Speaker 1: On a quiet Idaho night in May of two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, an innocent family was attacked and slaughtered inside
Speaker 1: their own home. Then their two youngest children were taken
Speaker 1: and vanished without a trace. What began as a routine
Speaker 1: welfare check would unravel into one of the most disturbing
Speaker 1: child abduction cases in modern American history, a hunt that
Speaker 1: crossed state lines, exposed years of hidden crimes, and also
Speaker 1: shocked even seasoned FBI agents. And at the center of
Speaker 1: it all was an eight year old girl forced to
Speaker 1: survive the unthinkable. This is the survival story of Shasta Grony.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
Speaker 2: and Grim.
Speaker 1: A true crime podcasting. The following podcast content. I have
Speaker 1: material intended audience listener.
Speaker 2: That felt kind of lonely.
Speaker 1: Our intro it felt lonely.
Speaker 2: Without Jacko getting used to that.
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. Halloween weeks over and done
Speaker 1: with and onto a new season, specifically Mariah Carey season.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, tell me I'm wrong, I think. Well I'm
Speaker 2: not quite there yet.
Speaker 1: Well I'm not either, but the memes and stuff were
Speaker 1: certainly there, and the stores you go to, Oh, man
Speaker 1: man full swing Christmas.
Speaker 2: We took our Halloween decorations down. I guess I should
Speaker 2: have been the grallowing decorations down, but I'm not ready
Speaker 2: to put Christmas up yet. No, it would be a
Speaker 2: little while. I think it's nice when I don't know,
Speaker 2: when you have the house, it just looks so empty
Speaker 2: and clean, almost after you on decrave right, holiday, less.
Speaker 1: Clutter, it's more organized. It's a breath of fresh air.
Speaker 1: Getting that space again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm going to enjoy that for a little bit,
Speaker 2: I think and.
Speaker 1: Totally understand that. So we have a whack ton of
Speaker 1: people to thank over on Patreon. We didn't think during
Speaker 1: Halloween week. We were a little bit preoccupied with everything
Speaker 1: going on. So it's back into the regular scheduled things
Speaker 1: today and this is going to be I think officially
Speaker 1: our longest list of patrons ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, gosh, yeah, we get quite a
Speaker 2: few people sign up, but I didn't realize it was
Speaker 2: that many in that week. So that's fricking awesome.
Speaker 1: It is, so bear with me. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: through a long list of some amazing people, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to do my best on all of your names.
Speaker 1: So shout out to Tracy Ferguson, Kim Rosencranz, Cat Cox,
Speaker 1: Jamie mcgar, Melissa M. Marshmallow, Stephanie Lynz seventy nine, Crystal Centrin,
Speaker 1: Ca Von, Sherry Harmison, Dimitri Miltrin, Jamie Hill, Deborah rob
Speaker 1: Cindy Brunson, Laurie Diltz, Lyssa Sirah Vultanan, Sarah Hill, Melissa Bowling, Medley,
Speaker 1: Natasha Hankem, Kathy, Emily Hendrix, Stephanie Schneider, Kelly Powers, Dave Langford,
Speaker 1: Pam Armstrong, Brianna aupencru Elizabeth hann Becks, Whittacombe, and Autumn Banks.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, you amazing, amazing people.
Speaker 2: Dan Dang, that's a good list of humans right there.
Speaker 1: It is a good list of humans, and they got
Speaker 1: some pretty cool stuff going through October. Though we've been
Speaker 1: silent the last couple days recouping from everything.
Speaker 2: Wow. I mean, there's a lot for people to catch
Speaker 2: up onto, so I think that's understandable.
Speaker 1: That's definitely true. But we got some cool stuff lined
Speaker 1: up both in the podcast here and over on Patreon,
Speaker 1: So be sure to stay tuned into the podcast and
Speaker 1: check out Patreon if you're interested. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: we should mosey on over to our case for the day.
Speaker 2: What do you think, back to normal schedule and scheduled programming.
Speaker 1: Normally scheduled programming. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: let's do it. So this is a survival story, and
Speaker 1: I thought it'd be good to come back into everything
Speaker 1: with a survival story.
Speaker 2: That's a good idea.
Speaker 1: But it comes with a warning. This does discuss the
Speaker 1: abuse and sexual abuse of children. Oh gosh, So I
Speaker 1: keep details very limited in that aspect. Okay, okay, you
Speaker 1: ready for this? Yep? Now. Before the world knew her name,
Speaker 1: before the headlines and Amber alerts, before the word survivor
Speaker 1: was ever even attached to an eight year old girl,
Speaker 1: Shasta Gronie was just a kid growing up in a
Speaker 1: small house tucked into the trees along Wolf Lodge Bay
Speaker 1: Road in northern Idaho. Her mother, Brenda Groenei, was forty.
Speaker 1: She was a barefoot in the summer natural living, make
Speaker 1: anything work kind of mom, always planting her feet in
Speaker 1: the dirt like she needed the earth to really steady
Speaker 1: and ground her. It was said she could take a
Speaker 1: rundown house, a thrift store couch, and a handful of
Speaker 1: wildflowers and somehow make it feel warm and inviting, like
Speaker 1: a home, like someplace to live.
Speaker 2: I love that. I want to be like that when
Speaker 2: I grow up.
Speaker 1: That's something to strive for. Honestly, Yeah, she was part hippie,
Speaker 1: part force of nature, and she didn't fuss over appearances.
Speaker 1: She made things work. Her fiance, Mark Kenzie, wasn't loud
Speaker 1: or dramatic. He was a kind of man who fixed
Speaker 1: what he broke, helped who needed helping, and kept the
Speaker 1: house running with quiet reliability. He loved her kids like
Speaker 1: they were his own, and they trusted him the way
Speaker 1: children do when a man has proven himself to be safe.
Speaker 1: Three of Brenda's five children still lived at home, thirteen
Speaker 1: year old Slade the oldest, who was already doing yardwork
Speaker 1: for neighbors and teasing his siblings in the way that
Speaker 1: only big brothers really can. Then there was nine year
Speaker 1: old Dylan, who was gentle, sensitive and openly attached to
Speaker 1: his mom, a kid who cried, easily, hugged off, and
Speaker 1: defended his little sister when she needed him. And then
Speaker 1: there was Shasta, the youngest, eight years old and small
Speaker 1: for her age, but already sharper and stronger than anyone
Speaker 1: really realized. Their two oldest brothers had already moved out,
Speaker 1: so the house most days was just the five of them.
