifying. During his sentencing, the jury imposed three consecutive death penalties alongside additional life sentences without parole. This plea deal, while controversial, was supported by the Groni family to avoid further traumatizing Shasta. Federal charges were also pursued, consolidating Duncan's fate within the highest echelons of the justice system.

Aftermath and Community Impact The brutal crimes shook Kellogg and the surrounding regions, leading to national media coverage and public outcry. Shasta Groni, now a survivor, has worked tirelessly to rebuild her life, overcoming substance abuse and trauma. Her resilience serves as a beacon of hope amidst the darkness of her past. The Groni family's pursuit of justice and healing highlights the profound personal and communal scars left by Duncan's actions.

Notable Quotes

• James Petragallo [09:35]: "Burning to death in a hole in the ground."
• Jimmy Whisman [10:15]: "They beat the fuck out of the owner."
• James Petragallo [25:24]: "Planning is revenge."
• Shasta Groni [36:51]: "I call him Jet because that's what he liked to be called."
• Judge [150:11]: "You are going to die, period."
• Shasta Groni [172:12]: "He doesn't define my life anymore."

Conclusion Episode #597 of Small Town Murder offers a harrowing exploration of one of Idaho's most infamous serial killers. Through meticulous research and candid discussions, James and Jimmy shed light on the complex layers of Joseph Duncan III's psyche, the devastating impact on the Groni family, and the broader implications for small-town America. This episode serves as both a tribute to the resilience of survivors and a grim reminder of the lurking evils that can infiltrate even the most serene communities.

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Note: This summary intentionally excludes advertisement segments and focuses solely on the substantive content of the podcast episode.

Transcript

[James Petragallo]

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[Jimmy Whisman]

Particularly pasta sauce drives me bananas and rouse is there and it tells me what's, what's good and what's not.

[James Petragallo]

And not full of sodium because that's the problem. Some of those pasta sauce is loaded with sodium so you can find better options easy with Thrive Market's healthy swap scanner scan, a product that'll instantly recommend a cleaner alternative. It's amazing. Yeah, you swap out things you get like simple mills crackers and lesser evil popcorn. Are you ready to make the switch? Well, I'm ready. Go to thrivemarket.com smalltownmurder for 30% off your first order plus a free $60 gift. That's T H R I V E market.com smalltownmurder thrivemarket.com smalltownmurDer now back to the show. Sherri Papini went missing in 2016. The story that the world thinks they know is I am a master manipulator. She is California's real life gone girl. It's not me.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This was a hoax. Oh, you're only talking now because you got caught.

[James Petragallo]

And could this person be playing you?

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is just a lie. Now I get to tell the truth.

[James Petragallo]

Sherry Papini, caught in The Lie, an ID documentary event Monday at 9 this week in Kellogg, Idaho. The finding of a murdered family leads detectives on a frantic hunt to save two remaining victim, a serial killer. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yay.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petragallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm Jimmy Whisman.

[James Petragallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today. We have some seriously crazy stuff for you today.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Great.

[James Petragallo]

Absolute menace of an individual, a serial killer and a bad, bad guy. One that slipped through the cracks for a long time. It is scary stuff here. So we will get to all of that. Before we do though, head over to shut upandgivememurder.com oh, what's over there? All sorts of merchandise. Number one, everything from skateboards to bath mats. But you also get your tickets for live shows. Get them for the remainder here because pretty much everything that's going to be there is going to be in the fall, September and on. And a lot of those are sold out. And the ones that aren't are selling out fast. Philly and D.C. in December, selling out fast. Get your tickets for Seattle because Portland's already sold out. So get in there and get those tickets right now. We're very excited for that. That's shutupandgivemerder.com Then also listen to our other two shows, Crime in Sports, which trust us, you don't have to like sports to like this show. No, no, no, not at all. Some of the stuff we did a 10 parter on Evel Knievel. We have a mult parter on Randall Woodfield, the i5 killer coming up. So a lot of good stuff there you want to check out and your stupid opinions where we read the most annoying reviews on the Internet and make fun of everybody for it. So that's a, that's a lot of fun too. So you've listened to all that. You still need to get Patreon.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Patreon.com crimeinsports Just like the name of our other show. And you get that anybody $5 a month or above, you're going to get immediately upon subscription, hundreds of back episodes you haven't heard before. And then you binge on those new ones every other week. One crime and sports, one small town murder. And you get them all, baby.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You get it all.

[James Petragallo]

You get it all. This week, what you're going to get for crime and sports, we are going to do. We're going to talk about some of the worst soccer riots that have ever happened. Oh, yeah, that's a famous thing. Soccer riots.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

Oh, my God. They collapse stadiums when they do.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's crazy that.

[James Petragallo]

It's crazy. So we're going to talk about. Yeah, oh, yeah. We're going to talk about some of the worst soccer riots in history. You don't have to like sports to know about that. And then for small town murder, we are going to talk about the. It's actually the killer. This week we're going to talk about his blog. He has a very extensive blog and we're going to read from it because.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It is a dipshit that puts his thoughts out there.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, man, it's fascinating. He compare. He compares. I can't even get into it now. It's crazy stuff and you got to hear it to believe it. So there is that patreon.com crime in sports. And you get a shout out at the end of the show as well. That said, disclaimer time. It's a comedy show, everybody. It's also a very real murder show. Those two things are both true. We are going to make jokes, but there is horrible murder and it's all completely real. Nothing is made up for comedic effect or anything like that. And you might go, well, how the hell do you mix those things together real easily? The way we do it is you never make fun of the victims or the victim's families.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, why is that, James?

[James Petragallo]

Because we're assholes. Yes, but we're not scumbags. Yeah, that works plenty to make fun of, including the murderer, which is usually an ample target for humor to be picking on the guy so worthy. It's a lot of fun. So we'll check all that out. So if that sounds good to you, you're gonna hear a wild story. You think true crime and comedy should never, ever go together. We might not be for you, but we might. It might not be what you think. We're not. We're not making fun of things that you might think we're making fun of. That's right. Try it. It's good stuff. Eat your Broccoli. And then when you're done with that, take a deep breath. Here we go. Arms to the sky. And let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay?

[James Petragallo]

Let's go on a trip, shall we? We are going to Idaho this week. Oh, boy. Kellogg, Idaho. K, E, double L, O, double G. Kellogg.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's like the Cereal is the two.

[James Petragallo]

GS in Kellogg's cereal. It is. Of course. That's a strange thing. I'm a cereal connoisseur, as you know. Love cereal. I have 20 boxes of cereal all the time. Been eating cereal since I was a kid. Must see that name 400 million times and never took in what the spelling of it is. That's interesting.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's definitely two L's. Two G's.

[James Petragallo]

Interesting. This is up in the northern part of Idaho. This is panhandle country up here. Idaho, Panhandle. Yeah. It's near Coeur d' alene. It's about 40 minutes outside coeur d' alene. This place. Two hours to missoula, Montana. The other direction. Yeah. Closer to that than most other stuff. And then 2 hours and 40 minutes to Lewiston, Idaho, which was our last Idaho episode called the Incurably Crazy Killer. That was the one where a man named Dump Truck beheads a co worker and it's crazy stuff, man. You gotta hear that. It was an express episode. This is in Shoshone county, like the tribe area code 208. The motto here. This is true. This is real, quote, founded by a jackass and inhabited by his descendants.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right?

[James Petragallo]

That's true. The reason is Noah Kellogg. Okay? The guy it's named after, his donkey alerted the prospector to a mountain outcropping of galena. A lead or often containing silver.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petragallo]

So this was a big deal. And then people came all the way. This donkey started a mining rush up here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Silver sniffing donkey.

[James Petragallo]

He had a silver sniffing donkey. Wow. Take him where the gold is. Maybe you can do better than silver.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why you treat. Why you train him to that dumb shit?

[James Petragallo]

Yes. I don't think he trained him. He was just. He's a natural.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's amazing.

[James Petragallo]

So a little bit of history. Kellogg was incorporated in 1907. The population in 1960 was 6,000 people. It was a booming mining town. And yeah, it became a center of silver mining. And there's a lot of silver being pumped out of here. In May of 1972, the Sunshine Mine of Kellogg was the site of one of the worst mining accidents in US History. It was a result. There's a big fire that caused the deaths of 91 miners.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my.

[James Petragallo]

91. That is incredible.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fires, James. Not just smoke underground.

[James Petragallo]

Burning to death in a hole in the ground.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus.

[James Petragallo]

Eight days after the fire started, when they figured everyone was dead, two men emerged from the mine.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petragallo]

Can you imagine eight days down there. They were found on 4800ft, the 4800 foot level of the mine near a fresh air source. They happen to find some little.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A pocket.

[James Petragallo]

Pocket where their fire didn't get them and there was fresh air. It's amazing. Everyone else died.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They beat the fuck out of the owner.

[James Petragallo]

You motherfucker. No, they probably took them out back and shot him when they were done so they wouldn't tell anybody about it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

The Bunker Hill Mine and smelter closed in 1981. The yield started to wane. That's what happened here. Thousands lost their jobs and everything kind of went away. And also the mining operations resulted in regional lead contamination of the water and soil as well.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why not?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, that's all contaminated and fucked up there. Kellogg has been developing as a resort town after that and trying to take advantage of skiing and shit like that. Come see. Come ski. Come ski over the 91 corpses of miners. Yeah, it's a great mountain. It's, you know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Come ski over the 91 corpses of miners and get lead poisoning.

[James Petragallo]

It's fun. Don't drink the lead. Five stars. Here's a review or some reviews of this town because I don't know shit about this town. Maybe it's great. Five stars. Kellogg is a great little town with lots of character. There's so many surrounding towns as well. The best thing here is that it's peaceful. Not too many people. As well as. Not a lot of hype. Yeah, I guess like other. Well, some of the more popular ski locations are probably.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's a lot of hype around Breckenridge.

[James Petragallo]

And shit like that. Yeah, yeah. You're surrounded by the mountains and have very easy access to prime hunting areas, fishing spots, river access, lake access and plenty of hiking trails. 3 stars. Very small town, home to Dave Smith. Dave Smith. Vehicles are everywhere. Who the hell is Dave Smith? I need more explanation on such a generic sounding man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Dave Smith Motors and he just owns like a Chevy and a GM or a Ford and owns all the dealerships.

[James Petragallo]

You don't get a more nondescript sounding man than Dave Smith. That tells you nothing. It belies nothing about what he is or what he does. Beautiful Scenery however. So apparently they are taking two stars away because Dave Smith's cars are everywhere.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Fucking Dave and his car the hell.

[James Petragallo]

And there's plenty of trails and rivers for the outdoors people. And then one star. Wow. It is completely toxic. And they don't mean that in a social way. They mean that in a literal way. The environment was deemed poisonous by the epa. Having an entire school district of elementary age children listed with the highest blood levels in the world. Blood lead. Blood lead levels in the world. Yet they are not the only yet. They not only let people continue to live here. But now whatever is left alive today are the ones here. And they are severely underreported about the devastating and volatile effects of social capacities from lifelong toxins exposures. Wow. People here are thick in complete denial and loyalty to the cause of their toxic status. Which is mining is still going on strong and runs every inch of this place. People here are sick in the worst kind of ways. A ton of kept quiet abusive behavior. From domestic violence to every age. Sexual assaults to suicides and homicides are through the roof.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This place is out of control.

[James Petragallo]

According to that one person. We don't know. It might be fine. I haven't looked up just everybody beating the shit out of their wives and raping them. Population in this town 2,255. So it was 6,000 in 1960.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh wow.

[James Petragallo]

Once the mines closed, nowhere to work. Few more females than male. So that tells you how far away from the mining we really are. Because otherwise I'm sure in 1960 it was probably 2/3 male because of the mining. Median age is about 34, which is younger than the national average by a few years. Lower married rate than normal. It's about 43% married. It's a little less of like not really a move out here with your family type of place. It's kind of different type of place. Race in this town. 91.2% white, 0.0% black, 0.0% Asian. 1.5% Native American, 2.5% Hispanic. Religion here, 25% of the people here are religious which is very low. 50, 50 national average. And I'm looking around. That's what I mean. And this is like Lutheran takes it with the top spot with 5.8%.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So I mean it's incredibly hodgepodge mixed bag.

[James Petragallo]

It's like 5.3% Mormon, 5.5% Catholic. It's mixed around 0.0% Jewish though that we are pretty sure of. In Idaho the unemployment rate's a little bit high. Here it's about seven and a half, which is higher than the national average. Median household income here. This is crazy. National average about 69,000 here, 35,658.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That is like half the brokest Idaho town in the, in the state. I get.

[James Petragallo]

It's gotta be wild. That's why people don't have a ton of kids here, I guess, and aren't married. Because I can't afford to get married and have kids. Cost of living, 100 is regular. Average here it's 77. And the meat, the home cost is a big reason for that. Median home cost here, $256,900, which is below the national average. And if we've convinced you, damn it, you don't have enough lead in your bloodstream, we have for you. And you like to ski. We have for you the Kellogg Idaho real estate report. Average two bedroom rental here goes for about $860 a month. So that is well below the national average. Really low. Here is a one bedroom, one bathroom, 580 square foot house. That's little. That's not a house. No. And when you look at the house, it's not a house. It's barely shelter. Like it's barely shelter. There's ceilings missing from rooms. No ceilings.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Top shed with a partition for a room.

[James Petragallo]

Dude, there's missing walls, so never mind partitions. It's wild. There's missing floors and other shit. Like this house. You need to knock it down and rebuild it. And it says would make a great Airbnb. Who the fuck is renting this? You are going to be wowed. 125,000 bucks for that. Maybe for like a, like an escape room. Like, you know, a serial killer can pop out from the open ceiling or something and scare you and maybe that sort of thing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

125 grand is steep for that.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Here's a three bedroom, two bath, 15, 26 square foot house. Real weird. It's like a generic house. Like a suburban regular, you know, three bedroom, two bath house. But it's also a log cabin. It's on the outside instead of siding, there's logs, but otherwise everything else is your standard generic house. Here it's really weird, but it was built in 1910, so it's old school. 299,000 bucks for that. Doesn't seem worth it. And here's a four bedroom, one bath. I assume it's one and a half. Usually when it's one, it's. Usually there's another half somewhere. 21 down. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes For a listing, I guess. But it should be, you know, more than that. 2116 square feet. The outside looks like if you. Like if the wolf came, the pig shouldn't hide in there because he's gonna blow it down. It doesn't look good, but the inside is fine. It's really nice. It's been redone. They just didn't get to the outside at all. So it's really weird. Inside fine. Outside looks like. I mean, nobody would rob you. They'd be like, those people don't have shit. $430,000 for that house, though.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petragallo]

Well, pricey.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What is going on?

[James Petragallo]

I don't know. It's expensive up there, though. That median home price. Shit was. They're off. Things to do here. Brews fest.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

You know what's gonna happen there? Craft offerings of breweries and cideries from the Inland Northwest craft beer scene. Chance to track down some local favorites that are only available in select tap rooms. Oh, boy. You get a ticket here. Tickets include a scenic gondola ride, entry to the event, a tasting mug, and six drink tickets. Dang, you're gonna be hammered. Holy shit. Additional drink tickets could be purchased at the event if you're not falling down drunk enough already. After six ticket prices. Wow. 49, 45, 95. Are the tickets for this? $45.95.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That seems steep.

[James Petragallo]

It's steep. Man, that is a lot. There's a combo ticket that includes mountain biking for the day. Who the hell? Who says I want to have six beers and then mountain bike in the same day? Who the fuck does that? What kind of.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Want to see if I can do it?

[James Petragallo]

That should be like an Olympic event. Six beers and then mountain bike. And if you come out the other side of the trail, you win. That's it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I wonder if I can remember to ride a bike after six IPAs.

[James Petragallo]

And then maybe you ride before. And then I get so drunk. I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That might be it. Yeah. Get so tired that you work up a thirst for high octane craft beer.

[James Petragallo]

Jesus Christ, man. So they also say that you can't prohibit bringing your own alcohol. Can't bring your own alcohol at all?

[Jimmy Whisman]

No, we've got plenty here.

[James Petragallo]

Music they have. Of course you're going to be sweaty and tired and shit faced, so you're going to need this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So may as well be annoyed.

[James Petragallo]

Of course, listen to music you haven't heard before. Eternal Jones is one person hailing from Spokane, Washington. Eternal Jones is a rock and blues dance band with some surprises. They throw in like a George Strait song once in a while and you're like, I'm surprised. That's weird.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That is shocking.

[James Petragallo]

They played Taylor Dane before that. I don't know what's going on here. This is weird.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Paul Taylor, Taylor Dane, Taylor Swift.

[James Petragallo]

Hell is going on here. I heard Paula Abdul Strait up and followed by. I don't know any George Strait songs, so I can't help you there. But a George Strait. I honestly couldn't name a George Strait song when it got into my head. Oh, shit. What do I know about George Strait?

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's had more number one hits than anybody else.

[James Petragallo]

Number one hits to whom? Number one hits on the country charts. I don't listen to that shit especially. But we listen up.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Real cowboy, though, James.

[James Petragallo]

No, he's not. He's playing music. He's not. If he was a real cowboy, he'd be fucking doing cowboy shit. Not playing music with a real clean hat on.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But he does do that too. He's got a working ranch.

[James Petragallo]

That's a real. And I'm sure he's doing all the work. Nobody's hired on that. I'm sure. It's all. I don't really care about that. I've never. I know nothing about George Strait. He's great. I could imagine being a teenager in New York going, I want to listen to an old man sing country music. That wouldn't. What the hell? Why would I do that? That would have been crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I want to watch a very old man. And when you were growing up, he wasn't an old man. But he fucking sounded like he was.

[James Petragallo]

An old man to me.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's been an old man since he was born.

[James Petragallo]

Anyone older than the Wu Tang Clan was old in 1994 to me. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

They might be close to the same age, to be honest with you.

[James Petragallo]

Probably possible. So also, New Jack City. Nu. New.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Not. Okay.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Not the movie. Yeah. Not the Wesley Snipes movie. They blend soulful Motown classics with R and b and top 40 hits. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. And then Tamarack Ridge duo.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Multi award winning artists Rico G and Lynette Sherry, A powerhouse duo whose names are synonymous with musical excellence across the Pacific Northwest. Well, that makes sense because I've never heard of them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where the fuck have they won awards?

[James Petragallo]

No idea. This says they have heartfelt ballads and high energy anthems.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Dollars to donuts, James. They're awards. None of them are Grammys.

[James Petragallo]

No, I doubt they're in the Northwest. Yeah, that's not gonna be Grammys. Crime rate in this town, what we are interested in here, property crime is slightly above the national average. Not too, too high. And then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery and of course, assault just below average. Okay, that one review made it sound like people were just clubbing each other in the streets, just free for all. When you went out of your house, you cracked the door, looked both ways, and if you saw nothing, ran to your car. Hope not to get shot by a sniper. That's what she made it sound like. So that said, let's. Oh yeah, I did that. Murder, rape, robbery and assault. Mount Rushmore just below after. Okay, so that said, let's talk about a murder.

