- In May 2005, eight-year-old Shasta Groene witnessed the aftermath of serial killer Joseph Edward Duncan III murdering her family before abducting her and her nine-year-old brother, Dylan
- After 47 days in captivity, Shasta was rescued from a restaurant in Idaho
- Now an adult, Shasta has become a mother and reclaimed her identity beyond being known as a victim
Here Shasta Groene, 29 tells her story in her own words.
If you’re affected by this story and need support, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 (Aus) or Safe To Talk on 0800 044 334 (NZ).
Shrieking with glee, I splashed water at my brother Dylan, then nine.
It was a sunny day, and we were cooling off in a blow-up pool in the front yard of our house.
I was eight, and Dylan was my best friend.
‘Time to come inside,’ our mum Brenda, then 40, called out to us around lunchtime.
‘Just five more minutes!’ we begged.
Later that night, we joined Mum, her fiancé Mark, 37, and our older brother Slade, 13, for a family dinner.
Mum and my dad, Steve, had divorced when I was only two years old and we saw him occasionally.
Several hours later, Dylan and I headed to our shared bedroom, before Mum came to tuck us in for the night.
‘Love you, Mum,’ I called out to her, before I snuggled down to drift off to sleep for the night.
‘Love you,’ Dylan echoed.
It felt like I’d just closed my eyes when I was shaken awake around midnight.
Mum was in our room, standing over our bunk bed.
She was crying silently.
‘Someone is in the house,’ she whispered to Dylan and me. ‘You have to get up,’ she said, leading us to the living room.
Still half asleep, it felt like a dream.
Dylan and I sleepily padded down the hallway behind Mum.
As we reached the living room, my mind tried to register the scene that I saw before me.
Next to Mark and Slade was a man I’d never seen before.
He was dressed in all black, wearing a mask and gloves, and holding a sawn-off shotgun.
He’d bound Mark and Slade’s hands and feet together with cable ties.
‘Lie on the ground, hands behind you,’ the masked man instructed me, Mum and Dylan.
Trying to calm my breathing, I lay down on my stomach next to Mark and Slade.
The carpet scratched my face, as the man tightened the plastic ties around my wrists and ankles.
They were so tight they pinched.
As he then moved to tie Mum, she tripped and fell head first into the glass coffee table.
Mark cried out, desperate to help her but unable to move.
‘Don’t touch her,’ he pleaded to the intruder.
Lying with my eyes closed tightly, I felt a hand tap me on the shoulder.
As I turned my head to look up, the man loomed over me.
He had his finger over his mouth, telling me to be quiet.
Then he picked me up and carried me to the backyard.
The ground was damp as I was made to lie on the grass on my stomach, facing away from the house.
I lay perfectly still, frozen with fear.
Moments later he returned with Dylan.
‘I’m scared,’ I whispered to my brother.
‘Me too,’ he replied, huddling close to me.
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Then we heard a sickening thump, thump, thump, from inside the house, followed by an eerie silence.
They’re okay. They must be, I told myself, thinking of my family.
Peeking up from the grass, I saw my older brother Slade stumble from the house.
He’d managed to break free and was staggering towards us when the man reappeared.
I watched in horror as he hit Slade over and over with a claw hammer.
Slade, bloodied, stumbled to the picnic table in our yard.
He looked straight at me then, and I watched, terrified, as the light drained from my brother’s eyes.
The man didn’t even turn back as he stormed towards me and Dylan.
He reached me first, hauling me up off the ground and into the front footwell of our family car that was parked on the driveway.
Next he threw Dylan into the vehicle’s backseat, before starting up the engine and speeding off down the road.
A few minutes later he pulled over and transferred us into a red Jeep Cherokee.
Lying on the floor of the front seat, I was frozen with fear.
We drove for what felt like hours, the terrain getting more rugged as we bounced around.
I forced myself to remember every bump, bend and turn in the road.
When we were far enough out of town, the man let me sit up for a few seconds – long enough for me to read the sign we passed that read Lolo National Forest.
It was around two hours from our home in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, US.
Peering up at the huge pine trees that towered above us, I knew we were in a remote area.
When he stopped and we finally got out of the car, deep within the forest, with Dylan and I still bound, six hours had passed.
The sky was beginning to lighten as the man set up a tent.
He told us to call him ‘Jet’ or ‘Daddy’. I’d later learn his name was Joseph Edward Duncan.