Speaker 1: There were school, movies, chores, and of course the kids
Speaker 1: playing outside barefoot like their mother often did, and nobody
Speaker 1: thought twice about it. They lived near the woods, surrounded
Speaker 1: by tall pines, and the kind of trust in the
Speaker 1: surroundings that comes from believing danger is something that happened
Speaker 1: somewhere else. The back door to their home, in fact,
Speaker 1: stayed unlocked, so that the dogs could go in and
Speaker 1: out at night freely. It was the kind of household
Speaker 1: you don't really worry about danger with, because danger, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, was far away, not here, happened to other
Speaker 1: people somewhere else, on another street and another neighborhood and
Speaker 1: another home. Except little did they know danger was actually here,
Speaker 1: and it was already here. One afternoon, Brenda looked out
Speaker 1: the window and she froze in place. There was a
Speaker 1: man on the hill behind the house. He wasn't walking
Speaker 1: or exploring, but he was watching. She pointed him out
Speaker 1: to Mark, who ran inside to grab binoculars, but by
Speaker 1: the time he got back, the man was gone, swallowed
Speaker 1: by trees and who knows where. They tried to laugh
Speaker 1: it off. Maybe it was a hunter passing through, or
Speaker 1: a hiker who had wandered a little bit too far
Speaker 1: off the trail. Maybe she'd even imagined it. Who knows.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was just nothing. But it wasn't nothing. The
Speaker 1: man on the hill was someone by the name of
Speaker 1: Joseph Edward Duncan, a convicted child predator out on bail.
Speaker 1: He was driving a stolen jeep with fake license plates
Speaker 1: and wearing night vision goggles and already studying their family
Speaker 1: like a hunter stalking his prey.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I hate this.
Speaker 1: He watched them play in the yard, he learned where
Speaker 1: each child slept, and he returned night after night, staying
Speaker 1: long enough to memorize the rhythms of their life. He
Speaker 1: didn't want money or material things. He wanted children, and
Speaker 1: in the Grony family he found exactly what he was
Speaker 1: looking for.
Speaker 2: That's some creepy shit right there.
Speaker 1: This man is scum of scum.
Speaker 2: I will say that now well, and honestly, if you
Speaker 2: just see him once like that, you would, you know,
Speaker 2: just push it aside like oh, or just make excuses.
Speaker 1: Right for sure, because it could be I mean, you're
Speaker 1: out in the bush, people walk around, hiking, they hunt.
Speaker 1: Who knows, right, Maybe it's a neighbor surveying his property
Speaker 1: lines and gets up to yours and he's trying to
Speaker 1: figure out where it is. Whatever acred you have, who's
Speaker 1: to say? Now, it's when patterns start to emerge that
Speaker 1: you start to think twice about things. But unfortunately they
Speaker 1: didn't have that insight. They only saw him the once so.
Speaker 2: One time, so it's yeah, it's easy to just be like, oh,
Speaker 2: that was nothing. It was just kind of creepy, but nothing, yeap.
Speaker 1: Now, as I mentioned, the back door even stayed un lock,
Speaker 1: so the dogs would come and go, and no one
Speaker 1: thought twice about it. But Joseph, well, he saw an opportunity.
Speaker 1: May fifteenth, two thousand and five, was supposed to end
Speaker 1: like any other night at the Grony home. The family
Speaker 1: had spent the evening at a neighbor's barbecue, having fun,
Speaker 1: and when they finally drove back to Wolf Lodge, it
Speaker 1: was already dark. No one knows exactly when Joseph slipped
Speaker 1: into that house, only that he had already been inside
Speaker 1: before learning where each person slept and mapping out the
Speaker 1: rooms exactly, regardless of how long. Once inside he waited,
Speaker 1: he brought with them zip ties, gloves, a hammer, and
Speaker 1: a sawn off shotgun. Somewhere between midnight and morning, Brenda
Speaker 1: woke up first. She must have sent something was wrong,
Speaker 1: a sound, a shadow, or the unmistakable feeling that they
Speaker 1: weren't alone, just something. She went straight for her children's
Speaker 1: room and shook Shasta and Dylan awake, whispering the kind
Speaker 1: of no child should ever have to hear that someone
Speaker 1: is in the house. The three of them walked into
Speaker 1: the living room, where Joseph was already waiting, with gloved
Speaker 1: hands and a gun in his grip. They were now
Speaker 1: confronted with an armed intruder, and they were powerless. Now
Speaker 1: things are a little bit vague here on how this
Speaker 1: exactly played out, but we are following the events as
Speaker 1: eight year old Shasta recalls it. And once the family
Speaker 1: was all gathered, he then zip tied Branda first, then Mark,
Speaker 1: then Slade. The two youngest children were then sent outside,
Speaker 1: barefoot into the night, told to sit in the yard
Speaker 1: while the rest of the family was dealt with. They
Speaker 1: heard what happened next, but they didn't see it. The
Speaker 1: thuds the screams and the sickening, dull rhythm of a
Speaker 1: hammer striking flesh again and again coming from inside the house.
Speaker 1: Now at one point during the attack, thirteen year old
Speaker 1: Slade somehow made it outside, injured, staggering in a daze
Speaker 1: and covered in blood, before Joseph drug him back inside
Speaker 1: and finished what he started. Oh No, By the time
Speaker 1: the house went quiet, three members of the family were dead,
Speaker 1: and the two youngest children were alive, sitting outside in
Speaker 1: the dark. But Joseph wasn't done. He then put both
Speaker 1: Shasta and Dylan into the back of his jeep and
Speaker 1: drove away from Wolf Lodge, past the darkened houses, pasted
Speaker 1: the neighbors who'd soon be waking to sirens the past
Speaker 1: life they had known hours earlier. While the siblings sat
Speaker 1: frozen in the back seat, the dogs they barked in
Speaker 1: the otherwise silent house, and early the next morning, the
Speaker 1: neighbor who owed sleigh money came to the door. He
Speaker 1: was ready to hand him a few dollars for mowing
Speaker 1: his lawn as he was doing yardwork for neighbors. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he came, and he knocked, but there was no answer
Speaker 1: in the home. Now on the driveway. The cars were
Speaker 1: all still there, but there was no answer. In fact,
Speaker 1: there there's even some doors in the vehicles that were
Speaker 1: left to jar, a little bit left open. Something didn't
Speaker 1: seem right, something was wrong, so he called the police.
Speaker 1: When officers arrived and entered the home on the morning
Speaker 1: of May sixteenth, two thousand and five, for that welfare check,
Speaker 1: they found what they later described as a scene quote
Speaker 1: beyond brutal. Brenda and slade laid in the kitchen, mark
Speaker 1: in the living room, and there was blood everywhere, bloody footprints,
Speaker 1: handprints splattered all over. It was an absolute massacre in
Speaker 1: that home. But there was no sign of Shasta or Dylan.