[Jimmy Whisman]

All right.

[James Petragallo]

Okay, let's talk about a guy first here. Joseph Edward Duncan III. That's a lot. He's born February 25, 1963. He has a couple of nicknames. He likes to be called Joe Dunks. No, you would have think so. No, Jet. He likes to be called what? Or this is a better one, Jazzy Jet. Why?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What is he doing?

[James Petragallo]

I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is he all right?

[James Petragallo]

It just makes me think of the in betweeners when he goes to get that suit and he goes, too jazzy. He goes, yes, maybe. Maybe a bit too jazzy. Jazzy Jet or J.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why does he do that?

[James Petragallo]

Don't know. Because Joseph Duncan is a boring name. Joseph Edward Duncan. I'm Jet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Joe's not so bad. No, Joe's a pretty good goddamn name.

[James Petragallo]

No one makes fun of that as a name. You know what I mean? It's not like your name is fucking Chester or something. It's fine even as an adult.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Joey's a cool name. That's not a bad name.

[James Petragallo]

He doesn't want to be Joe. There's a lot of people named Joe. He's got to be Jet. He thinks he's something special, this guy. We'll talk a lot about.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Name me the same thing as a.

[James Petragallo]

German Shepherd, Jet he's born in. Name me an American gladiator name, please. That's what I'd like. I'd like to be named.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I got a friend named Laser already.

[James Petragallo]

Nitro's coming over. We're have a little chat. So he was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which will. That's right. I was going to say that should tell you exactly what his family is all about and what they're involved in. Joseph or Jet here is the fourth of five children born to Joseph Duncan Jr. II and Lillian May Duncan here. He has three older sisters and a younger brother. So they had three girls and then two boys, which is interesting. His parents were married in 1957 in Pennsylvania. And then in 1958, his dad joined the army. And his dad will be a career army guy next 20 years. He'll be in the army. And yes, and apparently that basically he. So this is. Until Joseph is about 12. So basically he complains that they moved every two years with the military assignments. They lived in Europe and several US Posts. And apparently this made him fucking miserable.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sounds like it.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. A doctor that he saw in his teen years said a court force doctor. Well, yeah, you could call it that. But his court forced psychotherapy more than anything else.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Court ordered. A mental gymnastics.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. One said as a result of this, meaning moving around a lot. He kept to himself a lot and formed only a few superficial acquaintances. So he never really made friends anywhere. He was always, always in his own little world, which is real weird. They said he told them he felt picked on and mocked all the time. So he spent most of his days watching TV and daydreaming. That's what he did. Just sitting around, which is not great for a kid.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, if you're creative and you can and you're artsy, that's great. Fucking upset that nobody wants to hang out with you. That's terrible.

[James Petragallo]

If you're writing poetry and painting pictures or like, you know, learning the guitar or something, that's a different story. But this kid's just an instrument. He's sitting around seething is what he is. Just sitting around going, why do we have to move? I hate my parents. I hate this. I hate all the kids. Yeah, planning is revenge. He said, quote, we moved every year or two. We traveled quite a bit until dad retired in Tacoma. We went to school, we went to church. We were members of the Boy Scouts. We were typical teenagers. So normal stuff, teenagers, but not typical.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Under teens.

[James Petragallo]

Under teens. Yeah, exactly. So 78 is when his dad retires from the military. His dad gets a job with the US Postal Service. Working at. Yeah, they hire veterans a lot. I know. I have a. My. An uncle of mine is an Air Force career veteran. He went and got a job at the post office. Right away. They hire. They have a veteran hire.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's great that they do that, but that sounds fucking exhausting. You have to get mail from so far away to so far away.

[James Petragallo]

Well, he works at the Tacoma Area Bulk Mail Center. So he's in a sorting center. He's not a mailman. Okay. Yeah, so he's just. He just goes, same building every day. Most People who work for the post office aren't actually carriers. That's a.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

It's like a tooth, basically. You see that on top. There's a lot underneath it that's going. I don't know. I mean, it's a federal job. It's probably not that much work. It's a federal.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a great.

[James Petragallo]

I mean, I think it's just. You sort.

[Jimmy Whisman]

There's probably just a shitload of them doing minimal work.

[James Petragallo]

You just sort as much as you can in eight hours and move on. I don't think it's. It. The next shift comes in. I really think that's all it is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

A very lazy approach.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. He's retired, for fuck's sake. So a year later, after he retires and gets a job after 22 years of marriage, his parents separate. So apparently the military thing was fine. And then once they all settled down, it doesn't work out. He's like an athlete, basically. That's what happens with athletes. They get a divorce. It's like 80% of them within a year. Within a year of their retirement, they get a divorce because it's like, now we have to spend time together.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I have to stare at you.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. The husbands used to be in, out, you know, having affairs with other women in every city the wife's used to have. Not having him around but having millions of dollars to spend that clashes when they get home together.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Money. The bank account just goes down now.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, it's fucked up. So their marriage was irretrievably broken, according to the documents, for unspecified reasons. And Duncan and a younger sister were the only ones. Joseph and a younger sister were the only ones still living at home, meaning the younger of the sisters, not younger brother.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, got it. Younger.

[James Petragallo]

So I don't know. His younger brother had already left somehow, but he's there. I don't know how that works. I think some went with dad and some stayed with mom, too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah.

[James Petragallo]

So Duncan went to Lakes High School in Tacoma until his sophomore year, when on his sophomore year, he went to Christmas break and never came back from Christmas break. Just didn't go back in January in his sophomore year. So he dropped out midway through the sophomore year, which isn't good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He had a good Christmas that year. He was like, I'm not, man. I'm not going back.

[James Petragallo]

Going back, man. He had a 1.7 grade point average, so it wasn't like walking away from much. Which is weird because he's real smart. That's the strange part.

[Jimmy Whisman]

An Introvert, too, right?

[James Petragallo]

Yes. It's a strange thing here. Apparently he told doctors later on that he was using marijuana daily by that time. By the time he got to high school. And he was also into acid, amphetamines, barbiturates, and Valium and pcp.

[Jimmy Whisman]

If he can put it in, if.

[James Petragallo]

You got it, and he can smoke it or fucking snort it, he'll do it, basically. Or eat it. He's gonna do it. When he was 15, this is right after he didn't go back to school, he tried to run a police roadblock.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Tried to just run through a police roadblock because he didn't have a license. So rather than just get in trouble for that, he said, I'll blow through the roadblock and run. He crashed, shattered his sinuses in the right side of his face.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, no.

[James Petragallo]

And injured a couple cops, too. Not great. Oh, no. Yeah. Not good at all, man. So now, as far as the home life goes, when his parents split up, Duncan remained with one of the sisters at his mother's house while his younger brother went to live with their father.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petragallo]

For a while. So that's when you split the kids up into different camps, too. Now you're really splintering a family. Yeah. I'm of the opinion that the kids need to stay together wherever they are. I feel like if they're going to have a. If you want them to have a relationship like that, they either stay in.

[Jimmy Whisman]

One house or stay in the other, or 50, 50 at the exact same time. Yeah. You got to move the herd together.

[James Petragallo]

It's kind of unhealthy otherwise, in my opinion. I'm not a doctor. I don't fucking know any of this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Works, but seems like keeping everything together is the best way to do it.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Yeah. So his father remarried and his dad started another family. Had a step family and all that. He's got that going. And we've talked about that before, how that. That'll mess your psyche up a little bit when you're a kid and you're like, so hold on a minute, guys. Can't pull it together for us, but you can pull it together for another family. Thanks a lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It is dangerous.

[James Petragallo]

I've been there. So in 1980, here, he has some problems. And this is when he's 17 years old. He'll end up in a hospital after this. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He has already run a roadblock, crashed his face, and now he's going. What's he doing now?

[James Petragallo]

Okay, well, hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to Tell you about our safest sponsor, Simply Safe. We love Simply Safe. Easy to say. We love it. You make decisions all day long. That's all we do. But one of the easiest decisions we've ever had to make is to secure our homes and offices with Simplisafe. They're so good. When you arm that system, you know that your family's gonna be protected. I do. I know. I'm like, everything's protected. My pets are protected. My. My stuff is protected. It's fantastic. You could, whether you're stepping out for the day, whether you're gonna go to sleep at night, that is gonna give you peace of mind. Just knowing that you are gonna be secure in there. You can focus on what matters. I rest easier. I can go about my day knowing that if anything happens at all, floods, fires, burglaries, whatever happens, Simplisafe has got my back. They have me covered and they give me confidence and I like it. Visit simplisafe.comsmall to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's S I M p l I safe.com small there's no safe like Simplisafe. Now back to the show. Hey, listeners, it's Leon Nayfak. I'm here to tell you about a brand new series from me and Prologue projects an Audible original series called Final Jerry Springer. The story of a television show that changed the world and the man who gave it his name. But did you know that before the Jerry Springer show made him notorious all over the world, Springer was something else entirely. A respected Midwestern politician, the progressive mayor of a major Rust Belt city, a man many saw as a future leader in Democratic politics. How did this idealistic rising star with his lofty political ambitions take a turn in such a radically different direction? You can find the whole series available now on Audible. Just search for final thoughts Jerry Springer on the Audible app or go to audible.com Springer. He knew that one of his neighbors was gone one evening. So he smashed out a storm window and broke into the guy's bedroom. He stole four pistols.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's 17.

[James Petragallo]

17, 1000 rounds of ammunition. And some porn mags, of course, because they're there. So you gotta take those. I mean, you gotta take them. He later said, guns and titties, guns and tits. I mean, what more does a 17 year old. If there was like a six pack and, you know, a sandwich and some beer and some whatever, like that's the only thing that's a.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's an awful lot of ammo though.

[James Petragallo]

That he's taking a thousand rounds.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a crazy amount.

[James Petragallo]

Shitload of ammo that could kill a thousand people. That's a lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, depending on the rounds. Because.22 caliber come in like a little brick. That's like, it's 550. That's easy to take two of.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Everything else comes in rounds of 50 or 100. That's so heavy.

[James Petragallo]

He's got a pillowcase full of shit. It seems like he said his intent was to return home, look at the magazines and jerk off. That's what he planned on doing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The pistol.

[James Petragallo]

I don't know why he needed the pistol for that, but when he got home he said, quote. Then I decided, why not the real thing? What, he's gonna jerk off? But he's like, well, I mean, I have all these guns, why do I, why don't I just go? Oh, yeah. So he said. So I got a gun and went cruising for a victim.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What the fuck?

[James Petragallo]

He's 17.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is crazy.

[James Petragallo]

That is a. First of all, that's really annoying because a 17 year old with that kind of like self confidence should be doing other things, you know what I mean?

[Jimmy Whisman]

He shouldn't be able to earn pussy on his own.

[James Petragallo]

He shouldn't need a gun at 17. You should be like, I couldn't even get a victim if I wanted to. You should be so fucking emo at 17 that you shouldn't even know that you are capable of being a monster. You know what I'm saying?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Has he had sex yet? Do we know that?

[James Petragallo]

Yes. We'll find out all about his history here. Yeah, he's had sex, some problems. So he found a 14 year old boy in front of a nearby school.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's an interesting choice.

[James Petragallo]

At gunpoint, he forced the boy into the woods and made him take all his clothes off and made the boy perform oral sex on him twice. Twice.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's not the real thing, man. You had titty magazines.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, but I don't think that's what he's interested in. We'll talk about. He's. He's got his sexual. His sexual proclivities go in all directions. He has no. There is no real lockdown, you know, he's got a lot of ambivalence in the sexual department from things that have happened to him here in the past is what he says, but we don't know. So he hit the boy repeatedly with a stick, by the way, while he did this and burned the boy's buttocks with a cigarette repeatedly and then let him go.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. So when he got home, the police were waiting for him because the kid ran right back to the school and said, oh, my God, I just got tortured in the woods.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Joey Dunks did it.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, he. He found a kid that wasn't a kid that's probably from a decent background and knows enough to, you know, and.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Knows that's not okay.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, he's. He's a bad predator. He didn't seek out the victim that won't tell. You know what I mean? Predators often have that sixth sense. He doesn't have that yet to do that. He got a kid who was fine and this kid is now going to tell on him. So he is going to plead guilty to first degree rape over this at 17.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, because the options are very limited there.

[James Petragallo]

That's not a lot there. He wrote on his plea form, I held a gun to a juvenile and forced him to commit certain sex acts. And his spelling is atrocious, by the way. Commit is C O, M, M, E, T commit. And certain is S, E, R, T, A, N. Certain with an S. With an S. Oh, no. Yes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a big swing and a miss.

[James Petragallo]

I would say so. Jesus. Now, when he's arrested and he's talking to the psychiatrists and all that, he describes his mother as a very domineering woman and claims to have been abused a lot as a child. But his younger brother says that didn't happen. His younger brother said, I was there. That didn't happen. But his brother was gone after the divorce. So you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Now he says this is. This is what Joseph Old Jet says here. He said that the rape stemmed from a sense of rejection by his mother and father. He said he was upset because his parents had been fighting a lot and were breaking up and because he was doing badly in school and because he couldn't get into the Air Force because of his auto theft conviction for the car he stole and ran into a fucking police thing. So not good at all here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So he's frustrated by his own actions and the consequences of those actions. So he raped somebody.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. And he's 16, 17. So in a year or two, you know what? Get the fuck out of the house. Go get a job.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bet that record's expunged, you know what I'm saying?

[James Petragallo]

Even if it's not, go get a job and fucking work it out. Like that's life. Get out of the house, make your own way. The same shit I had for gypsy rose, you're 22. I don't really care what. Just get. Just walk out the door and go get a job, get an apartment. That's it. It's the end of the hold on you, period. You know, the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The car theft as a. As a juvenile. I don't know the laws and I. That falls off your record in Arizona. I know.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, probably when he's 18. Yeah. But I don't know. I guess maybe the federal government might be able to look into your background a bit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Probably for the Air Force database somewhere that you can't delete, but maybe locally it's got to go away.

[James Petragallo]

So he is sentenced to. For this rape. Use you, young man may fuck off. 20 years in prison, all suspended.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

All suspended. Not a sentence of 20. 15 suspended. You do five, maybe you're out in two. You got to talk to us like counselor in there and all that shit. And then we have you. If you do anything else, you're back in for another 15. That would have been the smart thing. They just suspend all 20.

[Jimmy Whisman]

20 years. Get out there and be somebody.

[James Petragallo]

That's right. So he was instead.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Or else you do 20, right? That's the answer.

[James Petragallo]

I guess so. Well, he was instead of that. He is committed to a sex offender treatment program at Western State Hospital. Basically because he's. Because of his age, they're trying to divert him and thinking if he can get treatment and stop whatever road he's going down, maybe he won't need prison type of thing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm a firm believer that therapy can help and can help people grow and be better people.

[James Petragallo]

I don't know about.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't know that they're. That they can.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, I think we. We figured out by now that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Different degrees of rape, too. This is fucking crazy.

[James Petragallo]

At 17. That's a lot crazy. That's a lot. And I. I think they're just. They don't know whether he. This is. His cement is wet still or not, I think. And his cement still wet. You can fix him. But if it's. If it's dried already, got a hand print and a dates carved into it. You're fucked at that point.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This might be Hoover Dam, where outside it's holding up, but the inside is still that soggy. And you can change that dam anymore totally.

[James Petragallo]

That's that You're. You're right. I think so. A psychological evaluation at a Washington state mental hospital found that Duncan at 17, was, quote, preoccupied with deviant sexual fantasies and also, quote, meets the definition of a sexual psychopath. That's not good at 17. Now get on it. Well, he's in the hospital. He has to stay in this hospital. They didn't let him out. They, instead of jail, they him in a hospital. He'll end up in jail, don't worry. So during assessments at the Western State Hospital he detailed a sexual history that began at age 8. Yeah, you don't do that without something happening to you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You don't have been touched before.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, anybody in the child range does not sexually abuse other children unless they've been abused. They just don't, they don't think of it. It's just not something, I mean maybe 1% of the time, yeah, 99% something's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Happening and they may not even realize that they've been abused.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh no, that doesn't, they may think that they've just had had sexual contact of some sort. They don't realize that that's not right.

[James Petragallo]

And that's the thing. And they haven't had treatment. That's why if they, if it happened to them and they got right in treatment or something from then, you know, like other parents knew about it and put them in treatment, then they have a chance to be fine. But when it happens like that and then nothing's done about it. Yeah, a lot of times that manifests itself. Not that all people who've been obviously molested are going to molest other people, but the ones who do have been. So he said age 8 when he was, this is his claim, that he was performing incestuous sex acts with female relatives. Don't know who that is. Don't know who that's supposed to be. I don't know if he's trying to say his sisters or he's trying to say an aunt or mom or I don't know what the fuck deal is. He also tells doctors that by age 12 he had already forced a five year old boy to perform oral sex on him. Forced, forced by 12. Imagine I had no capacity to force anyone to do anything at 12. Nothing. All I wanted to do was ride a skateboard at 12. Literally play baseball and ride a skateboard. That's all I was interested in.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And my social skills at that point were so destroyed I had no fucking idea how to even, how to even show interest in anybody.

[James Petragallo]

That's crazy. So at 15 he told the doctors that he did the same thing to a nine year old boy at gunpoint. So that time he got busted. Not his first rodeo. As close, not even close as you wouldn't think it would be because that's kind of a. To have the balls to go up to a kid standing outside a school and take him into the woods. You've done that shit before.

[Jimmy Whisman]

At gunpoint.

[James Petragallo]

At gunpoint. So the hospital report noted that it is important to note that Mr. Duncan did go out looking for victims. This wasn't like they fell into his lap. He said I'm going to go find someone and then went out. That's another thing that's really disturbing. They also Note that at 15 he had tried to outrun the police in a stolen car and at one point tried to run down a police officer. That's guy to dive out of the way. So for that he was sent to the Dislands boys ranch for several months when he was 15, which God knows what happened to him in there too. Which you know, a little more history. He said by age 16 he told the doctors that he had committed 13 rapes of young boys by 16 who did what to jet here. Yeah, yeah. He's. That's. You're not fixable at this point.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No, no. That's so many.

[James Petragallo]

If that was the first time he ever did anything, this is. He's got a pattern of behavior and he is starting to hone it to really get it to where he likes it too, which is also creepy. In one case he claimed that he tied up six boys. Six ages six through ten and force them to perform oral sex and then rape them anally. That's what he said. This is horrifying. I don't know. We don't know if that's true or not. So it's a little less horrifying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Very tall tale.

[James Petragallo]

That's what I mean. We don't know if that's true. That's why it's a little.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's perhaps disturbing that. To detract from the deviance and absurdity of what he really has done.