‘If you try to run, I’ll shoot you,’ he warned, nursing a sawn-off shotgun in his hands.
Terrified, Dylan and I stayed quiet and followed his rules. We were given water and a fruit cup.
Jet then fastened dog collars around our necks with a long chain, attached to the tent, so we couldn’t go too far.
He made us write letters to our dad, telling him we were okay.
Dear Dad, I miss you very much, I wrote.
It gave me hope he was just holding us to ransom. He wanted money, not to kill us.
As night fell, Dylan and I huddled together.
Jet slept next to us, so we whispered.
‘I promise we’re going to make it out alive,’ I vowed to Dylan, wrapping his pinky in mine.
But as Jet’s true colours started to emerge, I began to think that death would have been a better option.
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In the days that followed, we endured endless torture and abuse.
Jet sexually assaulted us both every day. Sometimes multiple times a day.
I knew there was no point begging Jet to stop.
Instead, I just squeezed my eyes closed and prayed for it to be over quickly.
But it was nothing compared to the guilt I felt when he did the same to Dylan.
Sitting outside the tent, I’d cover my ears to block it all out.
Sometimes Jet gave us vodka to make us groggy. And other times, he filmed us using a camcorder.
There was mental torture as well.
On good days Jet was nice to us, and we were allowed to play together like we did at home.
But on bad days we were punching bags for him.
I was forced to watch as Jet tied Dylan to a big log and beat him on the back with a stick until the stick broke.
It was horrible.
Sometimes he’d apologise, raving about God and forgiveness.
But then he’d still do it again anyway.
‘You’re strong,’ I’d remind Dylan after yet another beating.
‘Don’t give up hope.’
Every now and then, Jet would travel into town, leaving us on our own.
‘We could run,’ I said to Dylan.
‘We could,’ he agreed.
But we knew we’d never make it far enough on foot before he came back.
As two terrorised kids, held hostage by evil, all we could do was sit and hope someone was coming to save us…
As the days dragged on, hope of being rescued dwindled.
Dylan and I did our best to stay on Jet’s good side, acting on our best behaviour. But his moods were turbulent.
One day, about four weeks after we were taken, Jet returned from town with lollies for us.
‘Want to swap?’ Dylan asked me, just as Jet started talking too.
‘How dare you speak over me!’ Jet spat, as he flew into a rage.
He brandished the claw hammer in our faces, ranting about disrespect.
Sickeningly it was like he viewed me as his girlfriend. But if it meant that we had a chance to escape…
‘This is what I killed your parents with. I’m gonna kill you with it too,’ he spat, eyes wide with rage.
Dylan and I were both crying hard now. I hadn’t let myself believe it. Now I knew for sure that Mum, Mark and Slade were gone.
I could feel my heart breaking. I needed to protect my brother from the same fate.
To take the attention off Dylan, I’d ask Jet questions about his life.
‘Tell me about your family,’ I said. ‘Can I meet them one day?’
‘When I take you home to meet my mum, you can,’ he replied, shifting his focus to me.
Sickeningly it was like he viewed me as his girlfriend. But if it meant that we had a chance to escape…
Slowly, I convinced Jet that he and I had a special bond and he could trust me.
When he’d try and undress Dylan, I’d tell him to touch me instead. Jet’s twisted brain thought it was because I wanted him to, but I was just trying to spare my brother the pain.
‘When will we go home?’ I asked often.
‘Soon,’ he’d grunt.
Then one day, he had a proposition.
If we caught the squirrel that’d been loitering around our campsite for food, he’d let us go home.
For weeks Dylan and I worked tirelessly building traps out of fishing wire, thin rope and sticks to make a cage which, ironically, would be our ticket to freedom.
Finally, around five weeks after we were taken, we caught it.
‘Great, you can go home,’ Jet said when he saw we’d been successful.
To celebrate, mid-afternoon, Jet cracked a beer – and gave us straight vodka.
Finishing his beer, he went rummaging through the big plastic box of supplies in the boot of his car, with Dylan by his side.
We’re going home! I thought.
Walking towards my brother, I wrapped him in a hug, then held his hand.
‘Where’s the beer?’ I heard Jet snap.
Then a deafening bang rang out, making my ears ring. Suddenly, I felt Dylan’s hand slip from mine. Shaking, I watched in horror as Dylan fell to his knees.