Speaker 2: It would be a complete nightmare in there.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's exactly what it was. It was clear this
Speaker 1: wasn't a burglary gone wrong or a fight that spiraled
Speaker 1: out of control. It was a targeted, violent event in
Speaker 1: a way that didn't match anything local law enforcement had
Speaker 1: ever seen before. Three people brutally bludgeoned and murdered and
Speaker 1: two young children missing, no signs of forced entry, no
Speaker 1: obvious motive, nothing, and the killer hadn't even tried to
Speaker 1: cover up or hide what he'd done. Zip Ties were
Speaker 1: still left on the bodies, binding them together. Blood was
Speaker 1: still fresh, like I said, footprints, handprints. The back door
Speaker 1: was unlocked. The family car sat in the driveway, each
Speaker 1: door left slightly open, like the killer walked away, not
Speaker 1: in a hurry, but with a purpose, after looking around
Speaker 1: and snooping in things.
Speaker 2: Well, I have to say too, the one son that
Speaker 2: he murdered was a child. Yes, I think you had
Speaker 2: said he was like thirteen. That's a kid, Yes, definitely,
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: But he had taken the two youngest, is what he Yeah? Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: the crime scene didn't just tell investigators what had happened,
Speaker 1: It told them someone had taken time to do it.
Speaker 1: Shasta and Dylan, of course, quickly became the priority right
Speaker 1: out of the gate. They were assumed alive until proven otherwise,
Speaker 1: and within hours an Amber alert went out statewide and
Speaker 1: then nationally. Their faces were on TV, on highway billboards,
Speaker 1: and inconvenience store windows and posters. Everyone was looking for
Speaker 1: a little girl with wide brown eyes and a boy
Speaker 1: with a shy smile. While detectives tried to figure out
Speaker 1: who would want to murder a family and take these
Speaker 1: two children. But the first forty eight hours went nowhere.
Speaker 1: There was no forced entry, no obvious enemies, no ransom call,
Speaker 1: no fingerprints that matched anyone in the system, no vehicle
Speaker 1: spotted leaving the scene, nothing, No neighbors heard anything unusual
Speaker 1: except the family dogs beginning to bark in the early
Speaker 1: morning darkness. The killer walked out of that house like
Speaker 1: a ghost, and investigators worked their way outwards in circles
Speaker 1: trying to find something, starting with people closest to the family,
Speaker 1: you know, friends or ex's, coworkers, neighbors, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: They questioned everyone in the area, including one man named
Speaker 1: Concrete Bob Lutner, who was a rough edged local with
Speaker 1: a criminal record and a rumored debt to Brendan Mark.
Speaker 1: He had apparently visited the family the same day that
Speaker 1: they were murdered, and he owed them approximately two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: He owned tools, he had a temper, and he knew
Speaker 1: the house, so police announced him as a person of interest.
Speaker 1: Within hours of that being announced, Concrete Bob himself walked
Speaker 1: into the police station on his own accord and demanded
Speaker 1: to be interviewed, and he wanted to prove he wasn't
Speaker 1: anywhere near the house when the murders happened now as
Speaker 1: alibi checked out and there was no physical evidence that
Speaker 1: tied him to the scene. So just like that, the
Speaker 1: only lead they had, well it disappeared. By day three,
Speaker 1: national media had arrived, Satellite trucks lined the rural roads.
Speaker 1: Reporters described the scene as if it were straight out
Speaker 1: of a horror movie, and the FBI joined the case.
Speaker 1: A one hundred thousand dollars reward was posted. Search teams
Speaker 1: combed the mountains, riverbanks, and logging roads around Wolf Lodge,
Speaker 1: trying to find any clue or even potentially bodies, but
Speaker 1: there was nothing. Not a footprint or sightings, no vehicle trace.
Speaker 1: The two children were just gone. Now. While Idaho detectives
Speaker 1: were busy trying to find anything they could, the man
Speaker 1: that they were after, Joseph Edward Duncan, was calm. He
Speaker 1: was driving and eating at gas stations, and in the
Speaker 1: back of his seat of that stolen red jeep, two
Speaker 1: children were being taken deeper into a nightmare. Now. At
Speaker 1: the time the murders took place, Joseph was already a
Speaker 1: fugitive from another state, a registered Level three sex offender
Speaker 1: who'd been released on bail just weeks earlier after being
Speaker 1: charged with molesting two boys in Minnesota.
Speaker 2: Oh, man, there's no reason that man should be released then.
Speaker 1: Just you wait, he should be behind bars, like you said,
Speaker 1: awaiting trial. But a judge allowed him out on a
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars bail, and a local businessman, convinced Joseph
Speaker 1: had turned his life around, paid it and set him free. Wow,
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars bail for a level three registered sex offender,
Speaker 1: the highest level.
Speaker 2: I mean, gosh, it's like, you don't want to blame anyone,
Speaker 2: but you kind of have to blame those two, the
Speaker 2: judge and that business man, because they like, they enabled
Speaker 2: him to be out of jail.
Speaker 1: They one percent? Did I agree wholeheartedly?
Speaker 2: Holy shit? So like blood is on their hands now.
Speaker 1: Joseph's criminal record didn't look like the profile of someone
Speaker 1: who might reoffend, which is kind of like, you know
Speaker 1: the question, oh, would Joseph reoffend if we let him
Speaker 1: out on a fifteen thousand dollars bail? Well, his criminal
Speaker 1: record actually looked more like the portfolio of someone who
Speaker 1: never stopped offending. By age sixteen, he'd already raped more
Speaker 1: than a dozen boys.
Speaker 2: What the shit.
Speaker 1: At seventeen, he abducted and raped another child at gunpoint
Speaker 1: and was sentenced to twenty years in prison, where he
Speaker 1: served only fourteen. Each time he got out, he escalated,
Speaker 1: gun stolen children, assaulted probation, violated state lines, crossed, re arrested, released, repeat, Oh.
Speaker 2: My gosh, this is not okay. I feel like anyone
Speaker 2: just that has even once heard a child should just
Speaker 2: like never again. You just don't ever get an opportunity again.
Speaker 1: I agree. No amount of supervision, no amount of therapy
Speaker 1: or anything could change an individual like this. The system
Speaker 1: kept sending him back out. The system was failing repeatedly,
Speaker 1: and he kept doing exactly what everyone feared he would do,
Speaker 1: which is reoffend. In the spring of two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: when the Minnesota judge freed him, he didn't go home.
Speaker 1: He didn't wait to face a new trial. I want
Speaker 1: to know what he did. He rented a jeep, stole
Speaker 1: license plates, bought night vision goggles, a camcorder, restraints, weapons,
Speaker 1: and camping supplies, and started driving west. This was immediate
Speaker 1: upon his release. This is what he did.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this makes me sick. Yeah, like this, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's just the fact that this could have been really
Speaker 2: quite easily prevented.