[James Petragallo]

Maybe or. I think he likes the attention. I think he likes. He's probably. If he's saying this, they're calling extra doctors in to hear about it. You know, tell him what you told me, shit like that. He probably enjoys adults attention, you know what I mean? Because it doesn't seem like in his family he got a whole lot of it. There's not a lot that's an excuse for it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right. There's not a lot of stories in the history of child abuse that's made public that somebody had six children.

[James Petragallo]

No, that's like an Abu Grab. He made an Abu Ghrab fucking pyramid out of these kids.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's crazy.

[James Petragallo]

I don't know if that's true or not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's an absurd claim.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. So The Clinical Director, Dr. William Voorhees Jr. Said this position of power over children has developed into a very powerful and compulsive pattern. Mr. Duncan is not safe to be at large.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petragallo]

Okay. Now by 1982, he's 19 years old and the hospital basically gave up on him. They're like, we can't fix him, he's fucked. And he does not behave himself in here either. And he's not trying to fix himself. He's just telling us horrible things and then doing more horrible things.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's just ruining my lunch every day.

[James Petragallo]

That's it. The therapist wrote in his report, after 22 months in the program, Mr. Duncan has shown an unwillingness to modify his sexual deviant behaviors and has chosen not to commit himself to program techniques. They say that he showed a constant need to maintain secrecy about his fantasies and. And he rebels against treatment. So guess what? Yep. You're gonna end up going to prison here. They cited a key incident on Valentine's Day 1982. His mother came to stay with him at a Western state hospital cottage used for family visits.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right.

[James Petragallo]

So. Yeah, because there's, there's juveniles here. So the families come and you can actually, you know, have a little family night in the college. It's like a conjugal visit thing, but for families.

[Jimmy Whisman]

With dominoes.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. With board games and shit. With chutes and ladders. Yeah. So after she went to bed, he grabbed a coat, put his gloves on and grabbed an extension cord and then left the cottage, hopped the hospital wall and crept up to a nearby home.

[Jimmy Whisman]

With the cord.

[James Petragallo]

With the cord. Where he spied on an 18 year old woman and other people in the houses, in the house. The dog began to bark and somebody spotted him, so he ran away, went back over the wall and went back to the cottage where he woke his mother up, didn't tell her. I don't know if he told her what they did, but after she woke his mother up, quote, she then taught him how to disco dance. According to the report. Hey Ma, I'm in the mental Hospital. It's three o'clock in the morning. I just climbed the wall to peep on somebody. People found me. So I broke back into the mental hospital. Can you teach me how to do the hustle, please? I need to know now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Ring the bell, Ma. Let's go.

[James Petragallo]

What the fuck is happening? What is going on? That is a. Oh, My God, this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whole thing, the dog saved their lives, maybe, or saved an incident.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, that's why you get a dog. That's why you have dogs. I can't tell you how many serial killers we've done stuff on and they all seen. They all say that, remember in the. In the. The. The shit. The Vallejo, California, where the kidnapping that was. They thought was fake and all that. The guy told the one victim, he goes, you know, you should really get a dog. If you had a dog, I wouldn't even come in.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Never.

[James Petragallo]

He said, I would have heard the dog bark and left. He goes, so you should probably get a dog if you want to be safer next time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's the guy telling you that.

[James Petragallo]

The guy told him. Yeah, he was giving her tips.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That guy's a bad guy.

[James Petragallo]

A week later, after this, he announced that he wanted to leave treatment and service time in prison. He wants to leave the hospital to go to prison.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I need you to keep me in.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, well, it's also probably less strict at the prison. You have to. You have to kind of mind your P's and Q's in the hospital. You have to go to therapy. You have to do certain things. Yeah, there's a lot of. Like you can just go to prison and sit on your ass and do nothing. And that's. He's like, I don't want to fucking participate in this. He'd rather go to prison and where he can get in trouble a little bit more. So one of the therapists wrote to the Pierce county officials about him. He's exhibited little remorse or guilt for his sexual deviation while in treatment. He is not safe to be at large. And also that Mr. Duncan is available for transport back to your county by your sheriff at your earliest convenience.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Please come get this ragamuffin.

[James Petragallo]

This asshole. We can't stand him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Come scoop up your boy.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, my God. He also, by the way, in addition to the car crash, he claims that he was hit in the head with a shovel as a boy and that fucked his. Scrambled his eggs a little bit there. So he is going to go to jail here, gonna go to prison, where he says he's repeatedly abused in prison. Now, we don't know if that is by staff or inmates, but he did say later on that he, began to, quote, plot revenge on society by studying kidnapping and murder after that. Wow. Yeah, this is not good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where do you study that? Is that in the library?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, you can true crime stuff like that. And, you know, you could read court cases. You can do all that kind of shit and the legal library there or whatever. So, I mean, I don't even. This is a snowball. But I don't know what path would have sent the snowball from, kept it from gathering more snow. I don't know. I think he was.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who knows?

[James Petragallo]

He was on. It seems like an unstoppable path from a young age that. I don't know how you stop this. So. So now he started in January of 1991 here, January 2, 1991. So he's still in prison. He started a pen pal correspondence and later developed a relationship with a King county revenue officer named Wolfert is his last name. So Wolfert wrote the review board in 1991 to try to help him get out of prison. Quote, Mr. Duncan is filled with remorse for the act he committed many years ago. He is open, honest, and eager to move on with his life. So that's David Wolfert there he is, no threat to society whatsoever. Oh, wow. So when he ends up getting released to a halfway house, Wolfert loaned Duncan here $3,000, also paid his initial rent in the halfway house and reportedly hooked up with Duncan as well. As a sexual partner. Yeah. So Wolfert wrote, it is my intention to back him, support him, and help him in any way possible upon his release.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He loves him.

[James Petragallo]

He loves. Yeah. Yeah. So he said, further incarceration of Mr. Duncan will serve no purpose whatsoever. So, yeah, Duncan served 14 years for the rape, and then he's going to serve some more for some parole violations as well. Now, his mother, Lillian, said that her son had to overcome tremendous hurdles from bedwetting to being spoiled by his father. That's not a hurdle. Being spoiled by your father, Is that a hurdle? I would have loved that hurdle as a child. That's interesting. She said, I tried and tried to properly train him up in an authoritarian, Christian manner, but his dad had apparently been raised in a very liberal fashion, you know, and you're blaming that rather than either one of those sets of thing. Either one of those can create the same thing, for sure. Extremes create extremes. That's it. Sometimes they go with the parents, sometimes the complete opposite of the parents. So you never know. They were almost assuring that he would go an extreme by having two different extremes there. So 1994 is parole, and apparently we'll kind of go through a little timeline of some of his movements around this time in 1994. So this was after September 28, 1994, is when he is released to a halfway house in Seattle. This was after repeated since 91 ish unsuccessful pleas for parole. So he starts treatment with a Counselor. October of 94. A couple weeks later, he lands a job.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petragallo]

Desirable hire he is. Holy shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How the hell is he working at.

[James Petragallo]

Telemarketing for Time Life books. So this is in the 90s. So when they had those commercials for like Time Life's books, you know, Alien series and all that, you'd call a.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Number, he's the guy that answers.

[James Petragallo]

This is the guy that answers and takes your credit card number. Oh, God. Yeah. So April of 95, he moves out of the halfway house with the okay. Of the, you know, courts and everything and into the Tuscany apartments in Seattle. He also that month spends Easter with his mother in Tacoma. They attend church together, the whole deal. May of 1995, he visits his father who was in a retirement community near Las Vegas. He's hanging out there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

55 plus community.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, one of those joints there. Just no kids allowed. Those are the weirdest things in Phoenix.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Just sun and fun and old man balls out.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, just old man balls. Golf carts. That's all it is. Fucking weird. June 1995, he looks into schools, offering courses in computer science here. Okay. January 1996, meets a married Seattle mother of two and starts dating her.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

Yes. So seriously, he's dating her?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, yeah.

[James Petragallo]

He means it. She is, you know, married at the time. But he doesn't care. He's not looking for. I don't know if he's looking for a full relationship or if someone who's not available is exactly what he's looking for. You know what I mean? So that way it can't progress any more than it already is. So January of 96, at the same time he meets her and starts dating her. He gets a new job at a software company in Bothell. B O T H e l l bot hell. August of 96, he moves in with a gay couple he knows in North Seattle. Oh, yeah? Yeah. So he moves in with them as a roommate. Is a throuple now? No, no, as a roommate. As a roommate.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. If you had a roommate move in with like, you and your wife, you wouldn't automatically be a throuple. You know what I mean? Just have a border in there now if you're not fucking. He also tests positive for marijuana during a routine parole urine test. So he is arrested in October 96. Because of that. They arrest him. After the test comes back, he tells police he's worried about losing his job. And he has two kittens as well. So he's like I have kittens and a job. Like, I can't go to jail. This is crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who's gonna feed him?

[James Petragallo]

Who's gonna feed him? So after several weeks, he's paroled again with new restrictions. Then after that, he disappeared with, you know, his married girlfriend. He stole her car and disappeared? Sure, why not? He just has no. You can't pin him down. Pin the tail on the. Duncan. It doesn't work. You can't do it. He's moving too much.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He refuses to conform to any societal rules, though.

[James Petragallo]

And even when you think you understand what he's about, he just does something the opposite. He's like. It's so fucking weird. So Anyway, December of 1996, he spends Christmas with his sister in Washington. And at that point, he's working two jobs, so he's doing a lot. March 4, 1997, he tests positive for marijuana again. But apparently they don't arrest him for it. I don't understand. They gave him a free pass. You get one failed test a year, buddy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Seattle, it's been progressive a long time, you know?

[James Petragallo]

3-25-97, he quits his telemarketing job that he had for the other software company.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't blame him.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, that's an awful thing. Then 3-27-97, he calls his parole officer. Angry about a polygraph test result. Apparently, yeah. He was made to take a polygraph and they told him he failed it. And then he's pissed off about it, so he called to complain. Another time he said at that point he was calling from his mother's house in Tacoma, which is where he's supposed to be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yes.

[James Petragallo]

Okay, so. May 20th, Dave Wolfert. Remember him?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, that old therapist that he was.

[James Petragallo]

Sleeping with, the Revenue Service guy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, is that what he was?

[James Petragallo]

Kings County Revenue Service, pen pal. He said that Duncan called his former roommates a week earlier, and the call was from Northern California, which is. He's not allowed to go to Northern California.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No.

[James Petragallo]

August 26, 1997. So they go to look for him where he's supposed to be, and they can't find him. He's not there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's. Yeah, he's run off with that girl's car.

[James Petragallo]

He's taken off. So on 8-26-97, an FBI task force heads to his half sister's house in Kansas City, Missouri. They knock on the door and he answers it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, Joey Dunks.

[James Petragallo]

Joey the Jet. Joey the Jet. You just open Joey the Jet. Come on, man. Joey. Jazzy Jet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Joey the Jet.

[James Petragallo]

Jazzy Jet.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I can't get enough of that either. Get in the car, Joseph.

[James Petragallo]

You open the door, just put your hands out to be cuffed, right? Like, what do you even do? I'm not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Joseph.

[James Petragallo]

What you talking about? So, yeah, he answered the door, he's arrested, sent back to prison. So now he's reprisoned again. So rehomed. Now enter Dr. Richard Waxman. Dicky Wax, I like to call him. Dick Wax. Dick Wax. So Dr. Dick Wax over here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why would they do that to him?

[James Petragallo]

You had to be a doctor at that point. You couldn't be a normal person. You needed to replace your first name with the word doctor so people would not put the dick in there. I'm telling you. So he. This is fucking amazing. He meets Dr. Richard Waxman meets Joey the Jet. Dunk, dunk.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

At either they don't know which one, either a coffee shop or a gay bar. One of the two, they don't remember. I mean, those are very different places. 97 it's the same place. I suppose.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't think Starbucks is really running.

[James Petragallo]

Mainstream yet, but one is closed at like 2 in the afternoon and then the other doesn't open till fucking doesn't open until it makes no sense.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Maybe it's a coffee shop till it's a gay bar.

[James Petragallo]

Who knows? Oh no. So this was while Duncan was out on parole. He was in San Francisco. They met. So this guy, Dr. Dicky Wax, hires an attorney for old Dunkey the jet here. So Dr. Dick tells Duncan's parole officer that he met Duncan in San Francisco and that Duncan visited Waxman at his home in Fargo, North Dakota before he was arrested in Kansas City. So he went down there, then he ended up in Kansas City. After that, in late September, according to Duncan's Department of Corrections computer log, his parole officer got a call from Dr. Richard Waxman who told her that he'd met Duncan in San Francisco at a coffee house. Waxman felt that Duncan was honest and sincere. He told the parole officer. Okay, okay. Review board chairwoman Katherine Bale met with Waxman and then wrote in a memoir that the doctor feels that he can help Joe and his wife. Joe and his wife. Dr. Waxman support is in support of his efforts. He stated that Joseph is bisexual at that point.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, everything sexual.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Waxman asked the state to Parole Duncan to Dr. Dickey's home in North Dakota where he lives with his wife and his 8 and 11 year old kids.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. Yeah. The parole board rejected the proposal and said that they, quote, wouldn't expose his children to that kind of risk. Yeah, just because you're all confident that the guy's fine, we're gonna be the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Parent that you should be.

[James Petragallo]

Holy shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's your problem?

[James Petragallo]

So his parole was revoked on December 12, 1997 during a hearing at the King County Jail, and they reinstate the remainder of his prison sentence with time off for good behavior as well. While he's in prison, in the early hours of December 4, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of midtown Manhattan. This assailant pulls out a weapon and starts firing at him. We're talking about the CEO of the biggest private health insurance corporation in the world. And the suspect he has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was targeted, premeditated and meant to sow terror. I'm Jesse Weber, host of Luigi, produced by Law and Crime and Twist. This is more than a true crime investigation. We explore a uniquely American moment that could change the country forever. He's awoken the people to a true issue finally made. This would lead rich and powerful people to acknowledge the barbaric nature of our healthcare system. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple Podcasts. In the early hours of December 4, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of midtown Manhattan. This assailant starts firing at him and the suspect he has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was meant to sow terror. He's awoken the people to a true issue. Listen to Law & Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery plus on the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

[Jimmy Whisman]

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[James Petragallo]

So in 1998, he wanted to go to his. He wanted to be paroled to his mother's home in Tacoma, but that was rejected as well. And he's kept in there till July 14, 2000, when he's finally released from prison. Okay, okay. Now, during all of his movements, because he went from San Francisco and ended up in Kansas City, we'll find out later. He made some stops in between there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

God damn.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, yeah. So Dr. Waxman is here. I guess. Duncan accepts Waxman. Dr. Dick's invitation to come to Fargo, where Dr. Dick helped him enroll in computer science classes. Class. Classes. Did I just say that?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Classes.

[James Petragallo]

Classes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I wear glasses.

[James Petragallo]

I'm going to take computer science classes. That's me. Computer science classes at North Dakota University. God, my fucking mouth is stupid. And worked at a local computer consulting firm called NV Consulting, Inc. So he moved there. He's in ndsu. He's majoring in computer science twice, earning a spot on the Dean's list. This is what I mean. He went from a 1.7 GPA, spelling fucking things that shouldn't be spelled certain with an S, to being on the Dean's list. You know, it's weird. He's also a member of the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society as well.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay. He's really figuring it out late in life, but he's figuring it out.

[James Petragallo]

He's figuring it out. He has an online resume at that point, which is said to be a mix of fact and fiction, as all resumes are. So a resume, it's all.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's something. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

He said he enjoyed karate, skiing and scuba diving. Okay. Okay. He said, I hope to relocate to a more southern state, possibly the Kansas City region. So, yeah, his resume said he held jobs in Spokane, Edmonds, Washington and Colorado during the 90s. He does register as a sex offender with the Fargo Police Department. When he moves to town, he's classified as a level three offender, which is considered a very high risk for reoffending. Keep an eye on this guy, is what that is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, there's only three levels.

[James Petragallo]

There's three levels. Some states have more. Mississippi has nine levels, I found out. Nine. Imagine being a level nine sex offender. That's. Clear the streets when he walks down it. Just clear the fucking streets. Penis is out, it's rock hard, and he's ready to assault you all the time.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What? What do you gotta do? I Talked about level seven. If you're a seven, you're a nine.

[James Petragallo]

If you're three, you're a nine. If you're two, you're a nine. Any sex offender is a nine. To me it's all nine.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Anything over three is incredibly dangerous. That man's scheming all the time to get in some. Some child's butthole.

[James Petragallo]

Everyone holy or adult too. He doesn't mean. He doesn't.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, great, great.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, he doesn't really. He's sex affair. Whatever age, it's just sex offense. Boys, girls, men, women, doesn't matter. Whatever's around.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nine is hide your dog. Right?

[James Petragallo]

Nine is hide everything. Hide your cockatiel. He's gonna go after it. He'll figure a way to fuck that thing.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Nothing with a hole in it around this man.

[James Petragallo]

No. Jesus Christ, no donuts. You're not allowed to buy donuts in front of this man. He will fuck them. He'll put a few of them together.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He'll fuck the munchkins, the donuts.

[James Petragallo]

So the. I guess the Fargo police captain said that Duncan followed the rules for sex offenders and said as far as we know, he was more or less a model, so. Cause he registered basically because he said, I'm here, I'm here. So. Saturday, July 3, 2004. Here. Okay. He lives in Fargo. Detroit Lakes is about 45 minutes minutes east of Fargo and is a popular spot for people in Fargo to go hang out. Right. So in the middle of the day on July 3rd, 4th of July weekend. It's a Saturday. 4th is on a Sunday. Yeah. One of the busiest weekends of the year, obviously. At a lakeside place. Duncan, apparently he was spotted with a video camera lurking near the playground equipment.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Stalking children and videotaping them essentially here making bait movies. Yeah. And this isn't. This isn't now where someone could have a phone and look like they're texting while they film people or something like that. He's got a fucking camera on his shoulder. This is like a.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He had it velcroed to his hand.

[James Petragallo]

It's got a VHS tape in it spinning like. This is crazy. So. Wow. Or smaller one that DVS at that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Point probably, but either way it's still velcroed to his fucking hand.

[James Petragallo]

He's holding some shit here. Yeah, so. So he ended up doing that. At some point he called over a six year old boy and the boy's eight year old friend Duncan pulled down the shorts of the younger boy and touched him. But the older boy, he was unable to Pull his shorts down. So the boys, who are healthy, went and alerted the adults immediately that some guy just assaulted them. Again, you know, he picks up people who tell right away. Yeah. Police arrived at the scene after he fled in his red Pontiac Grand Am. The boys described him, described the stranger who had molested them and said that he had a noticeable bump on his upper lip which touched his bottom lip when he spoke. I don't know what that means. Like, either that or they mean. Do they mean his, his like lips come to a point?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, there's that.