He was trying to hold his insides. Evil Jet had shot Dylan in the stomach.
‘Help me!’ Dylan screamed.
As Jet held the gun to Dylan’s head, it felt like time stood still.
Frozen with fear, I watched helplessly as he pulled the trigger, and Dylan fell to the ground.
He was gone. And I was covered in his blood.
‘Oh God,’ Jet sobbed. ‘It was an accident,’ he stammered, claiming that the gun had been inside the plastic box and had gone off, firing through the tub and hitting my precious brother.
It felt like my soul had left my body as Jet made me move Dylan’s body onto a tarp, placing his unsent letters to Dad on top of him, along with my blood-soaked shoes.
Then he set it all on fire, forcing me to sit and watch as my brother’s body was reduced to ash.
I cried until I ran out of tears.
Afterwards, Jet filled three garbage bags with Dylan’s remains.
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We dumped them into a pipe that washed down to the river. When we got back to our campsite, Jet said we were leaving.
‘This place has too much evil,’ he said.
But the evil went wherever my family’s cruel killer did… he was a sick monster.
We drove for a while to another campsite.
It was busier than the last, so Jet made me tell people my name was Katie.
By now, I’d given up all hope I’d ever get out alive.
‘You taught me how to love,’ Jet told me one evening. He was truly twisted.
He explained how, after spotting me and Dylan playing in the front yard in our swimmers, he returned that night, with night vision goggles, a gun, hammer, and duct tape.
‘I needed you,’ he said. Shivers ran down my spine.
He’d drink most nights, insisting I join him. In time I learned how to pretend to swig from the bottle and spit it back in, so I could stay sober. One night he confessed that my brother wasn’t the only child he’d abused and murdered.
‘There were three others,’ he slurred.
‘A 10-year-old boy in California, and two girls, 11 and nine, in Seattle.’
I made sure to remember their names – Anthony Martinez, Sammiejo White and Carmen Cubias.
I was being held captive by a serial killer.
Then Jet told me he had to kill me too. ‘How do you want to die? Do you want to be shot or I can strangle you with a rope?’ he asked.
It was an impossible decision. But I didn’t want to die in agony like Dylan.
‘Rope,’ I conceded. If he strangled me, it’d buy me precious seconds to try to talk him out of it. If he shot me, it’d be instant.
No child should ever have to think like that.
I could smell the beer on his breath as he wrapped the length of coarse rope around my neck and pulled it tightly.
Clawing at the rope, my eyes bulging as I fought for air, I begged for my life. ‘Please don’t Jet,’ I choked.
At least I’ll be reunited with my family, I thought, as my vision went white.
Am I dead? I wondered, as the pain from the rope around my neck, that was meant to kill me, eased.
‘How do you want to die? Do you want to be shot or I can strangle you with a rope?’ he asked.
‘I can’t do this,’ Jet cried.
Coughing and wheezing, I lay on my back in the grass. I was alive.
‘When you call me Jet, I can tell you really care about me,’ he sobbed.
But all I cared about was gaining his trust so I could gain my freedom…and get justice for my family.
The next day, nearly seven weeks since he’d abducted us, he told me we were leaving. He wanted me to meet his mum, as if we were a couple.
‘Of course I will meet her,’ I smiled.
On the way, we stopped for petrol at a servo.
Outside, a police officer in his car had his head down, busy in a report he was filling out.
As we strolled past his open window, I willed him to look up and notice me.
Inside the store, I bit my tongue as we wandered the aisles, fighting the urge to scream, ‘Help!’
But when we reached the register I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. There on the counter was a missing persons poster of me and Dylan. I shuddered as Jet placed the money down, right on top of my photo.
I felt a glimmer of hope – people were looking for us. But it seemed that everyone was too busy to realise I was standing right in front of them.
Would I ever make it out alive? I wondered.
Back in the car, my stomach grumbled. I was shocked when Jet insisted we stop for food.
As we drove toward the restaurant, we passed a huge billboard with my and Dylan’s faces on it.
Missing Children, it read, promising a reward for information on our whereabouts. Jet seemed to not have seen it.
Around 2am we finally arrived at a 24-hour restaurant. My clothes – blue shorts and a blue T-shirt – were filthy.
I hoped someone would notice how out of place I looked.
The waitress took our orders. Before she left, she gave me a strange look.
Around 30 minutes later, I was slurping down my vanilla milkshake when I saw a police officer enter the restaurant. Approaching our table, the officer turned to me.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked me gently.