Speaker 1: I yeah, but this is the problem. It's these these
Speaker 1: reoffenders that are being released back into the world consistently,
Speaker 1: the system not doing their job, the system failing and
Speaker 1: allowing them to do these things to human beings who
Speaker 1: are out there in the world and innocent.
Speaker 2: Yeah. See, I honestly don't get mad like with I
Speaker 2: mean the system, I guess I get mad at But
Speaker 2: like judges and stuff, for example, I don't generally like
Speaker 2: get mad their job is hard, but in this instance,
Speaker 2: like I'm like pissed about this, Like that is just
Speaker 2: not okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, I generally don't judge a judge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the different they have a hard job, but this
Speaker 2: is just this is wrong.
Speaker 1: Now, this judge fucking failed hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, after driving with the stolen jeep and all this
Speaker 1: new supplies, when he reached Idaho, he didn't choose a
Speaker 1: target with a history behind it. He just kept his
Speaker 1: eyes open. There was no grudge or debt or any
Speaker 1: connection of any kind. He simply passed a small house
Speaker 1: on a quiet rural road and saw two children, a
Speaker 1: girl and a boy, playing outside in the sun, and
Speaker 1: decided those were the ones, really, and it's that randomness
Speaker 1: that haunted a lot of people later. The Grony family
Speaker 1: didn't know him, deadn't crossed him. They never even saw
Speaker 1: him before, or he even realized he was coming. When
Speaker 1: Joseph took Shasta and her brother Dylan, he told them
Speaker 1: they would die too if they fought him, and so
Speaker 1: they sat there, silent and shaking as they drove for
Speaker 1: hours into the mountains and into the forest. Their world
Speaker 1: became trees, dirt, and a tent and cold air with
Speaker 1: the man who stole them. The first campsite was deep
Speaker 1: in the wilderness outside Saint Regis, Montana, isolated enough that
Speaker 1: no one would hear a scream or stumble upon them
Speaker 1: by accident. Joseph immediately gave them rules, things like when
Speaker 1: they could eat or sleep, or go walk, or even
Speaker 1: when they could talk. Everything was a test, and every
Speaker 1: failure had an extreme punishment and beating and abuse. He
Speaker 1: alternated between moments of kindness, letting them have marshmallow roasts
Speaker 1: and giving him soda, and then bursts of violence. But
Speaker 1: most horrific of all was the sexual assault that both
Speaker 1: children were subjected to. Now, as I mentioned at the
Speaker 1: very beginning. I'm not going to go into detail of
Speaker 1: the sexual assault, but just know it occurred and it.
Speaker 2: Was violent, which I mean, given what this piece of
Speaker 2: shit is, it's not surprising, I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Shasta noticed something early on. The more Joseph
Speaker 1: focused on Dylan, the more danger her brother was in,
Speaker 1: and so she did something no child should ever have
Speaker 1: to do. She began to make herself useful to the
Speaker 1: man who killed her family.
Speaker 2: Dang.
Speaker 1: She seemed to step up in situations, put herself in
Speaker 1: the line of fire. She laughed when he wanted her to.
Speaker 1: She asked him questions about his life. She pretended to
Speaker 1: trust him, she called him by his nickname, all to
Speaker 1: try and protect her brother. But Dylan was breaking. The abuse,
Speaker 1: the starvation, and the constant fear it began to hallow
Speaker 1: him out from the inside. Shasta could see it in
Speaker 1: his eyes, the way he stopped reacting, stopped hoping, trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, come up with an escape plan with a sister.
Speaker 1: She promised him over and over that she would get
Speaker 1: them both home, and then came a squirrel. Now Joseph
Speaker 1: told them that the squirrel, if they caught it, well,
Speaker 1: they could go home. Because the squirrel was ransacking their
Speaker 1: camp and bothering them, getting into food and all this
Speaker 1: sort of stuff lots. So if these two caught this
Speaker 1: squirrel and got rid of it, they were good to
Speaker 1: go home. That was the deal. And it was of
Speaker 1: course a lie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, lies for sure.
Speaker 1: And it was one of many lies. But to two
Speaker 1: starving children, terrified captured out being subject to all this
Speaker 1: in the bush, it was their saving grace. So they
Speaker 1: built a trap out of sticks and whatever they could,
Speaker 1: and after days of trying, they caught the squirrel.
Speaker 2: They're smart kids, say they are.
Speaker 1: Now. When this happened, they were elated. They thought they'd won.
Speaker 1: Dylan even hugged Shasta and saying like, we're going home,
Speaker 1: and in that moment the mood shifted. Joseph walked back
Speaker 1: to the jeep, where he kept a plastic storage box
Speaker 1: filled with various things, beer tools, rope, and the sawn
Speaker 1: off shotgun that he always traveled with At the jeep.
Speaker 1: The first blast shattered the illusion Dylan was over there
Speaker 1: with him, and Shasta didn't even understand what had happened.
Speaker 1: At first, she heard a loud boom and she ran
Speaker 1: around the jeep and saw Dylan lying on the ground bleeding.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. No.
Speaker 1: When she looked down there at Dylan, he was on
Speaker 1: the ground, shot in the stomach, bleeding fast, but still alive,
Speaker 1: still talking and begging for his life, saying please, don't please,
Speaker 1: I don't want to die, like literally begging for his life.
Speaker 2: After they just did they were successful at what he
Speaker 2: asked them to do. Correct, he just shoots them? Okay,
Speaker 2: holy shit, this is just so messed up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Joseph wasn't listening to his please. He walked over,
Speaker 1: reloaded the gun and with no hesitation, he lifted it,
Speaker 1: pressed it against the side of Dylan's head no, and
Speaker 1: pulled the trigger.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, she.
Speaker 1: Has to watch this happen. And she didn't scream, not
Speaker 1: because she didn't want to, but she couldn't. It was
Speaker 1: as if her body just shut down, like her brain
Speaker 1: refused to process one more impossible reality. Now. Joseph cried
Speaker 1: after doing this, and he claimed it was mercy, saying
Speaker 1: that the first shot was an accident and the second
Speaker 1: one was to end his pain. And it is believed
Speaker 1: that the shot in the stomach was not intentional, whether
Speaker 1: he had intended to still kill Dylan is unknown, but
Speaker 1: is believed that there was a gem in the gun
Speaker 1: of sorts, and the shot to the stomach was not
Speaker 1: an intentional shot. Okay, but it is believed he was
Speaker 1: most likely still going to kill Dylan. Why was going
Speaker 1: for the gun all that sort of stuff. Yeah, shot
Speaker 1: to the stomach is believed to not have been intentional.
Speaker 2: So this poor little girl just has now lost every
Speaker 2: single family member.