[James Petragallo]

You know what I mean? Because some people's lips do that, like a weird top lip. I don't know. So either way, based on the description, as well as another witnesses account of the car being parked near the playground, the Detroit Lakes police put together a photo lineup of six men from a database of Minnesota predatory criminals. So Minnesota and North Dakota criminals. So the six year old boy immediately picked Duncan out of the lineup. Obviously the big thing on his lip, there's the guy and the fucking Handycam in his hand. Uh, so one count of second degree sexual criminal, criminal sexual misconduct and one count of attempted second degree criminal sexual conduct were filed against him. Um, no warrant was issued for his arrest. Rather a summons to appear in court listing the charges was mailed to his home in Fargo. What?

[Jimmy Whisman]

That is a very lackadaisical approach to child abuse of a sexual nature. That dude.

[James Petragallo]

That's what they do. That's what they do when you get caught.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Radar tickets. That's what they do.

[James Petragallo]

That's what they do when you get caught with weed in Florida. They go, it's technically an arrest, but we're not going to arrest you. We're going to send this thing to your house and you go to the court date and whatever that he tried to fucking molest two boys will notify.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You through the mail about touching of a naked child's penis.

[James Petragallo]

Holy shit. So he appeared April 5th and that judge Ballsy. Yeah, the judge set his bail at $15,000 and ordered him to return for another hearing. By the way, he. That was an April 5th in Becker County, Minnesota. The Dr. Dick there paid his bail, by the way, 15 grand. And he ends up disappearing. Takes off. Yep. Gone out of that area. Anyway, he doesn't go back to court in Minnesota and just goes back to Fargo.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's just done.

[James Petragallo]

Yep. So a year later he's hoping to graduate from NDSU and land a job and all that kind of shit here. But you know, we don't know if that's going to happen. He ends up being arrested on April 5, 2005. Here. I guess another guy had helped him, a Joseph Crary, who was a real estate developer and an investor. And he cut Duncan a personal check worth $15,000 to cover his bail. But I think the other guy gave him money, too. I think he got it from two places.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's a lot of money.

[James Petragallo]

By his own account at the time, Duncan was living paycheck to paycheck. They said he used the money to get out of jail and spent $731.99 at Walmart for a radar detector, a car battery, a small camcorder with tapes and night vision goggles.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

That's all for, I'm sure, real non nefarious purposes, right? That's just for. He's gonna hunt at night. Maybe that's all it is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Who the hell? Anybody that has night vision goggles. You're up to no good.

[James Petragallo]

You're up to no good.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Throw them away, you fucking weirdo.

[James Petragallo]

Why? What do you need to see in the dark? That much for? Go in your house.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Go in the house. Go watch tv.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Get inside.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Go fuck your wife and go to bed.

[James Petragallo]

Get inside, dummy. Oh, man. So with a total of $21,500 given to him in April 2005, minus the bail money and purchases at Walmart, he still had over 70 or 50 $700 left over. So the guy who gave him the money believed Duncan was not a flight risk. He was working on a college degree, holding down two jobs, and also just returned from a trip to Kansas City after receiving the court summons in Detroit Lakes. This Crary guy, the investor, real estate guy, said he met Duncan while biking. Hi. How you doing? Biker? Are you a registered sex offender? Let me help you.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You talked to another person on a bicycle?

[James Petragallo]

Why? And didn't stop once he got to the registered sex offender part?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. He's like, what is that, a Schwinn? It is. I suck kids dicks.

[James Petragallo]

Get out of here. Get out of here. This is the reason you don't talk to people on bikes?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Guess what? We have biking in common. And I no longer ride bikes.

[James Petragallo]

No. This guy said we both enjoyed biking on the bike trails in Fargo. When we became acquaintances in my contact with him, I saw him, like many others apparently did. He was polite, soft spoken, and seemed sincere in turning his life around. So he knew about his shit? Knew about it. Okay. May 5, 2005 days before graduation, by the way.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Police visit his Fargo apartment with a search warrant. Okay. Because he had left the area, not come back from that last charge. So they said that. The Fargo police said they don't believe Duncan was ever at his apartment again after that. After that day of May 5, after nearly two weeks of not hearing from Duncan, the officer went to Duncan's home and found nobody home. They also discovered that he was absent from his classes at North Dakota State as well. So they also said that he rented a Jeep Laredo from Enterprise Rent a car, but didn't return it. So they issued a. They issued it for stolen vehicle.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Now.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, police had information that he might have headed west from Fargo, May 11, 2005. Okay, this is. He has a blog here called the Fifth Nail. That's what it's called. It's. It was devoted to basically. At first it was a po. It was basically devoted to opposing the sexual offense, the sex offender registry system.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm sure he does.

[James Petragallo]

He doesn't like that a lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't like that you guys keep track of me.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, my God.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm going to write a blog that supports it vehemently.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, he really does. That's how he's gonna take this out, too. In a blog. I really think you're treating me bad. Later on, he will compare treatment of pedophiles to treatment of the Jews by Nazis. Difference is you fuck kids. They just were existing. That's the difference. All they were doing was existing. You're fucking kids. There's nothing. A little difference there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But people want to gas me. Well, can you? What?

[James Petragallo]

Yes, you are the thing. Because it's all. And this is all based on actions, which is how you're supposed to judge somebody. The content of their character. You're a kid fucker. The content of your character is a mess.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They just wear a tiny hat. There's no. There's no comparison, man.

[James Petragallo]

Not the same. I don't like those little fucking. I don't like those little Brady sideburns. Is not a fucking braided side. That's not. No.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That useless man apron. I don't like it. Well, at least he's not fucking children.

[James Petragallo]

Not fucking kids. So he wrote on the May 11 blog entry, I am scared, alone and confused. And my reaction is to strike out toward the perceived source of my misery. Society. My intent is to harm society as much as I can, then die.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Holy.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, that's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Put that on blogspot.com.

[James Petragallo]

He put that on fifth nail.com. another. A blog appears on another website with the similar name fifth nail.blogspot.com and contains postings that are very similar, even identical in some instances to material that he had. So he's doing the same. He's just putting it on two places.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Or he's having a friend copy and paste something. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. The blog mentions his 18 year stint in prison and his fears that university colleagues and other friends would shun him if they knew his secret.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It.

[James Petragallo]

The blog's author said he cherished his fresh start and his acquaintance with an array of really great people, from professors and co workers to landlords and neighbors. He said, I tried to make it work, but the problem was those demons. They kept reminding me that if my new friends knew about them, then so much for their friendship. The last entry here was written on May 13, saying, I wish I could be more honest about my feelings. But those demons made sure I'd never be able to do that. I might not know if it matters, but just in case, I'm working on an encrypted journal that's hundreds of times more frank than this blog could ever be. That's why I keep it encrypted. I figure 30 years or more. In 30 years or more, we will have the technology to easily crack the encryption. Currently very uncrackable. And then the world will know who I really was and what I really did and what I really thought.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whoa.

[James Petragallo]

Whoa is right. And it's wild what he really thinks. And all that shit.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Cryptid, it locked it away. That's what he said at all.

[James Petragallo]

May 13, 2005. Police talk to Dr. Dick here. They talk to him and they report that Dr. Dick believes that Duncan is not homicidal. Although, quote. Although he has in the past talked about suicide and what it would be like to drown. Okay, so that's what we know. May 17, 2005. Wolf Lodge, Idaho. Now, Wolf Lodge is. It's not really a town. It's kind of a. There's a Wolf Lodge Bay resort type thing. It is well outside Coeur d' Alene. Like it's, you know, on a road going to nowhere. Yeah, but it is still technically Coeur d' Alene address, even though it's nowhere near Coeur d' Alene. And then there's Kellogg. Beyond that, it goes.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

Okay. Now this is 12525 Frontage Road near Wolf Lodge Bay. This is a house here. And I looked up the street view of it. It's on a frontage road with the fucking highway right there. Interesting. Now, people in this house are Brenda K gr o e n e. 40 years old. Brenda is she's been divorced for a couple years. Her and the ex, though, still parent the kids together and have a, you know, mature adult relationship as far as co parenting and things. Yeah, she's got a. She's got a fiance too that lives with her here named Edward McKenzie. He's 37. Now, Brenda has five kids, but two of them are older, I believe or not. Two of them are not here. They're a little bit older.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

And I don't know if they're with their dad or what's going on, but they're not here. The kids that are in the house and living here are Slade grony, he is 13, a son, Dylan Grony with a Y, Dylan with a Y, he's nine years old, a son. And Shasta Grony, who is eight years old and that's her daughter. So that's the five of them living in this house. Okay. Shasta would say back then about Dylan, me and Dylan were only 16 months apart. We were very, very, very close. We loved riding bikes or being on a scooter or going to the store with my mom. Me and him were just very attached to my mom. I think that's why me and him were so close. Our shared love of our mom. You know, your brother and sister, they're two years a year apart, though. So she said that Slade, the 13 year old, him and Shasta used to butt heads a lot. Shasta said he always wanted to do things with our older brothers and when we wanted him to do stuff with us, I would remember. I remember a lot about it. So he said, she said, I wish we were closer. So. And about Mark, I guess Mark was really nice to the kids. Shasta told people back then that he would take the kids to go crawdadding, you know, looking for crawdads in the creek there and fishing and stuff like that. He also, the kids all said, he made it a point to tell the kids, you know, I'm not your dad. I'm not going to step in and try to take your dad's place, but I'm here for whatever you need me for.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's a good guy.

[James Petragallo]

That's exactly what a step parent should be. Look, you need support. I'm here for as much as you need me for, you know, I'm not going to try to take over. He said, I love your mom and I'm here to support you guys as a family and hopefully be a part of it, which is exactly how you should be. So they seem like a real nice family. On May 17, 2005. They weren't answering phones or doors or anything like that. Somebody called the cops to come check on them.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, welfare visit.

[James Petragallo]

Welfare visit. The deputies arrive and when they come in the door, they find three people face down on the floor.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Really?

[James Petragallo]

They find Brenda partially in the kitchen and partially in the living room, dead on the floor. They find Slade, 13 years old, at her feet, dead on the floor. And they find Mark in the living room, dead on the floor. No sign of Shasta or Dylan. They're not in the house. Okay, so they're hoping that they spent the night at somebody's house and went to a friend's house or some shit. Yeah, Fingers. Maybe they're with their dad, whatever. But three people? The forensic examination shows that all three were killed with a claw hammer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, brutal.

[James Petragallo]

Fucking brutal. Brutal. And also they're duct taped and tied up, these people. It's. It's horrifying. They learned it to be a Fat Max claw hammer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, those are big.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, that's a big fucking hammer, man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

On the back of a Fat Max. Doesn't hook. It's no great.

[James Petragallo]

So it's horrifying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's a crazy hammer.

[James Petragallo]

He went around. Someone went around killing people with that. Yeah, a lot. To Slade. The 13 year old was struck 14 times with that hammer. Mark was struck seven times with the hammer. And Brenda was struck three times with the hammer. Hmm, interesting. Which personally, if I'm looking at this, I go, okay, you're going after Mark first because he's the threat. He's a. You know what I mean? So you're going to hit him. It took seven times to put him down. Then you're gonna go after mom because if you do anything to the kids, Mom's gonna freak out. Took her a little less three times. And then he had his time to do whatever he wanted with Slade, whoever this was, and beat them as much as he felt like.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What if he beat up Mark and then Slade and then hit her and then went back? That's even worse, right?

[James Petragallo]

You don't know. She could have. Bang, bang, bang, who the fuck knows? But he had them all. Apparently whoever did this had them all tied up.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So there was no reason.

[James Petragallo]

It was what they felt like doing whenever they felt like doing it. Now they look for Dylan and Shasta. They're not at any friend's house. They're not at dad's house or not at grandma's house. They're nowhere to be fucking found. They were home. That's where they were. And they're not in the house. So this is out there with somebody, an 8 year old and a 9 year old. I mean all hands on deck nationwide. Holy shit. Put up billboards search here. Because obviously someone who has murdered their whole family has taken them. So that's not good. They're not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We have the benefit of a pre story here. So we have a pretty good idea.

[James Petragallo]

Yes. They have no clue.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They don't know any of this.

[James Petragallo]

None of this shit. Nope. It's not a fucking guy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Search blog spot quick.

[James Petragallo]

Anybody just saying anything? Maybe just look the whole blogspot.com. so the way it looked basically the way they put it together is that. But it looked like they were kind of corralled into the living room and everybody was tied up. Including they think Shasta and Dylan as well. And they believe that the mother was probably the way it looked. They believed that the mother was probably up first. And the mother was instructed to get the kids and bring them into the living room and bring everybody into one room and cooperate. Nothing will happen to him type of thing. Apparently her. You know that's what they think happened here. They later on they'll find out that basically mom said someone's in the house. And then they went into the living room. And when they were entered into the living room they saw a man wearing black gloves and holding a gun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh boy.

[James Petragallo]

They tied the mother up with nylon zip ties and did the same to Edward and then to Slade. And then Shasta and Dylan were removed from the house and placed outside on the lawn for a while. They think now there is multiple thumping sounds that people heard coming from inside the house. And they're the. Apparently they think that Slade was injured and was staggering around. I don't know if there's a blood trail or something like that. So yeah, this is fucking horrifying. Then they figured that he took whoever this was. Whoever this was took the kids and put him in a car and took off. So yeah, it's A neighbor said this freaks everybody out. As you can imagine. Yeah, everybody's freaked out. A neighbor said she was aghast and said quote it was like the Boogeyman was coming to your house. Even with everyone there, they were absolutely not safe. I thought this couldn't be just one person doing this to be able to round everybody up. Yeah, it's hard deal with five people and all that. Kill everybody efficiently and then take the kids. That's a lot.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So very controlled person that has something.

[James Petragallo]

On their mind or multiple people. Yeah, that's what she's Thinking she's like, this couldn't be one person doing this. That's too much to do. So everyone's freaked out. The family goes on America's Most Wanted and pleads for the children's safe returns. I mean, they're. They want the kids back. They're like, what the fuck here? And it does. Obviously we, from our experience doing this, and I'm sure the police experience to the. The chances that they're getting any of these kids back are very rare. Not great.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Like a teacher that is in love with a child.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They like, they want a future with this. There's no. This person took two children. They don't care about a future with this.

[James Petragallo]

But if the teacher killed the kid's whole family, you never know at that point, that could be anything. So the sheriff of the one county in Idaho said, it's probably the most horrendous case we've ever seen. They said, yeah, it's crazy. Fucking crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's worst case scenario.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. They said it could. This, it's a lightning strike case. I mean, it could have happened anywhere, but it just happened to happen here. We've had murder cases before, but not this serial killer, kill the family, kidnap the children cases. And I spent 38 years in the sheriff's department. He said, this is the only one. And that's a great. It just doesn't exist.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's not necessarily a lightning strike situation. It's just wherever this fucking guy is, this happens. It's fucked up.

[James Petragallo]

So July 1, 2005, Dr. Dick calls the cops. He calls the cops saying that on July 1, that day, Duncan called him. So Duncan's on the run as a fugitive. And he said, Duncan called me. The cop said, quote. Then he stated that he just began yelling at him. So Dr. Dick said he just was yelling at me. He stated that after yelling at him for some time, Joe just suddenly hung up. So he called Durant and rave and then all jet dunks hangs it up. Now, Waxman said he told the cop that he was angry at Duncan because he took off. And he has a big investment in him because I've given this guy money, I've helped him. He said. It did appear, though, that while talking with Dr. Waxman that he was looking for information from me about his friend Mr. Duncan, but I was unwilling or unable to provide any information. So he's thinking this guy was trying to poke around for pieces of the investigation to relay back to Duncan to help him. Yeah. So that's July 1st, by the way. May. Think about how long this has been.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is three weeks.

[James Petragallo]

Three. It was the beginning of May.

[Jimmy Whisman]

May 11th. Right.

[James Petragallo]

42 days, I think, or something like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And June. Oh my God.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, we're in July.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh my God.

[James Petragallo]

No sign of the kids. This is insane. July 2, 2005.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where the fuck is is? 2:00am how are they hidden this whole time?

[James Petragallo]

This is crazy. July 2, 2005, 2:00am A Denny's restaurant in Coeur d' Alene. That's what's open at 2:00am yeah. At about 1:30 in the morning, Shasta Groni was spotted at the Denny's. The little girl who's missing, whose face is everywhere, she entered the Denny's restaurant with a 42 year old man, identified as Joseph Edward Duncan III.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right?

[James Petragallo]

Oh, yeah. An employee and a customer recognized her from the tv. A customer said, that little girl over there, is that the kids from fucking America's Most. Yes. And they were like, holy shit. So they had one of the kitchen employees call the cops. And they were starting to leave Joseph and Shasta. So a quick thinking waitress said, hey, little girl, you want a milkshake? And she said, is that quick thinking.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Or is that like raising all the suspicion in the world?

[James Petragallo]

No. She was like, you're so cute and it's empty. She goes, I'm gonna make you a milkshake. She said it like that, like, you know, just, I love kids, I've been around a while. I'm gonna make you a free milkshake. And so she went and made a milkshake and gave it to the girl while the cops are coming. And Coeur d' Alene police arrived and they confirmed Shasta's identity and took Duncan into char. Into custody on charges of kidnapping on a fugitive warrant. Wow. By the way, Dylan is nowhere to be found here.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, that's the other question.

[James Petragallo]

Where's Dylan?

[Jimmy Whisman]

What the fuck? There's only two people eating.

[James Petragallo]

So, yeah, that's it. There's the only two in the restaurant. So Shasta was taken to the police station where she was reunited with her father, Steve. She underwent tests at a hospital, was interviewed by authorities. They gave her cartoons to watch. Just try to, you know, whatever the dad told Geraldo Rivera, she seemed to be in pretty good spirits. Wow. Shasta's uncle, Bob Price said that she may remain in the hospital for several more days. They said, as we can imagine, her psyche is pretty fragile at this point. She's been almost two months of being kidnapped. In a brief statement, Steve Groen, the dad said he wasn't sure how long Shasta would be in the hospital. She did say that. He did say that her condition is better than the family expected. He said, quote this. One of the doctors said, she's a tough gal. She's a scrapper. She's got a lot of groaning in her because she knew that they knew the family. God knows what she's been through. We'll find out. Shortly after Duncan's arrest here, police in Fargo went to his home and put, you know, crime scene tape all around it to wait for a judge to sign a search warrant to search his home in Fargo. His two cats were left behind. And the neighbor said she's been caring for the cats. And then after a while, she just took them to a shelter. She didn't know what to do with him anymore. She figured he wasn't coming back because it was two months already. She said that she considered Duncan a friend and that he never caused any trouble in the neighborhood. She said there were kids all over this neighborhood, never did anything. People who lived in Duncan's neighborhood for 10 years said they heard that a sex offender moved across the alley, but they never talked to Duncan. They said that other residents around here watched everything unfold on tv. An elderly woman said, I've never seen him in this neighborhood, but I'm sure hearing about him now on cable news. So she. She only lived two houses away, too.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

So why didn't they catch him earlier?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why indeed?