‘Katie,’ I dutifully replied.
Jet nodded, encouraging me. Heart hammering in my chest, I knew this was my last chance.
I had to come clean.
‘It’s Shasta,’ I squeaked.
The police wasted no time arresting Jet.
‘Visit me in prison,’ he whispered as he was led away in handcuffs.
After 47 days in captivity, I was finally free.
Placed in the back of the cop car, I sent a silent prayer to my brother.
I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Dylan, I thought, racked with guilt.
I was taken to a local medical centre. During a check over, doctors discovered serious internal tears from Jet’s horrific abuse.
Rushed into surgery, I required 175 stitches.
When I woke from surgery my dad, Steve 48, was at my bedside.
‘Daddy,’ I cried, wrapping my arms around him.
Police had told Dad that Dylan was dead. ‘I’m here,’ he comforted me.
I was so malnourished I needed a feeding tube. And due to my injuries, I was told I’d never be able to have children.
Shortly after, police came to interview me about what happened. They’d been looking for me and Dylan since neighbours alerted them to blood on our door the day after we were taken.
I relived every horrible detail. And I also told them about the other children Duncan had confessed to killing.
Two weeks later, with Dad by my side, I was given day leave from the hospital and returned to the woods to help police find my brother Dylan’s remains. I recalled each turn and bump on the road, leading us
straight back to the area where we’d been held.
Dad was able to retrieve some of Dylan’s ashes from the site.
Police also recovered videos of our abuse.
After a month, I left hospital and moved in with Dad and his partner, Kathy.
In October 2006, Joseph Edward Duncan III, then 43, pleaded guilty in an Idaho court to the murders of my mum Brenda, brother Slade, and Mark McKenzie, so he could kidnap Dylan and me for sex.
More than a year on, in December 2007, Duncan pleaded guilty to 10 federal counts in relation to the kidnapping and sexual abuse of me and Dylan, including kidnapping resulting in death, sexual exploitation
of a child resulting in death, and using a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence resulting in death.
His sentencing was delayed until August 2008, when he was sentenced to death.
In 2011, while on death row, he pleaded guilty to the 1997 murder of Anthony Martinez, resulting in an additional life sentence.
Due to the sentences he’d already received, he wasn’t prosecuted for the murders of Sammiejo White and Carmen Cubias, although he described to investigators how he’d committed the crimes.
While it was some comfort that he was in prison and couldn’t hurt any more children, it took me years to work through my pain.
From age 12, I turned to drugs and alcohol to numb myself. I needed to talk about what happened to me, but people didn’t want to hear about it.
I went to therapy, but many therapists told me my trauma was ‘too much’.
In 2016, when I was 19, Dad and I started a petition for a law to keep convicted sex offenders – like Duncan – behind bars.
When he killed my family, he was on the run from a child molestation charge. If laws like this had existed, my family would be alive.
Eventually I married in 2018 and, defying doctors’ expectations, started a family – all things Dylan never got to do. I carried so much guilt for not saving him.
My heart broke again when Dad passed in December 2019 after a long battle with throat cancer. He was 62.
We amassed 51,370 signatures. But without Dad to spur on my fight, I didn’t have the strength to push it forward.
I lost myself again to addiction, and my marriage ended.
When I heard that Duncan had died in March 2021, aged 58, from terminal brain cancer, it felt like my soul was finally free. I dropped to my knees and sobbed. He was the worst kind of evil that anyone could imagine.
In the years that followed, I worked with author Gregg Olsen who helped turn my story into a book Out of the Woods: A Girl, a Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home.
Released in August 2025, it felt freeing to finally speak my truth, no matter how dark it as, or heartbreaking.
Sharing my full story is helping me heal. For so long, I battled with shame. I want survivors to know they’re not alone.
Dylan is always on my mind, and in my heart. I see glimpses of him in my sons, Lorenzo, 10, Omarito, eight, Natas, seven, Sylan, four, and Drakeo, three.
They’re my reason to live, my lights in the darkness.
They’re young but already asking questions. I want them to know their mother’s story, to understand why I am the way I am – my strictness, and why they can’t walk to the park alone – and I hope they find strength in my journey.
Over 20 years later, I’m sober, strong, resilient, and feel I can survive anything.
On hard days I remind myself I stared death in the face. Nothing can break me now.
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