Speaker 1: Correct, and the one who was standing by her side,
Speaker 1: her brother, Dylan, was gone.
Speaker 2: I don't even know. Yeah, how could you even just
Speaker 2: like move forward with that?
Speaker 1: Knowing that well, in that moment, like she knew there
Speaker 1: was no escape coming. She understood the gravity of the situation,
Speaker 1: even at being eight years old. Yes, she knew there
Speaker 1: was no getting away. If she wanted to live. She
Speaker 1: knew this that she would have to make Joseph think
Speaker 1: he needed her. She's smart enough to figure this out.
Speaker 1: She needed to be his company, not a victim or
Speaker 1: a hostage. She needs to befriend him.
Speaker 2: Oh, the fact that a little eight year old has
Speaker 2: to figure this out just, oh, it's too much.
Speaker 1: So even after he killed her entire family, shooting her
Speaker 1: brother out there in the woods, and she's now alone
Speaker 1: with him, she stayed calm, She continued to hold conversations.
Speaker 1: She even smiled when he wanted her to smile, She listened.
Speaker 1: She made herself whatever he needed, whatever kind of human
Speaker 1: he needed her to be.
Speaker 2: How would she even know how to do that?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was the only thing that she
Speaker 1: had left in her though, the only fight she had,
Speaker 1: and it worked. Just days after killing Dylan, Joseph asked
Speaker 1: her a question. He asked her, do you want to
Speaker 1: meet my mother? It was the crack she was waiting for,
Speaker 1: and she said yes. And so, after more than a
Speaker 1: month in the woods with a monster, she found herself
Speaker 1: headed back to Idaho. In the early hours of July second,
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, the door of a Denny's in
Speaker 1: Cordelaine's swung open, and a little girl in pajama style
Speaker 1: kind of close walked in beside a man everyone initially
Speaker 1: assumed was her father. Now Shastagrony had been missing for
Speaker 1: forty seven days. At this point, her face was everywhere billboards,
Speaker 1: gas stations, nightly news broadcasts, you name it. There's flyers
Speaker 1: taped up in convenience stores. Most people had stopped believing
Speaker 1: that she was even alive at this point, and yet
Speaker 1: here she was this thin, quiet, pale little girl with
Speaker 1: her arms crossed in front of her, like she was
Speaker 1: trying to make herself smaller. Inside that Denny, she ordered
Speaker 1: herself a milkshake, and the waitress who was serving them
Speaker 1: Amber Denon. She couldn't stop staring. Something felt off. The
Speaker 1: girl didn't really look up, she didn't talk unless the
Speaker 1: man gave her permission to, and she sat stiff with
Speaker 1: eyes down on her shoulders, tight, not at all like
Speaker 1: a child going out on an outing with her dad.
Speaker 1: Getting a milkshake at Denny's. Yeah yeah, So Amber excused
Speaker 1: herself and went to the manager, and she told the
Speaker 1: manager that she believes that this girl looks a lot
Speaker 1: like that missing grony girl, and the manager agreed.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, she's angels.
Speaker 1: Hey wait, because the staff did some amazing stuff here.
Speaker 1: They didn't panic, but what they did was stall the
Speaker 1: food order to the table, and they called police quietly.
Speaker 1: So stalling gives the police more time to arrive and
Speaker 1: hold them there for longer. Not only that, but the
Speaker 1: staff positioned themselves near the exit so no one could
Speaker 1: slip out unnoticed, so they literally guarded the doors of
Speaker 1: this place. These Dennis employees.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, because it would have been so easy for
Speaker 2: them just head down to their job kind of thing,
Speaker 2: and not really the observant of the situation. So this
Speaker 2: is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Well, and not only that, they didn't have to put
Speaker 1: their bodies in the line. Yeah, what if he had
Speaker 1: a gun and ran for the door they're standing there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, okay, this is good.
Speaker 1: Eventually, the door to the restaurant opened and a Quardelaine
Speaker 1: police officer walked in. He walked straight to the table
Speaker 1: where they were sitting, crouched beside Shasta, and asked, what's
Speaker 1: your name? She looked at Joseph first, as if checking
Speaker 1: whether she was allowed to answer or not, and he nodded. Shasta.
Speaker 2: She said, oh my gosh, this could make me just
Speaker 2: sob rain.
Speaker 1: Now that single word broke six weeks of silence, and
Speaker 1: the spell Joseph had been holding over her was gone.
Speaker 1: Just like that, it was over. He went outside without
Speaker 1: a fight. Police cuffed him beside his stolen jeep. A
Speaker 1: search of that vehicle found restraints, weapons, night vision goggles,
Speaker 1: and of course, the sawn off shotgun. Meanwhile, inside the
Speaker 1: Denny's amber sat with Shasta at the booth and asked
Speaker 1: her if her brother was in the car, to which
Speaker 1: Shasta told her, no, he's in heaven.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, okay.
Speaker 1: By sunrise, Shasta was in a hospital, in a clean bed,
Speaker 1: clean clothes, with warm food. Her father, Steve Groeney, arrived
Speaker 1: and wrapped his arms around his little girl.
Speaker 2: Oh right, yes, okay. I was like, what the shit
Speaker 2: he died? But okay that was his stepfather, Yes.
Speaker 1: Her step So you did say that she lost her
Speaker 1: entire family. I did say, yes, she did earlier because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to give away the mouth that her
Speaker 1: father was in fact still here.
Speaker 2: Holy heck. Okay.
Speaker 1: The world celebrated her safe return when news broke, but
Speaker 1: for law enforcement, the case was still only half over.
Speaker 1: There was still one question hanging in the air, heavier
Speaker 1: than anything else where. Was Dylan. Now. Shasta had already
Speaker 1: told investigators what had happened to him, that her brother
Speaker 1: had been shot, killed and quote buried in the woods
Speaker 1: by the place with the trees and the dirt road.