[James Petragallo]

They said more than 100 tips came into the sheriff's office tip line. So they were doing that following publications of Duncan, pictures of Duncan and the red Jeep in his possession at the time of his arrest here. They said that the Larray, he still has it. He put stolen Missouri license plates on it. That's how he. And he has a radar detector. What? And I remember he bought it at Walmart when he got out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Getting caught.

[James Petragallo]

No. And they said that he was able to drive around in a stolen vehicle because he probably the one main sheriff said probably because he obeyed traffic laws. He said, yeah, Police officers look for the unusual. But he didn't stand out as unusual. Look like a 40 year old guy driving a Jeep. The speed limit between the lines. So no one gave a shit. No one looked twice at him. After his arrest. Oprah Winfrey invited the family on the Oprah show where she announced that she would give $100,000 to people who helped catch sex offenders.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oprah.

[James Petragallo]

She launched the Oprah's Child Predator watch list. And viewers helped nab Four sex offenders since that started, apparently.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay. Absconders, I imagine.

[James Petragallo]

I mean, I think so, yeah. Not just. Not just put them on tv.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Don't send Oprah's audience out as vigilantes. That's amazing.

[James Petragallo]

That's insane. Jesus. Winfrey told her viewers that Shasta's story was the last straw and said, we can change the laws so that when in this country a child is molested, the first time that person's put behind bars and never let out. Never let out. I'm so sick of it. That's a hard one to do. Life without parole for a 17 year old. For a 17 year old who. Yeah, and that's the other thing, too, we're talking about, you know, obviously. Yeah, Fucking. There are different levels, but.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, right, yeah, obviously this guy's the worst case scenario. Yeah. Never let this guy out.

[James Petragallo]

But yeah, I'm talking if it's children as opposed to adults, is what I'm saying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And they also compartmentalize sex offender as. As a blanket statement. But there are different levels of it. Of like actually a drunk guy pissing in an alley. I'm not afraid that guy's raping people.

[James Petragallo]

No, no, no, not yet. He probably just. Well, when you walk up, does he kind of turn his dick a little bit if he turns away from you? Yeah, if he turns it away from you, he's fine.

[Jimmy Whisman]

If he's hiding in a fucking walk up, then he probably doesn't want you to see it.

[James Petragallo]

Exactly. He's probably embarrassed. So the crazy part of this is these people at Denny's were not the first time they've been seen out there. They've been around. Some workers at local businesses have been interviewed by investigators and some thought they remembered seeing Duncan. Jackie Allen, a gas station and convenience store clerk in St. Regis, told the Associated Press that she recognized Duncan after seeing his photo and telling law enforcement that he had come into the store several weeks after the disappearance of the child. She said that Duncan bought gas and a 12 pack of beer and asked her about local campgrounds. She said that neither Shasta nor Dylan were with him in the store and she never saw his vehicle. So she said, I just remember the guy. She said. He said he had kids and he was married. He was a very friendly guy, very nice, very polite. He didn't put a scare to me at all. So other sightings of his Jeep in St. Regis as well. Here, one woman. This is the same woman, by the way, the Jackie Allen. She said, it's been crazy. I mean, if I Would have known I probably could have saved those babies. So Joe Cantrell, who owns a bait and tackle shop in St. Regis, said him and his son thought at first they had seen Duncan. But a search of surveillance material and business transactions proved not to be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So somebody else?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, the owner of a St. Regis convenience store, harassed, not to be identified. Said some of her employees thought they saw the man as well. Then there is video from a Conoco station. Yeah, Conoco. Whatever it is, Ted Bemis installed security cameras there only three months prior to this happening. And apparently here it's eight cameras. And they said that the cameras since produced. Only since have produced the only video footage of 8 year old Shasta traveling with Joseph Duncan. They were videotaped entering the convenience store at 8:20pm they said that Shasta's body language on the tape tells a story. As she roams around the store aisles. She walks slowly with her arms crossed. They said she's not looking at the shit on the shelves. No, they said she's looking up at people in the store. Every customer in the store. She's looking right into their faces. She's not looking at the store, screaming help me. Without a word, walking around saying, please recognize me. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Do you see this looking face?

[James Petragallo]

You see it? You've seen it on shit. Because she's driven around, she's seen her face on billboards. I mean, they were everywhere, man. Him and her and Dylan's face were everywhere.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Walsh talked about me.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, the. The owner. Oprah's been talking. The owner of the Cameron street gas station business said she's probably scared to death. She had all the chance in the world to talk to this people and she didn't. Yeah, she could have said, help me, help me, help me.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And I don't think knows she knows what he did to her family.

[James Petragallo]

Exactly. She's terrified of this man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Needs you to take the initiative.

[James Petragallo]

Oh my God. She looked like. The sheriff said she looked like she was wanting to be recognized by the people. So she's walking around, stopping, looking. Stopping in front of people and looking at them in the face. 8 year old. How often do 8 year olds do that? You know what I mean? So. Holy shit. They said that she reported the incident after reading about the rescue. She told her boss that those people were in here. So then they reviewed the surveillance tape and found the footage of. Of the two of them. The tapes were sold to a Spokane television station for $275, which they said they will donate to. Shasta.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Asked for more.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, you should have probably given it to the cops more first as they look, they said they were amazed at how, you know, this is in Kellogg, Idaho. And they're like, they were amazed that this could be. This is the fucking crux of a nationwide hunt for kids. This is for two kids. And they're in my little store at my little town. He said, it just gives you the willies to think some psycho is here in our town. The willies. Oh, man. So they were in the store for 10 minutes, by the way, and they said that Duncan acted like he didn't have a care in the world. Didn't look suspicious, didn't look like holding onto the Shasta all tight.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Frightening.

[James Petragallo]

They said he was walking around. You could see him kind of watching her one time in the store. She's wandering up and down the aisles and he kind of loses track of her. And you can see him looking around in a panic for her. But then he picks up the local newspaper and he's standing there thumbing through the local newspaper, trying to act casual. At that point, they said the FBI ended up getting a tape of this and all that kind of thing. The store owner did interviews with Good Morning America, the Today show, and Dateline. He said, you can't believe the calls we've had. Oh, my God. Um, so apparently he's gonna be charged with three charges at this point. Attempted criminal sexual contact and two counts of second degree illegal sexual contact. Each carries a potential maximum of 25 years in prison. But, yes, they haven't charged him with any murder yet. Okay, I don't know if they think he just picked Shasta up off the side of the road or something somewhere. But the main question right now is, where the fuck is Dylan?

[Jimmy Whisman]

The fuck is he?

[James Petragallo]

Where is this poor nine year old kid? So investigators were sorting through evidence, trying to figure this out, but they reiterated at that point, they said they didn't expect to find him alive.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Obviously. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

They said based on investigate, on information investigators were able to put together in totality leaves them to believe that Dylan is dead. That's why we're working so diligently right now to verify that or to find out it's not true. They said, frankly, I'd be more than happy to stand up here and say it's the biggest mistake we ever made, but unfortunately, we don't think it's going to be. Wow. And Steve, the dad, said he's holding out hope that Dylan will be found alive. So Shasta. This poor Shasta, man. Oh, my God. They said that she got enough gifts and toys and cards and well wishes to fill a classroom room from people. People were. I mean, this poor girl's been through hell. Hell on earth. Classmates and family sent it. The principal came, you know, gave a thing, and the whole school had a big deal. And they said, the staff is overjoyed. Now, of course, everyone is praying and talking about Dylan. So this is from Shasta. Now, this is an interview she did later on. They said, do you remember when you were spotted? Do you remember that moment? What happened, happened, meaning at the Denny's? And she said, well, the cop came up to us and he asked me what my name was. And I remember feeling really scared to say anything. I remember looking at Joseph Duncan almost like for permission to answer the question. I was really scared. And they said, did he give you that permission? And Shasta said, when I looked over at him, he kind of nodded his head like, yeah, go ahead. Like, it's over, it's over. I mean, the cops are here. We're not getting out of this. The woman said, do you think he wanted you to be rescued?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

And Shasta said, sometimes I do think about it, and sometimes I don't know if he would necessarily be that nice to do that for me. But at the same time, I think he brought me to so many public places for a reason. I don't know what was going through his head. Then the interviewer said, what are those next few months like with your dad? Did you get the help you needed? And she said, I remember not being in school for a while. I remember not being able to watch TV because my dad wanted to protect me from what was on there. He didn't want me to have to see Duncan again. I do remember everyone wanted to love on me and just be there with me. I think it was just a time for my family to get back to not normal, because things could never be normal after that, but back into a motion of we need to move on with our lives and start somewhere, some sort of fucking. Some sort of normalcy. Yeah. Some sort of stability that you need is as a family and as human beings and people. So they said, did you see a counselor? Did you get to talk about it? She said, I was seeing a counselor that I really, really loved. But that came to an end when she was telling people outside of our sessions what was going on in our sessions.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, what the fuck?

[James Petragallo]

Yep. Because she had somebody People were interested in, this poor little girl. So she was telling people about it. That's. Be a professional.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Shut your fucking Mouth.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. I went to another person. And then after that, I was so tired of talking about it, and I was so tired of having to relive it. I just wanted to focus mainly on what the rest of my life was going to be. I hated looking back on my past. They said, did you get the support you needed, looking back? And she said, yeah, I definitely do think that if it wasn't something that my family could do for me, my family would reach out and other people would step in and help us. There wasn't ever a time that I was really ever alone. And that made me feel better just being around other people and feeling that I had some sense of security. They said, after you were rescued, was there debrief a time?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Right?

[James Petragallo]

And she said, yeah, the night that they found me, they took me to a back room. I was sitting on a chair, and they were just asking me questions. I remember closing my eyes and saying, I'm thinking. But I was really sleeping. I was super tired and just exhausted. I really didn't want to answer the questions. I just wanted to sleep. I do remember the entire interview I did with the cops. So they said they looked into a connection. Does Duncan know these people? Does this idiot. How did he pick these people out? And they said that they looked. And they said, after all, looking into everybody from both sides, quote, I'm sure there's no connection there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He is just a boogeyman.

[James Petragallo]

He saw the kids outside the day earlier that day and decided he's gonna go and take those kids. That's what he did. That's what it was. That's fucking insane. Now, the Jeep was, like we said, stolen with Missouri plates. A key tag, by the way, was found for the Jeep, was found in May by rangers at the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area in Wyoming. They found the tag that comes on your rental car.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

There, but not the car. So that's. They knew that he had been in Wyoming at some point. So apparently, after he took them, he put them in the Jeep and took them to a campsite. That's where they were. Shasta said that her and Dylan were held by him in rough and extremely dangerous mountain terrain in the Lolo National Forest. The FBI and Mineral County Sheriff's Office believe Duncan held the siblings at a campsite near St. Regis, Montana, which would make sense because they were seen there multiple times for at least part of the seven weeks. Shasta told the investigators that they were. The kids were taken to at least two campsites in Montana where they were repeatedly molested of Course that's what he's doing. We think he's gonna. He's just having burning marshmallows with him. Me a fucking break. Holy shit. Six weeks she was gone. That is horrifying what he did. What he did was he terrified them, he kidnapped them and basically told them that. That he has killed other kids in Washington and California. So if you don't cooperate, I'm gonna kill you too. I have no problem killing kids. He told them. So Shasta said that Duncan told her about the crimes and then showed her stories about dead people on his laptop. That he said, I killed these people. So she believed it. Now his bond is set at $2 million, obviously. Yeah. Is that. I don't think it is. I don't think he has friends that have 2 million to give him 15 grand, maybe. So then finally, July 4, 2005, here. This is two days after Shasta's found. Investigators find a makeshift campsite in a remote area of the Lolo National Forest near St. Regis, where they find human remains that they believe are dead. Their remains are sent to the FBI lab in Quantico for DNA testing. In the early hours of December 4, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of midtown Manhattan. This assailant starts firing at him. And the suspect he has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione, became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was meant to sow terror. He's awoken the people to a true issue. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple podcasts. Lamont Jones's world is shattered when his cousin dies in custody just weeks after entering prison. The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story. From Wondery comes Death County Penns, a chilling true story of corruption and cover ups that begins as one man's search for answers, but soon reveals a disturbing pattern. Lamont's cousin's death is just one of many. And powerful forces are working to keep the truth buried. With never before heard interviews and shocking revelations, Death County Pa pulls back the curtain on one of America's darkest institutional secrets. This isn't just another true crime story. It's happening right now. Follow Death Count County PA on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Death County PA early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus, where they will be positively identified as Dylan. How old are those that wow, that man.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Did he do that? How long have they sat in Montana?

[James Petragallo]

In. In the. Where is it? Montana? St. Regis, Montana. He was shot at point blank range by holding a sawed off 12 gauge shotgun to his head.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, for heaven's sake.

[James Petragallo]

A nine year old Shasta saw or heard that? Yep. She's gonna explain it here. Shasta told investigators that Duncan insisted that Dylan's death was an accident. That's what she said. Now initially, Shasta was standing on the other side of Duncan's Jeep when she heard a loud boom. Then she ran over to the other side of the Jeep and saw Dylan lying on the ground screaming. Duncan was digging through a clear plastic box looking for beer, he said, when a shotgun that was also kept in the box went off, hitting Dylan in the stomach. Okay, so he said it's an accident. I shot him by accident. Shasta said that she then saw Duncan put the shotgun to Dylan's head and pull the trigger. But it didn't fire. Misfired.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

When Dylan begged Duncan not to kill him, Duncan reloaded the gun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh Christ.

[James Petragallo]

And put it back to his head and shot him. According to Shasta, Duncan then started crying and told her that he only killed him to put him out of his misery because he had shot him in the stomach. So he felt bad. Shasta reported that Duncan nearly killed her in the days following the killing of Dylan. She said that he gave her the choice to be killed by either strangulation or with a gun. An 8 year old said, which one do you want? She chose strangulation. She's afraid of guns. Loud. You know what I mean? Kids. She doesn't understand. She's eight. Duncan proceeded to wrap a rope around her neck and pull it. It causing her to start suffocating. She said though she begged. She summoned enough breath to beg him to stop and used the nickname Jet. She said, I called him Jet because that's what he liked to be called. And he immediately stopped. Oh boy, that's wild. He then asked her if she would like to meet his mother.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, sure.

[James Petragallo]

Okay, great. Is it strangle me, shoot me or I meet your mother. Let's go meet mom. Sounds good. To which she responded, yes. And that's when they were driving toward Coeur d' Alene and stopped at the Denny's. They were on their way to go to his mom's house.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is that right?

[James Petragallo]

What would his mom do if he shows up with a fucking. Obviously much nationwide searched missing 8 year old.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

What the fuck is going on?

[Jimmy Whisman]

If she doesn't say if she doesn't call the police immediately, what's wrong with her too?

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She'd have to meet my mom. This is my new bride. My. She's nine.

[James Petragallo]

I just adopted this kid. I found her like. What do you say?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Looking for a way out?

[James Petragallo]

I think he was looking for. I don't think he knew what to do at this point. So. Dylan. They buried Dylan on what would have been his 10th birthday. It was fucking horrifying, man. As horrifying. More than 700 people showed up, by the way, for his funeral. Because this is. I mean, everybody feels like they're kind of a part of this whole thing in this whole area by now. Even the Denny's waitress who recognized Shasta fucking showed up at the service and everything. Like, a lot of people are connected to this shit and they feel connected to it because, I don't know, it's one of those. If you steal a kid, the whole community feels like, oh, no, no. That's an assault on everything, on everybody. Everything and everybody that is at that point, it's not a personal thing. It's not like you had beef with the eight year old. They sold you a lemon car and now you're pissed off.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. So before leaving his apartment at 810 Seventh street in Fargo, Duncan, who's typically very fastidious, left a mess and two cats behind when he left. He also taunted law enforcement with a message on his dining room fucking mirror. He wrote a message saying, sorry you missed me on there. Ew. To the cops. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yep.

[James Petragallo]

Investigators seized computer disks. Disks, computers with programs. He encrypted a bag of auburn colored human hair. Okay. A sleeping bag with, quote, an adult sized bloody footprint on it. Notebooks and more than 21 boxes worth of belongings in the basement of his home, all turned over to the FBI. Now he's going to be charged with three counts of murder and kidnapping and the attack on the family home. All six carry the death penalty. All these charges, by the way.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You don't have to tell us that you did it. We know you did it.

[James Petragallo]

We got it. Federal prosecutors have said they will file charges in the abduction of the children and in Dylan's death as well. So he's gonna get state and federally charged for this. So now the sex offender levels, they said, okay. They said, the problem is that the system is different in every state. In Idaho, you're either a sex offender or you're not. In Washington, there's three levels of sex offenders. So In Idaho it's just, there's level three. Doesn't mean anything.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, you just either do bad things or you don't.

[James Petragallo]

Yep. And in Mississippi they said there's nine there.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Crazy.

[James Petragallo]

They said there needs to be a standardization of all the levels and there needs to be an ability to do civil commitments so those people aren't out there hurting anyone else. There has to be some standardization, which makes sense. They said that would have been made it more difficult for him to slip through the system. He said the one guy said I think it would have been harder. I think that if we had standardization we would all understand what the levels mean. And that and those he demonstrated as level three offender, he would have been civilly committed. He wasn't even on the radar. We didn't know about Joseph Duncan until he was caught here in Coeur d' Alene with Shasta Groni. Not having those high propensity reoffender databases to see who has the high propensity. We followed thousands of leads. We had over 2200 tips given to us, called in, faxed and emailed. Not one of them had anything to do with Joseph Duncan.

[Jimmy Whisman]

By the way, how do we not nationwide have a, at least a rainbow colored tier system? Something that's, that's just uniform. We can't have. Yeah, nine levels in, in Mississippi and three and yeah, it can't be.

[James Petragallo]

That's crazy.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What's an eight? They'll a hog, but only if it's their own hog. What is it?

[James Petragallo]

It's, I mean where nine, where does it end? How specific are we?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, I don't get it.

[James Petragallo]

You, you, you, you, you like to rate people, but only if they're like over the age of 72 or something is like a level 8. I don't know.

[Jimmy Whisman]

They said I don't like it at all.

[James Petragallo]

They said we had to follow up on all those and that takes an incredible amount of manpower. Some are very far fetched but some are also very possible. They said laws related to sex offender registry were created on a national level in 94 and strengthened in 96, requiring all states to conduct community notification of sex offenders. So there's that. Now, July 19, 2005, Duncan is going to talk to the police. This conversation is going to last more than three hours and he's going to reveal some horrifying shit. They said. Anything else you want to tell us about? Because you're fucked, bud. I mean like you're in so much trouble.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Don't deny the most trouble you could.

[James Petragallo]

Be in you were caught with a live child with a story to tell. You are fucked.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Couldn't be more trouble.

[James Petragallo]

Yep. And that's what it was. She described how she took them in the house, how he took over the house and everything. It's crazy. He said, well, I have a couple more things to tell you. About 1997 or so, I killed a 10 year old in Riverside, California named Anthony Martinez.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, he's got a name.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, yeah. He said, absolutely. He said he hit the kid in the head with a large rock before leaving him naked and wounded in the desert to die.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petragallo]

In July 2005, bloggers noticed similarities between Duncan and the composite sketch in the Martinez case and between Duncan's vehicle and the one Martinez's assailant was driving. And he said, yep, I did that, no problem. The FBI and the national center for Missing and Exploited Children became involved and in turn contacted Riverside. Riverside authorities were able to match the fingerprint taken from Martinez's body to Duncan. Duncan, they have physical evidence. And on August 3rd, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department announced Duncan's connection with the Martinez case. The FBI then sought a full set of Duncan's fingerprints to compare to a partial thumbprint found at the Martinez scene. And that was a match as well. When two FBI agents came to the jail to take the fingerprints, Duncan told them about the crimes. Anyway, the agent said, quote, he told me that these two girls were his, quote, two girls, not Anthony Martinez. There's two more.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petragallo]

The two girls were his, quote, first revenge, and that it occurred in 1996 when he was out on parole. His revenge for going to jail for the first time. I think his actual quote was, quote, sheer unadulterated revenge. He was mad for going to jail. So he came out and these two young girls, Carmen Kubias, age 9, and Sammy Jo White, age 11, they're sisters, by the way, in Seattle. They were staying with their mother at the Crest Motel in Seattle. And apparently he said that the mother, Margaret Delaney, who was their mother, said the two girls left the Crest Motel room where Delaney and her five children were spending the night to visit a Taco Time restaurant across the street. And the kids never came back. The mom said she arrived back at the motel room with food shortly after the girls left and sent their 15 year old brother to look for them. When he failed, she searched for an hour and then called the cops. Their skeletal remains were found a year and a half later. And Duncan told the FBI officer agent here that this was revenge against society for sending him back to jail for a probation violation. And he was mad that he had to go to jail for a month because he, quote, lost a good job. So I'll kill two kids. That makes sense. That is fucking horrifying. More on Anthony Martinez here. Ernesto Medina, who's Anthony's father, said his two sons, Anthony and Mark, were playing in a neighbor's backyard. And from inside his apartment he heard children screaming. A man's got Tony. A man's got Tony. Anthony Martinez, the father ran outside and saw his six year old son Mark limping toward the apartment, one shoe on and one shoe off. Saying the same thing. Dad ran inside and called 91 1, grabbed his keys and began searching for his son. He would check back at home often to see if the kid came back. And then he continued the search for three days and nights for nothing. Never found him. Anthony's body was found 15 days later.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus Christ.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, he said that Mark, the other kid who was almost abducted too, said how a tall, thin Caucasian man in a white car pulled into the alley behind a neighbor's house where he was playing with Anthony and his friends. He said he approached the fence and called us forward. We came and he showed us a picture of a cat. He offered us each a dollar if we helped him look for his cat. Three boys agreed to look for the cat. After searching the alley, the kids went back to Duncan and told him they couldn't find the cat. So the boy said, he gave us each a dollar. The next thing I remember is seeing a knife being drawn. And then the next thing after that, he had my brother knife to his head. He was being taken away and put in the car. And that was the last time I ever saw him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, God.

[James Petragallo]

Holy shit. So they tried. He tried to grab Mark first and Anthony got between them. That's what happened. And. And he fell down and the other kid lost his shoe. And then Duncan just grabbed Anthony instead. Holy shit. That is fucking horrifying. Um, so he was trying to grab the younger kid, but ended up with a 10 year old. Then a document shows Duncan visited Mexico two days after that murder. And a leather bound journal Duncan left in his Fargo apartment where he made references to the murder and wrote a poem entitled An Ode to the Killer. In a letter written from prison later, Duncan wrote that the poem said that he wrote the poem the day after he murdered Anthony. In a journal entry dated three days after Anthony's abduction, Duncan wrote, now that I have fulfilled my greatest fantasy, I have no reason left to live except to flesh. It Out. I have no feelings for my victim and I never will. But I do have feelings. I love life even more after my fight with a true monster. After being a firsthand witness to what others are enraged by merely imagining.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Then he said in another entry, he said, I just realized the pain is gone. The pain is gone. Now there is only fear. I like the fear better. An extensive search for Anthony was conducted and they had 6,000 leads and everything else. In April 19, 1997, a park ranger found Anthony's body among rocks in burdu Canyon about 2 miles north of Dylan Roll Road. Dylan Road in the Indio Hills area. The desert out there. Yeah, yeah. Drive through country.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. They have to make a fucking festival out there to make people want to come there.

[James Petragallo]

Gas station country is what that is. So why didn't he kill Shasta? Why thing? Well, he had a complicated 4 gigabyte file of map point coordinates he thought one day someone would find. One of the points was named Epiphany. And they said, he said under that this is the spot that I intended to kill Shasta. But instead I had the epiphany that changed everything. Just a second before I was about to deliver the fatal blow with a large rock. So he decided that he had some sort of epiphany. That is interesting. Now, right around this time, they're going to have a psychologist, federal psychologist talk to him. And this is how. This is what she said about this quote. He described that as he was straddling her, he had picked up a large rock boulder and held it over his head and was going to bring it down and smash her head. And in the process of doing that, had a realization that she and he were the same person.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, he's crazy. Great.

[James Petragallo]

There you go. A 42 year old man and 8 year old girl. We're the same person.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Same guy. Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

The same people that we were in the same person. That they were connected and that to do so was wrong. And therefore he should not kill her. Instead, he should turn himself in. In he decided that he would return her to her home and turn herself in. Well, those which he was on the way to there anyway, those were also decisions that he reported having attributed to this epiphany, this realization. And in that regard it is society rather than he who is ultimately responsible for the actions that he engaged in. That's what he says anyway. Now, November 2005, Duncan's brother, Spring.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh, the young one.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, yeah. Bruce here, he said, I knew from the same guy. No we're very different guys. Oh, yeah. We didn't even play basketball together when we were kids. Nothing couldn't be more different. He said, I knew from day one he didn't get caught by accident. He was in another state. He could have gone 500 different directions. Yet he took Shasta back. He's a human being, and he does have feelings, but he has this problem, apparently, that he does not value life. I have no pity for my brother for what he did. I feel sorry for that family. That family, he destroyed it. He said, if he's convicted and it's cut and dry and there's no way around it, and there's no question about it, he may be my brother, but there's no excuse. If someone were to do something like that to me or my family members, I'd want to see him dead. The law is the law. We all live under it. And they said, well, what about, like, mitigating factors like the abuse he suffered as a kid and all that? And Bruce said, I grew up in that household. I was not abused and never saw any abuse going on. All of the allegations from the childhood, I'd say 99% of them are false. Yeah, Bruce. Bruce said now he's got a sister that will say, absolutely not. Everything was real, and it was worse than he said. Yeah, and it was worse, and it was worse. Now, I don't know if that shit had burned out by the youngest child or not. I don't know how that works. But he said that he saw his brother a few times in prison. He said, then when he got out, I met him in Seattle at his apartment. We hung out for a few times and saw each other on the holidays. He said all that time changed his brother. All that time in prison. He said, you take a teenager who's confused about his sexuality, commits a horrible crime that was inexcusable even for a child, and you throw him in prison with a bunch of murderers and rapists. He's 100 pounds soaking wet. And he became the target of other prisoners looking for sex.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The hierarchy of prison has nothing to do with whether or not your brother's a horrible rape rapist.

[James Petragallo]

Irrelevant.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He fits with them. It's.

[James Petragallo]

And he was doing this before he went to prison, so don't want to hear about it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why is he. Why is he minimizing? What's the deal?

[James Petragallo]

Bruce said he didn't pay much attention to the killings or the urgent requests for information seeking the return of the children of this kidnapping. He said, I didn't Even know my brother was on the run. He didn't tell anyone in the family about the charges on the playground or anything, the ones where he was doing the video camera? Yeah. Bruce Duncan said he's had to change his phone number twice. He said that his brother's arrest has split the family. He said certain people in the family are in denial, other people are angry, and other people are just wanting to ignore it like it never happened. Those are the three reactions. Families have the options possible.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. He said, I'd like to sit down with him and talk to him without the FBI listening in, because I'm sure he would tell me more than he's gonna tell anyone else. Needless to say, anything I'd find out, I would turn over to the authorities. If he's gonna tell anybody, he's gonna tell me. I think he is. He wants him to be executed. I think he would, yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Well, does he want to be executed?

[James Petragallo]

No, the brother wants him to be executed. He's even telling him all the mitigating things he's talking about are bullshit. He's totally against his brother. So the sister is later gonna disagree about the abuse. This is Sherry Cox, the sister. She said that Cox said that her and her four siblings were frequently beaten by their mother while she ranted that men were worthless and described her mother as a, quote, crazy woman who attended church obsessively every day.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Every day.

[James Petragallo]

Yep. He. Authoritative Christian household. Remember she said those words. Prosecutors didn't question here, though, that Duncan's mother was abusive and they couldn't. Nobody else would do it. So Duncan, who's the second, youngest of five, the sister said he was passive in the face of the beatings. The sister said when she was beating on you, if you fought back, it was worse. In his case, he just took what she gave and kind of whimpered off into his bedroom. She said their father, who was in the military and often deployed, was the main subject and target of their mother's derision. Hated him. She, this daughter left home at 17. She got the fuck. That's how shitty of a house. She got the fuck out of there and said she only saw Duncan once after that, several years later when he was a patient at the mental hospital. Now trial is coming up. On the day scheduled for jury selection in the kidnap and murder trial, Duncan stops and says, I plead guilty.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He has enough.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, I've had enough. I'm pleading guilty.

[Jimmy Whisman]

We haven't even started yet, dunks.

[James Petragallo]

We haven't even started picking jurors. So they said the and the reason, well, you might go, why the fuck do you give this guy a deal? Yeah, the reason you give him a deal is because if you don't, a nine year old has to go on the stand and describe horrific crimes that have happened to her outside of a doctor's office setting and in front of lots of people.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Horrible things in front of strangers. And anybody that wants a ticket it to this because there's going to be a line out front to watch this. That's fucked up.

[James Petragallo]

Even if they take her in judges chambers and all that, it's still lawyers and the judge, it's and the clerk and someone typing it all. That's all. That's overwhelming for a child, man. So the prosecutor said this agreement is possible because of a brave little nine year old girl who is willing to confront Duncan face to face in the courtroom.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She was going to do it. She's a goddamn hero.

[James Petragallo]

No, she's. She's tough, man. She's tough. Just to survive that, she had to be tough. Think about that. Almost two months being held by a fucking psychopath who just killed your whole family in front of you with a hammer. And then with a hammer and a shotgun.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And you probably watched him murder your brother.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, she did. She said she watched him. So it's horrible. That's why the cops said they were pretty sure Dylan wasn't gonna be found alive. Because she told them I watched him shoot my brother. So. So, wow. He said guilty six times in court here. Three counts each of first degree murder and first degree kidnapping. Now without a trial, they have to stipulate the facts. Okay? Which stipulate means both sides agree that this is evidence that we're enter. That way we don't have to go over it. You know what I mean? Otherwise you have to enter everything formally. So it recounts how Duncan stalked the family for two days. Two days of stalking. They had no idea. They're going about their lives and their business and he's stalking them. He stalked them at random after seeing Shasta playing outside in her bathing suit. Got him going. Holy fuck, man. This sick fuck. They said Duncan ordered Brenda to tell the kids to cooperate with him and they'd be fine. So she was telling her kids, just, just do what he says. It's gonna be okay. Trying to protect her children. He then bound Brenda, Mark and Spade with our Slade with zip ties and duct tape. When they arrived, they found all three face down on the floor. And like we described before, they said that Duncan was linked to the killings by numerous items either left at the scene or found in his red stolen rental car, the Jeep Cherokee. Oh, my God. Went to a. He said that he brought them to a remote Montana website, sexually abusing them for nearly two months and threatened campsite. Yeah. Not a website, or did I say website? Oh, my God. We'll call it a remote Montana website. Wow. A remote Montana website.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It's on the dark.

[James Petragallo]

Very different.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where you find the remote Montana website.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. Where you sexually abuse children. Oh, that's horrifying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What a horrible website.

[James Petragallo]

That's the worst website ever. Don't go to that website. So he said that he threatened them with death if they disobeyed him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

And he. This is fucking disgusting. Duncan used recording and computer equipment to videotape abusing Dylan. He fucking filmed himself. Abuse. Yes. There's a tape of this somewhere before shooting him in the head. This is horrifying, man. This guy's a sick fuck. So sentencing comes around and he said, I've thought a lot about what I've wanted to say. Duncan says, I have nothing to say.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You fucking motherfucker.

[James Petragallo]

You bastard. The judge says, I'm killing. Judge says, I sure got some shit to say. You said may. Fuck off. Three consecutive life sentences. No parole. Eat dicks.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay, that's fair.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, fuck off. So consecutive, too. You're not going anywhere. Yeah, and there's also a federal case pending, too, so don't worry about it. He's not.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So he couldn't get death for this because he pled. Right.

[James Petragallo]

He made a deal. Yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's afraid to die, this fucking pussy.

[James Petragallo]

Well, we'll hear about that coming up here. So Steve, the father of Shasta and the two poor dead kids, wrote a message on a portable whiteboard thanking the community for his support because he had. He had cancer surgery two weeks before and can't speak. This poor bastard. So he had to, while recovering from cancer surgery, go to the crawl, shit out on a whiteboard, go to the plea hearing of the guy who killed and kidnapped his children. This poor bastard. He said on the whiteboard, he said, we feel this is the best possible outcome. They said it was the best thing for everyone. And one family member said, especially for Shasta. We did not want to have Shasta take the standard. That's what the grandmother said. She said it was difficult even being in the courtroom. It's like sitting in a room with the devil. He is the devil, this guy. I would say so. The county commissioner said, thank heavens. I'm absolutely thrilled. My thanks go out to all those Involved in bringing a resolution. My thoughts are with Shasta and I hope that this can start the healing process. That this little girl doesn't have to go through this anymore. Well, not so fast. So they talk to people on the street. What do you think about the plea bargain?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, man. On the street. What do you think now?

[James Petragallo]

I'm gonna look at it this way. It's what the victims families wanted.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Sure.

[James Petragallo]

It keeps a poor fucking horrified and traumatized nine year old from having the now nine year old from having to testify and saves taxpayers millions of dollars. There is no negative here. Unless it's. I like to see death penalty. Unless it's that. There is no negative. You have to be a huge fucking, just absolutely pulsating asshole to not be fine with this deal. If this is what the victim's family wanted, that's what is good. You know? One person said, I think it's a good idea for the plea bargain. I think she went through enough. Another person said, I think he basically should have the book thrown at him, but anything to keep her off the stand. She doesn't need to relive it with everybody watching her. And I couldn't agree more.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And it was. I mean, he has the book tattooed on his forehead. It was thrown very hard at him.

[James Petragallo]

Very hard. Right in the middle of it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

It says the book on his forehead.

[James Petragallo]

It says no parole on his forehead. Another person said, I think it's great. I hope they fry his ass when they get to the federal end of it. Another person said, quote, I guess I'm all for her not testifying. And if they can give him the death penalty.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, no.

[James Petragallo]

Another person. Fuck are you talking about another person? How this works, dude, no, it's a deal. That's the point. Lisa Humphrey, a resident of Coeur d' Alene, said, I think he should be put to death, period. There should be no right to a plea. The family wouldn't let her testify anyway. But they would have if there was a trial because without her, they don't have the same case. They would. Evidence. It's called evidence. You are ignorant twat. You fucking idiot. That's why I gave her name.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You can't just take a potato peeler to people and no. And just do it until they die.

[James Petragallo]

No. In my opinion, Lisa Humphrey of Coeur d' Alene is an ignorant twat.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I hope she's moved since then. Can't show her face in public anymore.

[James Petragallo]

I hope so. Another woman said, I think it was a good decision. It saves the county some Money and lets the federal charges go for the death penalty. And another person said they shouldn't plea bargain with him at all. He should get the fullest extent of the law, which he is. And then another guy. This is the dumbest thing. This is by far the dumbest thing anyone could have said. Quote, this is bullshit. Now we're paying to keep him alive. Do you know what it would have cost for death penalty appeals? You would have been paying a hot. That's what I mean. These people are. Some people are so emotional, they can't even see. Even if it's all about money, they can't see. Well, that saves a lot. They don't even see that. They're like, well, no, I gotta pay for this. Well, you'll pay a lot. You know what it costs to keep someone on death row? About 10 times what it costs for a regular prisoner. Fucking stupid.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This is bullshit.

[James Petragallo]

This is bullshit. Meanwhile, the father of the dead children wants this.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The father of the dead children wants it scrawled out that he wants this on a whiteboard because he can't speak.

[James Petragallo]

So the deal allows the state to hold a death sentence trial over Duncan's head in the event that he's not convicted or sentenced to death in federal court. So they have a deal where they can come back and re sentence him if it doesn't work out like that. So someone's gonna give him the death penalty is what the deal is.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's gonna die in there.

[James Petragallo]

Yes. Some of the people are too ignorant to read that far down in the article though. Shasta would not have to testify in that hearing too. So they would just stipulate to the facts. Now Duncan must cooperate with county authorities investigating the murder kidnap case. They said that Duncan's lawyer, a public defender, met Friday to hammer out the agreements. He said a lot of hard work went into it. I guess so. And they said that Shasta will never be required to relive the events of 2005 in a courtroom, just only in.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Her head for the rest of her fucking.

[James Petragallo]

However, he admitted that it's likely she'll be called to testify against him in any federal prosecution. That's just by the state. They said that the death penalty was never negotiable in this case. And also they demanded that Shasta must not have to testify. And Duncan needed to agree to 3 back to back to back life sentences. Duncan's attorney said, it's been a long, difficult road. I'm happy it's over. And said that it was a good deal or I wouldn't have recommended it. It and said that his client decided to plead guilty because he said his client wanted to save her from testifying. The lawyer said Mr. Duncan wanted it to be known that he entered into this because he felt that the community and the families of the victim and especially Steve and Shasta Groni, had been through enough and he didn't want to put them through anymore.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Also, I'm fox, so also I'm real fucked.

[James Petragallo]

And wow. They. That's crazy. They said that. He even said. The lawyer said his client's intention was to return Shasta to her father. That's why he was driving that direction. And the grandmother, Shasta's grandmother said, I don't care what he has to say. Which is the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I don't care where he was going. I don't care what he has to say.

[James Petragallo]

Don't give a shit about that guy. Yeah. So they said already the defense had spent $400,000 on the case and would likely have spent another half a million on the trial. So this saved all of that, plus. Plus whatever. Now federal charges are going to happen and yeah, grand jury is expected to hear evidence of all of this shit. Duncan. With the crime stemming from kidnapping of the children, including the murder of Dylan, sexual abuse of both children and child exploitation charges, and the department, the prosecutors have received permission from the Department of Justice to seek the death penalty as well. The. His public defender said, and he got a good deal on the state case. And here we are. So under the final agreement, Duncan, who pleaded guilty to this will, doesn't have to turn over how to get into his encrypted computer files to prosecutors.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Why?