Speaker 1: But remember she's eight years old. She didn't know state lines,
Speaker 1: or couldn't coordinates or how far they'd driven or directions,
Speaker 1: but still her description gave detectives enough to start Montana
Speaker 1: a dirt road and a makeshift camp, homemade fire pit
Speaker 1: even and of course the grave. Search teams were sent
Speaker 1: to the Lolo National Forest, which is an enormous stretch
Speaker 1: of wilderness spanning thousands of eight acres. They used helicopters,
Speaker 1: cadaver dogs, grid searches, but the area was just too vast,
Speaker 1: so they tried something else. What had turned the search
Speaker 1: around was in fact the jeep that he drove see
Speaker 1: After his arrest, Joseph's vehicle was impounded, but inside was
Speaker 1: a GPS unit still mounted to the dashboard holding breadcrumb
Speaker 1: data of everywhere that he had driven. The coordinates led
Speaker 1: investigators straight into the forest where that campsite was. On
Speaker 1: July fourth, two thousand and five, two days after Shasta's rescue,
Speaker 1: investigators reached a clearing miles off the main road. There
Speaker 1: were rope marks on trees, melted candle wax, and burned
Speaker 1: scraps of a tarp, and then behind the campsite a
Speaker 1: mound of disturbed soil. The remains recovered from that shallow
Speaker 1: grave were confirmed by DNA. It was the body of
Speaker 1: nine year old Dylan Grony. The autopsy left no room
Speaker 1: for confusion. He had suffered one gunshot wound through the
Speaker 1: abdomen and another one through the head. A public memorial
Speaker 1: for Dylan was held twelve days later on what would
Speaker 1: have been his tenth birthday. Oh gosh, no, his little
Speaker 1: league teammates wore uniforms and his school friends released balloons. Now,
Speaker 1: with Shasta rescued and Dylan's remains identified, investigators believe they
Speaker 1: had reached the end of the nightmare, but it quickly
Speaker 1: became clear there were only well, they were only just
Speaker 1: at the tip of the iceberg on this story. You see,
Speaker 1: Joseph Edward Duncan had a criminal record, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: just a fugitive who happened to target one family. The
Speaker 1: more investigators Doug, the more they realized his name had
Speaker 1: a different kind of trail behind it, not one that
Speaker 1: was bound up in legal terms or anything, one that
Speaker 1: was actually scattered across states with parole logs, juvenile files,
Speaker 1: old court records, and police databases, yes, but also with
Speaker 1: open cold cases. The moment his mugshot hit the news,
Speaker 1: phone started ringing in police departments, detectives who worked cold cases,
Speaker 1: some over a decade old, in fact, were now suddenly
Speaker 1: asking the same question, is this our guy? The first
Speaker 1: confirmed link came from California. A Riverside County investigator recognized
Speaker 1: Joseph instantly via a sketch, and in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: it was a case with a ten year old Anthony Martinez,
Speaker 1: who had been abducted at knife point while playing with
Speaker 1: his friends. A partial fingerprint had been taken from duct
Speaker 1: tape used to buying the boy, and a print well
Speaker 1: that was never matched to anyone until now. When that
Speaker 1: fingerprint was reanalyzed against Joseph, it came back as a match.
Speaker 1: The case had haunted detectives for eight years, and now
Speaker 1: they had their man. Then came Washington State. During her interviews,
Speaker 1: Shasta told investigators that Joseph had talked casually, almost in fact,
Speaker 1: like bragging about two girls in Seattle. He said that
Speaker 1: he'd beaten them and left their bodies in the woods.
Speaker 1: Now she didn't know their names, but detectives, well, they did.
Speaker 1: There was Sammy Joe White, who was eleven, and Carmen Cubias,
Speaker 1: who was nine. They both vanished in nineteen ninety six
Speaker 1: and were found murdered two years later. The more they uncovered,
Speaker 1: the clearer it became. This wasn't a man who snapped
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, or not even a man
Speaker 1: who simply re offended. This was a predator who had
Speaker 1: been serial attacking, abducting, raping, and murdering children for a
Speaker 1: long time and never stopped. By his own admission, he
Speaker 1: had assaulted more than a dozen boys before the age
Speaker 1: of sixteen. He had been in and out of prison,
Speaker 1: treatment programs and parole systems for nearly thirty years, and
Speaker 1: every time he was released, children disappeared, parents had buried
Speaker 1: their kids, and no one knew they were all connected.
Speaker 1: Until that is, Shasta lived long enough to speak about it.
Speaker 1: Not even live long enough to speak about it, But
Speaker 1: Shasta befriended him, got the information needed, and managed to
Speaker 1: get herself to safety to be able to speak about it.
Speaker 1: For investigators, this was no longer just about the Grony family.
Speaker 1: This was about how Joseph kept getting out, how he
Speaker 1: was granted bail, how a registered Level three sex offender,
Speaker 1: the highest risk category, could go missing for months and
Speaker 1: no one was even looking for him. As one FBI
Speaker 1: agent later put it, quote, we didn't just arrest a killer.
Speaker 1: We exposed every failure that kept letting him kill. When
Speaker 1: Joseph Duncan was finally in custody, there was no question
Speaker 1: whether he would be prosecuted. That was obvious. It was
Speaker 1: only a matter of where, how, and for what crime first.
Speaker 1: His crimes they stretched across multiple states, to multiple courts
Speaker 1: and multiple victims. Prosecutors from Idaho, Washington, California, and the
Speaker 1: federal government government all had a legitimate claim to put
Speaker 1: them on trial, but the one priority took precedence over everything,
Speaker 1: and that was a justice for the Grony family and
Speaker 1: the prosecution for Shasta. Idaho charged Joseph first filing three
Speaker 1: counts of first degree murder for Brenda, Slade, and Mark,
Speaker 1: and three counts of kidnapping as well. But even the
Speaker 1: prosecutors knew that the state case was only part of
Speaker 1: the story because once Joseph drove Shasta and Dylan out
Speaker 1: of Idaho, he crossed state lines and that made it
Speaker 1: a federal crime. Transporting children for sexual exploitation meant the
Speaker 1: federal government had the right to seek the ultimate penalty,
Speaker 1: which is death. The decision was made quickly. The federal
Speaker 1: trial would come first and Idaho would wait. But Joseph
Speaker 1: surprised everyone. Instead of fighting the charges, delaying the process,
Speaker 1: or denying what he had done, he pled guilty. It
Speaker 1: seems he didn't want a long trial or especially want
Speaker 1: Shasta to take the stand, so he admitted everything, the kidnappings,
Speaker 1: the torture, and the murders. That left only one question
Speaker 1: for the jury, does this man live or does this
Speaker 1: man die? The penalty phase was brutal for everyone involved
Speaker 1: in this story. Juror saw graphic photographs, heard the recordings
Speaker 1: Joseph made of himself abusing Dylan, and watched a thirty
Speaker 1: three minute long video he filmed inside a shed abusing Yeah,
Speaker 1: what the shit? It was all proof of what he
Speaker 1: was capable of when no one was watching. One juror
Speaker 1: later said, quote, it wasn't a question of whether he
Speaker 1: deserved death, It was whether we could sleep again after
Speaker 1: seeing what he did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker 1: On August twenty seventh, two thousand and eight, after just
Speaker 1: three hours of deliberation, the jury returned its decision for
Speaker 1: the murder of Dylan. He was sentenced to death for
Speaker 1: the sexual exploitation resulting in death. He got death for
Speaker 1: using a firearm in a violent crime resulting in death.