[James Petragallo]

Don't know. They were seized from his home. And an earlier plea agreement offered by Duncan's attorney that was rejected by the prosecutor would have required Duncan to give the password key for the encryption. Somehow that fell off, off the table here. That's interesting. But the. So they said that we negotiated. Some things came in and some things came out. One of the lawyers said. So under this. That the. Under this agreement, his federal public defender, Robert Pevin, is the only person who will be provided Duncan's password key.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

The lawyer said, I have access to the encrypted files and how I choose to use them, I don't know yet. And he said he's already seen the files. And he said, I'm in no hurry to go look again. Disgusting.

[Jimmy Whisman]

In other words, that's how bad it is. Also, how about, don't be a dickhead, give those to police. You Fucking.

[James Petragallo]

He also said, well, he's his lawyer. He can't. Goes against his job, really. He doesn't work for society. He works for a client. Get him out. That's his job.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's in no hurry to look at it. Why would he tell us that? He's seen it then?

[James Petragallo]

Fuck you, dude, for a reason. He said there's a possibility the files could be used as leverage, he said, in the federal trial. He said, if they're interested, and it's certainly something I talked to them about. He's saying it's so bad to try to bait the feds into saying we'll make a deal if we can get at those files. That's the point that he's going for here. So he's selling it hard. Yeah, so they said the state resolved the case, but we're looking into putting a case together federally and all of that. So how hard is this shit to crack these encrypted files?

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, we've got pretty good people in the case, right?

[James Petragallo]

The FBI is in it. They said basically, encrypting a computer file said consists of basically you just take the text and run it through an encryption file that turns it into gobbledygook. Breaking that code has to deal with how many random number strings you can generate in a period of time. The general feeling is that nothing's impossible, but depending on the encryption algorithms and size of the password, it could take a while.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, but it's block spot. We can do that.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. He said, well, this is the FBI. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you're saying the files were blocked?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Everybody can. Every fucking housewife in the country had a blog, spot blog about their fucking recipes.

[James Petragallo]

It's not on there, though. These are encrypted files on his hard drive.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So he's. He's turned it into something entirely different.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, he has those, but he has his own blog that he keeps offline to his own shit. And they said that he estimates it could take years depending on the capabilities and. Oh, he's a state.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Computer science. He's a computer science guy.

[James Petragallo]

Exactly. He was about to graduate, so he knows what he's doing. He said, I would hope that the FBI will have better equipment than anyone else. And they said that it doesn't take a computer science degree to encrypt files. He said the concept is going to be part of any computer science work. There's several products on the market that will do it. Other cases now. Okay, because now the feds are bringing that in. The Anthony Martinez and Sammy Joe White and Carmen Cubias in 1996. They said, One of our biggest goals of our overall investigation is to account for his whereabouts every single day he was out of custody. We've made some great strides, but there's some gaps. And they said their FBI would welcome anything that can tighten up that passcode or that timeline. So, 2008, he pleads guilty federally to 10 counts. Yeah. Kidnapping, sexual abuse, you name it. Murder, everything. Here he faces a death sentence on three of the felonies. Kidnapping resulting in death, sexual exploitation of a child resulting in death, and using a firearm. And in relation to the crime of violence resulting in death. He also pleaded guilty to kidnapping, two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, being a felon in possession of a firearm, transportation of a stolen firearm, and transporting a stolen vehicle. Shot. The plea means that Shasta, who's 11 now, it. Will be spared having to testify again. 2008, federal sentencing. Dylan has his acting. Or Dylan Duncan is acting as his own attorney now. You know he's a true narcissistic asshole when he goes, I can. I'll handle this. I got this. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. He dismissed his attorneys and chose to represent himself. His attorneys objected, saying he's incompetent to do so. And the district court ordered an evaluation and said, he's good. Let him do it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Let him have it. Who cares?

[James Petragallo]

Yep. Psychiatrists working with the prosecution have diagnosed Duncan with pedophilia, sexual sadism disorder, and antisocial personality disorder with narcissistic traits. But say he's legally sane. Just a real asshole.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Terrific.

[James Petragallo]

That's just a real jerk. So. So, yeah, I'll read from an article about this hearing. Glum federal jurors listened to her testimony, but several looked away from her and across the room at Joseph Duncan, who told the FBI he kidnapped two girls on a Seattle street and was killed with a crowbar. He killed those girls with a crowbar, by the way.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Get out of here.

[James Petragallo]

Beat them to death with a fucking crowbar. So their mother gets on the stand. Yeah. The. The jury of nine men and three women will decide whether Duncan should die for the kidnap, torture murder of Dylan Groan Grony. So here we go. They're trying to prove future dangerousness. And by that, they're introducing the uncharged, as of yet cases of Martinez and the two girls to show he's dangerous. It is allowed into court even. Even after a big argument, because they said it is not relevant to the prison setting context. It's undoubtedly prejudicial that's what his attorney said. But the attorney, district attorney, U.S. attorney, said it was a continuing pattern of violence. That's a concern even in a prison setting, he said. So the judge said, yep, that's. We agree with you, the prosecutor. So the stories of the three murders don't show. Don't just show danger. Duncan's a danger to children. And the evidence in this case is highly relevant in that it corroborates the government's argument that it shows a pattern of violence. Throughout his adult life. Duncan's choice of weapons has included anything at hand with which he could administer blunt force also. And there's plenty of things to hit people with in prison. So, yeah. They also noted that Duncan was on a rampage against society. They said Mr. Duncan's own words show that he calculates and plans his opportunities to get evil. He was acting as his own attorney. And he said one of the judge's statements was inaccurate. He said, I've never said that. I'm on a vendetta. I was, but I'm no longer. I just wanted that clarified. And the judge said, yeah, noted, asshole. Great.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Jury comes back, three hours of deliberation here, and they sentence him to, you, sir, may fuck off. Death penalty times three. Yeah, times three on that. And sentenced to an additional three consecutive terms of life without parole also. So he's got six consecutive lives without parole and three death penalties. He could kill an entire baseball team. That's nine people complete, nine completely lost lives. A whole baseball team wiped out.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's in so much trouble.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, yeah.

[Jimmy Whisman]

So when you get those, do you serve your state time and then go to fed, or do you go straight to the federal system?

[James Petragallo]

I think he's gonna end up in the federal system, if I'm not mistaken. We'll talk about it though, April. Yes, he'll end up in the federal custody because he's got higher charges, higher penalties there. He's got death penalty there, so they get to keep an eye on him. April 2011, Anthony Martinez case. And the states love that too, because then they don't have to pay for. So works out great. Anthony Martinez here. Duncan was returned to Riverside county to stand trial for that murder after the federal case in 2011, he pled guilty to Anthony Martinez's murder again. You, sir, again, fuck off. Life in prison with. With the possibility of parole for that one. Total sentences for this asshole. Here we go on death row times three, with 11 life sentences and three death sentences. And he will be sent to the penitentiary in Terre Haute, Louis, Indiana, yeah. Which is a federal joint. That's a shit one. I think that's where Gotti was. I think that's where John Gotti was shitty.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I'm pretty sure that's where the dude from Chicago that had born to raise hell on his arm.

[James Petragallo]

Yes, that's where he.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What is it?

[James Petragallo]

I said probably. I think you're right. Oh, no, I don't know his name. Spectre.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, it is.

[James Petragallo]

Robert. There you go. Yeah, right. Spectre. Phil Spector's the.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Both Specters. Bad people. You're thinking of Robert Spector, right?

[James Petragallo]

Richard Spector.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Richard Speck.

[James Petragallo]

Speck. That's Spec. That's. Yeah, we're thinking of Phil Spector. It's Richard Speck. He's the one with the tits. Yes, he got tits later.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The black guy's leg.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, that's the one. So Duncan, standby counsel, filed a notice of appeal. And Duncan subsequently wrote to the court and informed them him that any appeal that was taken on will be against his wishes. He doesn't want to appeal.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Okay.

[James Petragallo]

In 2011, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's decision to permit Duncan to represent himself without first holding a hearing as to his confidence competence to do so, and remanded him for a hearing on this issue. So anyway, the appeal decision, a federal judge ruled that he was mentally competent when he gave up his rights to appeal the death sentence. So he doesn't have to have appeals. Go rot in prison.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Now, in the media, this has inspired a lot of works of shit. Here, an episode of Law and Order svu. A Kentucky author, Karen Robards, said the grony case gave her the idea to make child sex slavery part of the storyline in her newest novel. Yeah, that sounds great. That's a page turner you got there. Jesus Christ.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Happy ending story. Holy.

[James Petragallo]

I couldn't wait for this to be over. Putting this together, I. I didn't want to write more about it and read. Good luck. Never get a wink, this woman said. What made Shasta stand out is that when she was rescued, it became obvious that the man who had taken her and killed the rest of her family, including her brother with her, was a nutcase if there ever was one. You don't get. Really, you think?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Shocking.

[James Petragallo]

Now, after being in prison, Duncan maintains the blog spot website titled Joseph E. Duncan III Returns to the web from Federal Death Row to expose the meaning of fifth mail. Okay, okay. All the content on the site was posted by someone using the pseudonym Silenced, who presumably received letters from Duncan to post on the site on his behalf. This is. This happens a lot in prison. I read a book about a guy who was in prison and he would write all this stuff, send it to people, send it to people who would then put it out for him. So he explains it as this. Quote, the fifth nail is the one that we drive into our own soul. It is the nail that destroys us and causes us to be reborn at the same time. Okay. That's what he writes. All right. Right.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Christian thing, huh?

[James Petragallo]

Not really. Let's. Let's find out here. I believe. Okay. 2012. Saturday, June 23, 2012 Here is one of his blog postings. And this is. By the way, the Patreon we're going to do is going to be diving deep into his blog and finding weird shit. Holy shit. Do you just want to hear what this nut. Nut fucking has to say? So he basically wants to start a sex offenders club.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He wants. He wants. He wants a real name.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. Yeah. He wants. Sex Offender Society.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

Quote the Sex Offender Society SOS is an organization of registered sex offenders. It does not matter if you have not ever committed. If you have or have not ever committed a sex crime, you can register as a sex offender at our website or in person at one of our Pride Parade booths. Sex Offender Pride Free. Free SOS T shirts will be given away this year to all new registrants at the Seattle, San Francisco and Minneapolis parade booths. The T shirts read Registered Sex Offender Keep Keep women and children away. Men preferred in parentheses.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Jesus Christ.

[James Petragallo]

SOS is light hearted but provides real support and information for all registered sex offenders, criminal or not. Not just gays. Our organization is founded in the future. In other words, it doesn't exist. In other words, this is not a real thing. He just made this up and wants it to exist and is based on the simple belief that not all. That all people. Wow. Based on the simple belief that all people are sex offenders and all sex offenders are people.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I mean, one of those is true.

[James Petragallo]

He said. Note. SOS does not advocate or condone sex crime or any sexual behavior that compromises another person's freedom to choose their own behavior. Okay? This is. This is infuriating. Okay. Tuesday, October 4, 2011 the title of this blog is Dylan was a bully.

[Jimmy Whisman]

What?

[James Petragallo]

He murdered a nine year old and he's gonna talk shit about him.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's gonna piss on his gray in front of us.

[James Petragallo]

Oh, man. Quote I've been reading hundreds of pages of newspaper articles about the child molester killer, Joseph E. Duncan III, going back to May 2005 since my arrest. I have generally been unable to follow the press and. Or just not interested. So I didn't know, for example, about Michael Anthony Mullen, the man who murdered two men who were registered sex offenders in Bellingham, Washington. According to the article which I just read today, for the first time, Mr. Mullen wanted to, quote, send a message to sex offenders. Because what of what he had read in the papers about the Joseph Duncan murder sex abuse case? I actually applaud Mr. Mullen for at least acting on what he believed. Even though what he believed was a bunch of lies fed to him by our industrious, quote, free press. At least he had the courage to take some action. And hence direct the responsibility for what he perceived as wrong with the world. He writes like Sarah Boone. He really like those letters from Sarah Boone to the judge. With, like, these little snarky things. Like, no one's gonna notice that. Like, you got one over on somebody. Fuck you. You. He apparently later decided that spending pretty much the rest of his life in prison labeled a murderer. Was a bit more responsibility than he bargained for. So he murdered one more person. Himself. I don't mean to call him a coward for killing himself in a way that took courage to do. I just wish this present world were not such that people like Mr. Mullen are taught to think in terms of victims and offenders. This is crazy, dude. His shit is crazy. He said. You are either one or the other, according to popular sentiment. But in the real world, it's almost impossible to be one or the other. As I think the demise of Mr. Mullen clearly shows. Mr. Mullen lamented the brutal death of Dylan Groney, who I personally murdered in the name of my own deluded sense of justice. Calling Dylan a hero. Even though Mr. Mullen never met the boy. Mullen did not see himself as a bad guy at all. Writing according to the article. I care too much. If anything, I've always hated bullies. And pedophiles are the worst kind. I wonder what Mr. Mullen would have thought if he had met any one of the numerous smaller and weaker boys at Dillon's school. That Dylan used to get in trouble for beating up just because they were dweebos. So Dylan himself told. Now you're gonna say shit that. No, that he can't even. Fucking asshole. Wow. He goes on to say, I don't mean to dishonor Dylan's memory. Oh, okay. Yeah. And he certainly did not deserve what I did to him. But the truth is, Dylan was a classic playground bully. And everyone who knew him Knew it. He was fucking nine. Who cares? He was nine. Whatever he is now, he's not gonna be that in five years. He's nine. That's crazy. He doesn't even have pubes yet. What are we talking about? Um. Jesus Christ. That's a fact that you'll never see in the papers. And it's a fact that might have kept Mr. Mullen from becoming the very thing he hated. A bully. If it had been reported, he would have said, oh, good, I'm glad the kid's dead and not went and killed pedophiles. If we want to have a truly free press, then we must allow the press to report the truth. But we don't. Instead, we want to judge everything that's reported, just as these words here will be judged instead of hurt, even though I'm stating simple truths with no other motive than to expose the lies. And we do not honor Dylan, who was a real child and human being, not some fictitious angel who always smiled and never hurt anyone. We cannot honor his memory with a lie. So I'm honoring him here as no one else dares with the truth. Dylan was a playground bully. What does that change?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Playground man. He's a child.

[James Petragallo]

He's nine. He's.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He said, nana, boo. Boo. Fuck you, man.

[James Petragallo]

And I knew kids. I remember kids who were like. Like that in elementary school. They were bullies that were completely different by fucking 10th grade. Completely different. Someone punched them in the face and they stopped. That's what happens. Oh, my God. Okay, here is a blog he wrote about his SU or SVU episode that they did. Law and Order svu. Yeah, he watched it, I guess. Here, this is from 2015. SVU. Flattery. Question mark. They say that mimicry is the highest form of flattery. I wonder if that applies when a popular TV show like Law & Order SVU makes an episode based on your crimes the way they did mine. The episode I'm referring to was actually a rare two parter, though only the first part, an entire episode, was dedicated to making a monster out of me so that the SVU heroes could come to the rescue and save the little girl in the end. Yeah, that's what happened. You're a monster and you stole a girl. The second part of the second episode was all about the aftermath caused in the first part. Police fantasy shows like Law and Order are known to take their story ideas from real life crimes. But of course, they rewrite the story to fit the theme of the show. That is good guys versus bad guys. Guys, you know, people who don't kill kids versus people who kill kids.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bad guys.

[James Petragallo]

Wow. And suit the main character's location. In my case, they made the semi rural home that I invaded into an inner city apartment. The kidnapped. The kidnapped children's older brother found murdered in the home became an older sister. And instead of a loose pet dog alerting the neighbor that something was awry, it was a loose pet bird. Despite all the change. Because they had to make it in New York City, that's why not rural Idaho, despite all the Idaho. Did I say Ohio? Okay, good. Okay, good. Despite all that. I'm fucking questioning myself after before, when I said website instead of campsite during all the changes they made to the make my crime appear in the hero's domain, the crime itself and the criminal were clearly copied from the news. The family's home was surveyed and invaded by a mob monster that murdered the parents and teenage siblings solely in order to kidnap the younger children to keep for his sexual pleasure. What's wrong there? That seems right. The children, a boy and a girl the same ages as the victim in my crimes, were then taken to a remote location, an abandoned warehouse in the city instead of a forest in Montana, and repeatedly raped until one day they were spotted in public and the SVU heroes were called to the rescue and the TV go get him, fucking Maloney. In the TV version of my crime, however, the boy was killed publicly in order to allow the man to escape briefly with the girl. And the girl was rescued later after the heroes sleuthed out the secluded warehouse and killed the monster. It's not all the similarities to my crime or crimes that make this show interesting to me. It's the differences. Why, for example, did they choose a bird instead of two large dogs as pets for the victim's family? Perhaps because large dogs would have made the monster appear bold instead of cowardly and weak and. Okay, and I think it was in New York City. So you're more likely to have a bird in your small apartment than two large fucking dogs. That's probably why. Just, you know, makes sense. And why did they depict the man as someone who uncontrollably lusts after sex with children? Gee, I don't know. Because you constantly rape kids, probably.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You murder children after you rape them, and that's. Yeah, constantly.

[James Petragallo]

This is something that I've never done, okay? I have no problem at all controlling my sexual behavior and never have. Very few so called sex offenders ever do. Despite the myth made by popular TV shows like this, in SVU fantasy world, the man is shown bragging about as many victims in videotapes from his treatment days. I, of course, had many, quote, victims too. If you count all the. All the older children who satisfied their own sexual curiosity at my expense when I was a child as my victims. The way the popular news agencies reported after my arrest.

[Jimmy Whisman]

You being a monster doesn't make those people not monsters.

[James Petragallo]

Exactly. You're all fucked up. That's the problem. The news reports are basically were based on supposedly confidential records from my own data and treatment. But I never bragged about my crimes or glorified them in any way. And yet, in the TV story, the man is depicted as a monster with only one craving to rape and torture children. Well, your actions certainly show that Meloni.

[Jimmy Whisman]

And his dump truck have to save somebody.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, exactly. In fact, the final scenes of the part of part one episode, while the monster is holding a gun or knife or gun or something, I can't even really remember, to the head of one of our heroes, he starts to rant about how much he enjoys raping children. It's precisely scenes like that that really make me question the mentality of the people who watch this crap, not to mention the people who write and produce it. Monsters like that simply can't and don't exist in the real world. Psychologists have known for a long time, though it seems even entire factions of them have somehow forgotten this fact that sex crimes are almost never abandoned about sex. They're about power and control over some perceived source of pain and suffering that's pathologically associated with sex. Yes, but they are associated, so you can't control the one that. That triggers the other. That's the problem.

[Jimmy Whisman]

The most humiliating thing that you can do to a person involves sex and sexual behavior. Therefore, that's why it's linked, you fucking idiot. I thought we all agreed on that.

[James Petragallo]

He's like, why don't they understand what I'm saying? So how in the world can so many people still find sex fiend monsters so believable? It's like believing in sea monsters, which is actually a better analogy than it might seem at first, at least from a sociological and historical perspective. Okay. It reminds me of a show that I see sometimes on the Mexican channel Galavision called La Rosa de Guadalupe, in which problems are miraculously resolved after someone prays to the Virgin Mary for help.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Help.

[James Petragallo]

The only difference is that the hero is Guadalupe, the spirit of the Virgin Mary instead of an SVU police squad. In both shows, the heroes and villains are pathologically unrealistic, and both shows have Devoted fan base made up of, quote, true believers.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This guy just hates Mariska Hargitay.

[James Petragallo]

He hates hate. Now I also, and I love SVU and I've seen a million episodes of it, but I have a problem with how, hey, listen. How serious they, they are most of the time. Those cops that do sexual special victim shit, they don't do it for 25 years. They do it for like five years and they're fucking burnt out. And they go to homicide after that. That's what it works is they're like, well, fuck this, I can't deal with this shit. Yeah, okay, this is. I'm going to read a short section from a blog he wrote about Criminal Minds, the show Criminal Minds. He's really obsessed with this. Criminal Minds, we all have one is what it's called. The simple fact that there's a popular television series called Criminal Minds is indicative of the depth of ignorance that permeates our culture. It doesn't matter what the program is about. The title alone portrays the ignorance of which I speak. In another age, titles such as Negro Mentality or Jew Psychology once indicated the same kind of ignorance. Ignorance. It's the ignorance of prejudice and self righteous superiority. The only purpose such program titles serve is to bespeak a class of people who are deemed inferior and undesirable so the rest can feel superior and accepted, even though the traits that define the marginalized class are superficial and meaningless.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Whoa, he can't lump him. He's being behind bars. A lot of those guys just end up going, all the greatest injustices are in here. Here you can't compare yourself to a guy that got caught with a stolen car on his third strike and now gets light. It's a different guy. That's a different guy.

[James Petragallo]

You want to hear him double down on what he just said?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Please do.

[James Petragallo]

We know today that Negroes aren't the simple and stupid cretins they were once commonly believed to be. Instead, the culture itself that, that depicted them as such literally defined and created the circumstances that supported the appearance of the inferior Negro mentality. Yes, but you rape kids. You're not just born black. You're fucking a kid raper. What the fuck are you talking about?

[Jimmy Whisman]

You can't scream white privilege.

[James Petragallo]

Good God and Jewish people aren't the greedy and single minded herd animals that they were once commonly held to be. Not just by Nazis, but by major political factions in the United States and other countries as well. Prior to this, prior to the, the so called Holocaust, we know now that the science that was used to support both of these prejudicial illusions was itself the cause of so much ignorance. Negro brains are not, in fact, less functional than Caucasian brains. And Jewish culture does not, in fact, center around money and wealth. Negroes and Jews are collectively no different than any other people on earth, aside from the color of their skin or religious belief. And so criminals, quote unquote, are no different than anyone else as well, aside from the arbitrary fact that they were caught and convicted of a crime. It's not arbitrary, though. That's how we judge people. By their actions, not their right.

[Jimmy Whisman]

But listen to Martin Luther King's statement.

[James Petragallo]

That's what I'm just saying.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yes, we judge them by their character, friend.

[James Petragallo]

The content of their character. Oh, my God. He said, I personally use the term criminal to refer to people in general, not just those who've been caught and convicted. In my book, we're all criminal by nature, not by arbitrary law and circumstance. I believe someday, perhaps even someday soon, I will have a lot of company.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, I agree. We're probably all criminals at some. At some level, we've done something. Everybody's broken the law.

[James Petragallo]

Never kidnapped a kid and held her for two months and.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah, kidnapped two children and shot one of them in the fucking head. Shotgun, man.

[James Petragallo]

I don't even want to be around kids. I can't stand it. The fuck do I want to be around them for? Can't smoke weed around them or anything. Get out of here. You guys are lame.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Watch you guys near me when I'm around.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, get the fuck out of here. I want to put the righteous gemstones on. You won't understand it. Uncle Baby Billy's Bible. Bonkers. Is happening. I gotta watch it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This show is bananas. He said, wanna give an old man a blowjob? Suck an old man's dick.

[James Petragallo]

That's what he said. Suck an old man's dick. My favorite. My favorite line in the whole show is, why the fuck you mumbling you teen? Just. That's the greatest line of all time. Why the fuck are you mumbling you? Changes. Okay, so how is Shasta doing? Yeah, okay. Maybe talk about Shasta.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Should we. I don't.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. She's out in public. She's talking to people. She's doing interviews.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I would never seen us. I've seen all these videos of. Of that smart girl talking. I've never heard of this girl and never seen her talk. And I don't. If she doesn't want to talk, I.

[James Petragallo]

Don'T want to know she does. She's out. I would definitely, you know me, dude. I'm not getting names out, you know. No, she's talking. All right, so this is 2015. So Shasta, 10 years later, she's 19 and lives in Treasure Valley. And she said that, quote, I think the things that happen like that, you can't really forget about them. I think that the images will always be vivid in your mind or I know they're in my mind. She said, I feel like I'm doing pretty good, but I do have bouts of depression. I have PTSD and bipolar disorder. She said she fell into drugs at 12. What choice would she have? I mean, just to get. Just to silence whatever's going on in your head. I mean, she said, that's when I started smoking marijuana and drinking. It actually made me feel really good because I didn't have to focus on all the stuff that was going on in my life at that point. I mean, there was still court stuff going on with Joseph Duncan and counseling stuff I had to do. When I was 14, it was my first time ever doing meth.

[Jimmy Whisman]

No.

[James Petragallo]

And for four years after that, it was meth. Pretty much anything I could get my hands on that made me feel like a different person I would do. In 2014, she landed in a juvenile detention center for a drug related crime. She served her sentence there. She talked about her struggles with drug abuse. She said that trying to deal with life as a, quote, celebrity victim was not easy because it keeps getting brought up. Yeah. So she said that her path began to unravel. She said she was, after a year in correctional facility, she was clean and sober. And she said, I actually came to a step down program that's in the Treasure Valley area and was there for four or five months. And they helped me get on my feet, get a place and just work on my sobriety. Seemed like a lot of people here see me and recognize me, but they're like, let's let her live her life, life. So she said now she's been sober for two years, is expecting a baby boy in March. And she said that. She said, I guess for a long time I always had this feeling that I couldn't have kids. Duncan stole my innocence. He stole my family from me, but he's not going to steal the fact that I can bring children into this world and that makes me happy. She said, I think it's just kind of, you know, that I lived for a reason. I know there's a reason I'm on this planet and I want to help other people. She says she wants to go to college and become a counselor. She said, I've had a lot of counselors that don't have a lot of experience with either troubled kid or kids that have gone through trauma. They're very inexperienced. I feel like I could help a lot of people. She also said she wants to write a book to inspire other survivors. She said, he doesn't define my life anymore. I'm not going to be victimized by someone who's already done so much in my life. She said that, you know, she always thinks about her dead brothers because she's got a baby that's going to be a boy coming, so she thinks about her dead brothers. A trust fund set up for Shasta right after she was rescued has been used for housing, therapy and counseling and other expenses through the years. It is dwindling and she doesn't have a lot of money at this point either. In 2015, she said, there's a lot of people who may want to reach out to help her. They said, you can visit her GoFundMe. She's got a baby registry and all this type of shit. They said, do you think that. What do you think's the right punishment for him rotting in prison? The death penalty? What would you like to see? And Shasta said, I agree with the death penalty, but I wish it was more like the older days death penalties. What does that mean? Drawn quarter him. I know that the two wrongs don't make a right, but I feel he should be able to feel what he put others through. Shasta has the right to feel like that.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah.

[James Petragallo]

I mean, she's was tortured. She said, on Saturday I'll be 26 weeks pregnant with my son. His name is Lorenzo. I don't know if it's just completely different. I feel like my whole mindset has changed now. I'm very focused on my son. Every time I make a decision, I think how this is going to impact my family. I think my mother instinct is kicking in. She also met Elizabeth Smart in 2012 at a conference and talked to that they talked together. She said, I really liked her. You could tell that nothing could tear her down and that her goal, she was so goal oriented and wanted to help others. She's definitely a part of my life in a way that she doesn't know about. Holy shit. This is fucking wild. So I have another blog here, but I think I'm gonna skip that blog because we're almost out of time here. But he's talking about that one is ridiculous. Okay. 2018 Shasta's family's house fight here. A house in Coeur d' Alene was supposed to be a gift for Shasta. Okay. But more than a decade later, the house is entangled in litigation and is likely to be sold.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh my God.

[James Petragallo]

Yeah. It's fucking ridiculous. It was held in a charitable trust. She and her father began living there in 2007 when she was 10. Now she's 21 and living in a Boise area. In the Boise area. Judge is expected to decide whether her family has any right to stay at the home. Steve. Her father, who battled throat cancer and lives on disability payments, was served an eviction notice last summer, sparking a legal battle. This is a fucking mess, man. That's wild. So they go all into that and that's a mess. She said I've always considered it to be our home, not just mine or the trusts. And it's my wish that my father continues to reside there as long as he wishes. They said once she moved out then they had to yank wasn't the father couldn't live there. Was only for her. Fucking ridiculous. It's asinine. So not sure exactly but he said I could be homeless in three weeks. Okay, one quick thing here. 2018 blog. Will the real perverts please stand up? Okay. The lie that the system wants us to believe is that consensual adult child sex is unnatural, unhealthy and harmful to the child. There's no such thing. No such thing, asshole. The so called victims are literally brainwashed into believing that they have been harmed. They're told what they should feel, think and even remember about the bad thing that's happened to them. If you've ever seen a video of the classic first interview of a child victim of sex abuse, then you've seen this happening. This goes on and on about how this is bullshit. Another article that I won't read is called Holy Children. Holy shit. And it's saying how we put children on this pedestal and they're actually pieces of shit. And this is ridiculous. They're not gods. They're nothing. They're fucking little people and fuck them basically. It's wild. I'll put that one in the. In the. In the Patreon then. Also, here's one. Pedophile hypocrisy. Why do. Why do women shave their body hair? Why do they use makeup to their eyes so their eyes look big, their cheeks flush and lips. Lips read. When a woman wants to appeal as a man, why does she revert to a girlishly high voice, including childish lilts and inflections complete with demure looks. All these things have one common factor. They all mimic the characteristics of sexually immature children. And yet in our culture, we accept a woman's attempt to deduce. I think he means seduce men with immature traits. So it were though it were perfectly natural, while at the same time condemn the men who dare to admit they're sexually aroused by real children and call them pedophiles. I'm not suggesting anything here about whether or not I'm right or wrong, only asking why. Because it is. Okay. 2019 federal executions resume yeah, yeah. After reading that. Fuck. Someone needs to kill this guy. He has a day to day on death row blog that we'll talk about on the, on the thing there. Kind of talks about how death row is and all that, that fucking bullshit there. And then early 2021, maybe there is a God. Duncan has terminal brain cancer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petragallo]

There you go, Jet. He's life expectancy of six to 12 months. They said.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Wow.

[James Petragallo]

March 28, 2021. Fucking dead. Didn't make it three months. Oh, wow. Dead as a fucking doornail. Wow. Anthony's mother, the kid he killed, said, the sun is brighter today. My soul is lighter. The world is a more beautiful place without that is Joseph Duncan 2024. Shasta's trailer burns down. This is so sad.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's. She's terrible.

[James Petragallo]

She now has four kids and a burned down trailer.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Oh my God.

[James Petragallo]

She has a Gofundme. She had reached as of April 4, 2024, she had reached 43,000 of $100,000 goal. But maybe we can help her out a little bit, this poor girl. And you can buy on Amazon volumes one through five of the fifth nail. The Journals of Joseph Edward Duncan the third.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Where the fuck does that go?

[James Petragallo]

Amazon hardcover, $31. I have no fucking idea. Hopefully to Shasta at this point. So anyway, there you go. There is Idaho and some crazy shit gonna get through the end real fucking quick here. Go to shut upandgivemerder.com get your tickets for live shows, rate, review, do all that shit we are at at small town. Murder on Instagram, at Smalltown Pot on Facebook for certain. Get Patreon patreon.com Crime in sports is where you get all the bonus material. 5 bucks and above get you to all sorts of hundreds of bonus episodes. New ones every other week. This week, which you're going to get for crime and sports. We're going to talk about soccer riots, the worst ones that have happened. You get access to that. And then for small town murder, we're going to go into this assholes blog even further and hear his crazy fox thoughts.com crimeinsports and you get a shout out, which is right now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the most wonderful goddamn people in the world who would never do any of the shit that happened today on this episode. Hit me with him right now.

[Jimmy Whisman]

This week's executive producer, Gary Howard. Happy hour checking in. And Menton. Mentone. I think it's Menton, Texas. That sounds so bleak. Oh, boy. Ashley McCann. Happy birthday, Ashley. Happy birthday.

[James Petragallo]

Happy birthday.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That's fantastic. Betty better beat it. I don't know what that means.

[James Petragallo]

Betty better beat it.

[Jimmy Whisman]

That sounds fantastic. Other producers this week are Peyton Meadows, Janice Hill, Jimmy Christman, the fellow that I went to high school with. Evidently somebody decided to donate in his name and his honor because I maybe hate him. Samantha Beckham. Michelle Aldrich. Sharon Yandol. Yes. Yandel Yandoli. Yandel. Matt Dennis. Jessica Hansen. Jill Sanders. Sylvia. Check, I think Danny Engel. Ingleby. Danny Engleby. Eric Metcalf. That. Not that one. Oh, it's Medcalf. Not with the.

[James Petragallo]

No, not the old punt returner. Got the old Browns punt returns.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Yeah. Jennifer Kaluzny. Carolyn with no last name. Audrey with no last name. Melinda Welch. Wheelless. Danielle Tamasazewski. Tama. Tama Tamazerski. Jesus Christ. Brooke with no last name. Jennifer Parrado. Emily Dobert. Karen Smith. Philly with no last name. Wanda Taylor. Chrissy Fitzgerald. Rob Thomas Thompson not All right, that. Who's Rob Thomas?

[James Petragallo]

That's the Matchbox 20 guy. Let's pick. From standing next to Sinbad, I'm always Sunny.

[Jimmy Whisman]

He's a big fan of ours. Johan Orenberg. Johan. Johan Ornberg Jr. With no last name. What'd you say?

[James Petragallo]

Johan.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Johan, Johan. That's what it is. Johan.

[James Petragallo]

Johan.

[Jimmy Whisman]

How American am I? Brittany Pollard. Warren Dudley. Hannah LeClaire. Dash Hugga. Hugaboom. Nicole Arrington. Mike Becker. DC Ashley H. Sarah Joy. Neil. Neil. Nelly. Nelly O. Jen o' Brien. Shell with no last name. Jonathan Lavelle. Brian Talbert. Sky. Sky Murphy. Jenna Rittenhouse. Vicki Stern. Jay Lenning. Laning. Maybe Haley Powell. Chris with no last name. Timothy Fraley. Luke Turner. Luke Peterson. Maureen Courtright. Ellen. Ellen. Ellen Maffey. Hardy. Christy Coffee with no last name. No, that is the last name. Haley with no last name. That's right. My brain was a name ahead. Kathleen Potts. Harry Rigolot. It feels like you're trying to get me to say something gross and I don't think it is. Stephanie Packard Andy Nelson Linda, Linda, Linda, Linda, Linda, Linda Mike Laney Katie Journey Christopher Jones Tim with no last name Steph Stephen T kdcs Sean with no last name Ali Cross Charles C Hill Memory Hess Christopher Mackey Big Perm 1970 man in space Saskia with no last name Kramer and his cougar milf I I mad I All right, okay, I'll take your word for it it Allie would know last name. Send some pictures. I gotta judge this if I gotta say it. Ty Wener, maybe it's Warner. I may have missed an R. That might be Ty Weiner, Jessica Lee, maybe Leah Samantha Baker Jason part party Pelio part of Pilo Brian Wilgis Ron with no last name John Palush Polachuck Kristen Thomas Laura Gangol Gongol Gator hater Mike with no last name Michael with no last name Steven Rasmussen John Bellade Blad blad Katie Souther Shane Rainy. Yeah, Rainey. What? All right. Amari Joy Burbridge. What the fuck? M. Freeman Gimme hot sauce.

[James Petragallo]

Working hard, Howard?

[Jimmy Whisman]

Is how is that dirty? Is that the how it sauce? I don't know. Yeah, Is it like filthy in like Britain or something? Jacob Schlamer, Summer Ross, Bridget Tune maybe Toonie John Lenderman, Tim Latta, Lupi Latulip Latulip Nancy Meese, Courtney Jack Way, Nicole Falcone, Stacy Andrews, Ben Rash, Summer Barnes, Vivian Harrah, HV Quay. I don't know what that means. Bailey Denim, Finn is God James. I just learned that today. Lucy Roberts, Alina Koskinen. Alina Kayla Christensen, Samantha Responti, Christy Higgins, Chris Orr, Cedar Ribadou, Holly Birdsall, Alyssa Alyssa Kitchen, Samantha Driscoll, Demetrius Davis, Blaze Bradshaw, Robert Sanborn, Dallas Martin, Colleen Berg, Samantha with no last name Jeannie Enzi and all of our patrons. You're the best.

[James Petragallo]

Thank you. Thank you so much everybody. From the bottom of our cold dead hearts, we appreciate the fuck out of what you do for us. Please, please don't do anything bad to people or kids or anything else. We beg of you. You want to follow us on social media? Shut up and get givememurder.com drop down menus, take you where you want to go. Thank you so much and until next week everybody, it has been our pleasure.

[Jimmy Whisman]

Bye.

[James Petragallo]

If you like small town murder, you can listen early and ad free now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey last year, long crime brought you the trial that captivated the nation.

[Jimmy Whisman]

She's accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston.

[James Petragallo]

Police officer John o' Keefe, with her car. Karen Reid is is arrested and charged with second degree murder. The six week trial resulted in anything but resolution. We continue to find ourselves at an impasse. I'm declaring a mistrial in this case. But now the case is back in the spotlight and one question still lingers. Did Karen Reed kill John o' Keefe?

[Jimmy Whisman]

The evidence is overwhelming that Karen Reed is innocent. How does it feel to be a cop killer?

[James Petragallo]

Karen I'm Kristin Thorne, investigative reporter with Law and Crime and host of the podcast the Retrial. This isn't just a retrial. It's a second chance at the truth. I have nothing to hide. My life is in the balance and it shouldn't be.

[Jimmy Whisman]

I just want people to go back to who the victim is in this.

[James Petragallo]

It's not her. Listen to episodes of the Retrial exclusively and ad free on Wondery.