Speaker 1: He was sentenced again to death three separate federal death sentences,
Speaker 1: plus three additional life sentences on top. With the federal
Speaker 1: case settled, Idaho moved forward instead of dragging the family
Speaker 1: through the trial. Joseph again pled guilty, this time to
Speaker 1: the murder of Brenda, Slade and Mark. He received three
Speaker 1: more life sentences, each without the possibility of parole, and
Speaker 1: the judge in this case made it clear too, if
Speaker 1: for any reason, the federal death sentences were overturned, Idaho
Speaker 1: would seek the death penalty all over again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, well, it's about down time, really.
Speaker 1: The trials were still not over. California extradited Joseph next,
Speaker 1: charging him with the nineteen ninety seven abduction and murder
Speaker 1: of ten year old Anthony Martinez. Once again, he confessed.
Speaker 1: Once again, he was sentenced two more life terms stacked
Speaker 1: on top of the rest. By the end, Joseph had
Speaker 1: three death sentences federally, eight life sentences without parole, and
Speaker 1: zero chance of ever breathing free air.
Speaker 2: Again because he is a complete monster.
Speaker 1: Absolute. For the first time in decades, he wasn't walking
Speaker 1: out of prison for shasta life after her rescue wasn't well.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a return to normal. It was the beginning
Speaker 1: of a very long, complicated, and often painful fight to
Speaker 1: figure out who she was beyond the worst thing that
Speaker 1: ever happened to her. She was only eight years old
Speaker 1: when she walked out of that Denny's with police. The
Speaker 1: world called her the miracle child, the survivor, the brave one,
Speaker 1: but she still was just a kid who watched her
Speaker 1: entire family die. She lived through weeks of torture and
Speaker 1: abuse and walk walked away from it all. The grief
Speaker 1: came first, then the questions, then the pressure, interviews, media
Speaker 1: and strangers calling her strong while she was still learning
Speaker 1: how to sleep without just nightmares. Her father tried his
Speaker 1: best to rebuild their life, but the relationship was extremely
Speaker 1: strained due to all of this was unpredictable and marked
Speaker 1: by a lot of trauma. As a result of it all,
Speaker 1: Shasta was placed in and out of foster care. She
Speaker 1: bounced between homes, rules, therapists, court dates, and expectations no
Speaker 1: child should ever carry. Healing wasn't linear, and life wasn't either.
Speaker 1: As she grew older, the weight of everything she survived
Speaker 1: didn't fade, and like many survivors, especially those who experienced
Speaker 1: trauma before they even understand the world, Shasta eventually turned
Speaker 1: to substances to numb what therapy couldn't reach, and she
Speaker 1: fell into addiction. But she didn't stay there. Recovery, real recovery,
Speaker 1: came slowly, the way it often does, one hard at
Speaker 1: a time. She also found love, and she became a
Speaker 1: mother to five boys, each one proof that her life
Speaker 1: did not end. In two thousand and five, she named
Speaker 1: one of them Silent, a combination of her brother's names,
Speaker 1: Slade and Dylan. Her youngest son also carries Dylan's middle name.
Speaker 1: She built a home for her family, becoming a homeowner
Speaker 1: at twenty years old. She created something that she never had, stability,
Speaker 1: a place no one could take from her, and then
Speaker 1: it all burned down. Everything she had built was gone
Speaker 1: in a house fire that forced her and her kids
Speaker 1: to start over yet again.
Speaker 2: Okay, that is just not okay that someone who goes
Speaker 2: through something like this also has that happened, Like holy shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I was speechless when I learned.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, like that is just some serious bullshit right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to quote her, life is hard, right, now, but
Speaker 1: I'll get through it. I always get through everything. Dawn
Speaker 1: end quote, damn now. For more than fifteen years, Joseph
Speaker 1: Edward Duncan sat in federal prison on death row, and
Speaker 1: for just as long Shasta Groni was waiting. She wasn't
Speaker 1: waiting for closure. She was waiting for justice, the kind
Speaker 1: the system promised her when she was still small enough
Speaker 1: to swing her legs off of a courtroom chair. She
Speaker 1: wanted to watch him die, not out of revenge, because
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be the ending, the ending that
Speaker 1: she was owed, the ending she was promised. He took everything,
Speaker 1: her family, her brother, her childhood, and the deal was simple.
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to die for it all, and she
Speaker 1: would get to witness it. But in March of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, that ending was stolen. Instead of being executed,
Speaker 1: Joseph died quietly in a prison hospital bed at the
Speaker 1: age of fifty eight from brain cancer. When the news broke,
Speaker 1: the world cheered and called it closure, but Shasta called
Speaker 1: it a robbery. Quote. They told me I could watch
Speaker 1: when they executed him. I wanted to look him in
Speaker 1: the eye and show him that he didn't destroy me.
Speaker 1: And I was robbed of that end quote. She said
Speaker 1: his death triggered a full relapse of her addiction because
Speaker 1: she would never get the chance to face him, to
Speaker 1: tell him that she grew up, that she had children,
Speaker 1: to tell him that she lived, and that he didn't
Speaker 1: get to win. She also felt the system protected him
Speaker 1: until the very end. He got a warm bed, he
Speaker 1: got medical care, surgery, three meals a day, things her
Speaker 1: family never got because they were no longer alive. Things
Speaker 1: her brothers never lived long enough to even have. And
Speaker 1: every time he appeared in court, she couldn't shake one
Speaker 1: thing that she always saw. They had a bulletproof vest
Speaker 1: on him when he was escorted in the buildings. The
Speaker 1: man who beat her family to death with a hammer
Speaker 1: filmed himself torturing her brother was being protected until nature
Speaker 1: killed him instead. That's not closure, that's a loophole. Shasta
Speaker 1: never set out to become an activist, but something shifted
Speaker 1: when she got older, when she fully understood not just
Speaker 1: what had happened, but why it was allowed to happen
Speaker 1: at all. Her family wasn't murdered by a stranger who
Speaker 1: appeared out of nowhere. They were murdered by a known
Speaker 1: violent sex offender, a man with decades of Red flags,
Speaker 1: violations and convictions. He was allowed to walk free on
Speaker 1: bail again and again and again. The system didn't fail accidentally,
Speaker 1: it failed by design. So at nineteen years old, Shasta
Speaker 1: did something that took a different kind of courage than
Speaker 1: just surviving. She spoke up. She started a justice campaign
Speaker 1: called Slade and Dylan's Law, named after her two brothers.
Speaker 1: The petition demanded that violent sexual predators, especially those who
Speaker 1: target children, should never be released back into society. No
Speaker 1: early release, no parole, no bail bonds that treat a
Speaker 1: repeat offender like a minor threat. One conviction for a
Speaker 1: sexual crime against a child would mean life behind bars.
Speaker 1: By the time the petition closed, more than fifty thousand
Speaker 1: people had signed it, and even though it did not
Speaker 1: become law, it forced something important into national conversation, the
Speaker 1: fact that the justice system already knew what Joseph Duncan
Speaker 1: was and still gave him another chance to destroy a family. Honestly,
Speaker 1: the fact that that was not turned into law, I'm
Speaker 1: kind of disgusted with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm surprised.
Speaker 1: The fact that someone out there said, na, we should
Speaker 1: give a violent sexual predator against children less than life
Speaker 1: behind bars is disgusting to me. They should be behind
Speaker 1: That should be the minimum. Life behind bars in.
Speaker 2: My opinion, Yeah, pretty messed up now.
Speaker 1: In the end, Shasta found love with her five sons.
Speaker 1: She found love with a partner who supports her, and
Speaker 1: a home that she's trying to rebuild. She still struggles, Yes,
Speaker 1: she still gets overwhelmed, but she keeps going. Shasta doesn't
Speaker 1: dress her story up as triumph. She tells it the
Speaker 1: way it is. Survival is messy, healing is layered, and
Speaker 1: you don't magically become a whole just because you didn't die.
Speaker 1: But every day she wakes up, parents are children and
Speaker 1: refuses to let Joseph Duncan own another second of her life.
Speaker 1: That is survival, and that is victory. It may not
Speaker 1: be the outcome that she imagined. Where she is sitting
Speaker 1: across from him in prison to take every ounce back
Speaker 1: of power that he had. Right, she wanted to look
Speaker 1: him in the eye and say the word she rehearsed
Speaker 1: in her head for years. You didn't destroy me. You
Speaker 1: don't own me. I lived, I had children, I loved,
Speaker 1: I built a life you never get to control. But
Speaker 1: even without that final conversation, she still managed to make peace. See,
Speaker 1: in the end, she realized she had a choice, a
Speaker 1: choice to forgive, not to free him, but to free herself.
Speaker 1: She also chose motherhood over bitterness, life over tragedy, and
Speaker 1: she chose to speak up against repeat predators who are
Speaker 1: being released quote by mistake. She still plans to tell
Speaker 1: him what she lived through, not by his face, obviously,
Speaker 1: because he's gone, but by telling the world with every interview,
Speaker 1: every page of her book, every time she says her
Speaker 1: brother's name out loud. It's the conversation that never happened. Quote.
Speaker 1: I don't hate him because if I hate him, he
Speaker 1: still owns a part of me, and he doesn't get
Speaker 1: that anymore. End quote. It's not a fairy tale ending,
Speaker 1: but it's real. And Shasta in the end, got her
Speaker 1: justice by living the life he tried to steal. And
Speaker 1: that's the survival story of Shasta.
Speaker 2: Groney, hmmm, damn, damn, damn, damn.
Speaker 1: And if it's not obvious, Shasta is one hundred percent
Speaker 1: our badass of the day.
Speaker 2: Gosh, well, yeah, just incredible, especially at eight years old,
Speaker 2: what she did, no kidding, it's yeah, it's hard to
Speaker 2: even comprehend. I don't even feel like I could do that,
Speaker 2: and I'm, like, you know, in my late thirties.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I feel how to have the power to
Speaker 1: go through that coverage, not also the wits to do it.
Speaker 1: To understand, I need to befriend him and then to
Speaker 1: go on through all these things in life and keep
Speaker 1: your chin up, and then to say I don't hate him,
Speaker 1: because if I hate him, he still owns a part
Speaker 1: of me and he doesn't get that anymore. Holy shit.
Speaker 2: You know. It is slightly sad because I wish afterwards
Speaker 2: that her life would have been a bit easier, but
Speaker 2: she went through like Helen back, so of course it
Speaker 2: would be a journey. Yeah, the house fire thing is
Speaker 2: so unnecessary.
Speaker 1: But that's just life beating you down, honestly, like what
Speaker 1: the hell?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's just honestly so fucked up to imagine
Speaker 2: there are people like that guy in this world, Like.
Speaker 1: That's scary individuals capable of something like that. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: never stopped. The second he was out, he was right
Speaker 1: back to it. He never intended to stop, no, he.
Speaker 2: And yeah, he just didn't give a shit.
Speaker 1: And yet a judge put him on a fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars bail, and a business man.
Speaker 2: Was like, no, I know you. I still have trouble
Speaker 2: with processing that. Did they not realize who he or
Speaker 2: all his crimes or his full history?
Speaker 1: Because it doesn't make sense, it doesn't, it's absurd, But
Speaker 1: that's what happened.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Well and then also I was realizing
Speaker 2: too that she would have had some other or siblings too, right.
Speaker 1: She does have two older SIPs.
Speaker 2: There was two that weren't in the home, correct, So
Speaker 2: her whole entire family wasn't taken away, but you know
Speaker 2: pretty pretty much. So yeah, so damn, damn. That is
Speaker 2: like that ah, that one is going to halt me
Speaker 2: for a while.
Speaker 1: Rightfully, so I can understand. It's heavy, it's scary, and
Speaker 1: it's so necessary because the system just failed. And we're honestly,
Speaker 1: like people talk about to this day, like things are
Speaker 1: getting worse, like this world's falling apart. I honestly feel
Speaker 1: like the world's falling apart because of things like this
Speaker 1: systems failing people. They're letting repeat offenders walk and walk
Speaker 1: and walk, and they're they're almost protecting these perpetrators instead
Speaker 1: of the victims.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well yeah, like her. Her life was probably almost
Speaker 2: harder after she didn't have like, you know, any resources,
Speaker 2: most likely or not the resources that he would have had.
Speaker 1: Right, No, I guarantee you if she had brain cancer,
Speaker 1: she would have had to provide her own medical for
Speaker 1: that surgery. Yet he was in jail and that was
Speaker 1: covered by taxpayers.
Speaker 2: Okay. That is messed up, isn't it. Oh? Okay, I
Speaker 2: don't like that. I don't like that at all.
Speaker 1: That's the problem with this world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you put it that way and think about
Speaker 2: it like that, that's fucked.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So with that, thank you guys for being here.
Speaker 1: A bit of a heavy story. Like I said, I
Speaker 1: kind of grade out some of the more graphic stuff, yeah,
Speaker 1: is good. Yeah, but thank you for being here. If
Speaker 1: you want to check out the description of this podcast,
Speaker 1: we are an independently produced and owned show or an
Speaker 1: indie podcast. It's us in our tiny home, researching, writing, producing, recording,
Speaker 1: you name it. We got our dogs and our chickens too,
Speaker 1: but they don't really do much for the show, just
Speaker 1: our life. But thank you for being here. We appreciate
Speaker 1: every single one of you, and until next time, stay wicked.