Lost In Lima Ohio - A true crime blog

I was questioned today as to why it seems that every crime blogger worth their weight seems to be avoiding the current ongoing trial of Joseph Duncan. The deranged pedophile/murderer who plead guilty to the grisly murders of 13-year-old Slade Groene, his mother, Brenda Groene, and her fiance, Mark McKenzie, all murdered in order for him to kidnap Dylan and Shasta Groene. While I attempted to explain that I was sure no one was trying to avoid blogging about it, I cringed a little. I can not speak for others, but for myself- there was a hint of truth about my reluctance to read the articles from CNN, Fox or anywhere else. Part of me really doesn't want to know what happened in the mountains and in order to blog about the current proceedings- I would have to read the stories. If you were around any of the crime blogs back in the height of the case, you might of noticed the personal toll the case took on those covering every detail of it. I can easily say that many conversations b...

Joseph Duncan, low life, murdering child rapist- plead guilty in court today . No deal was made, so death is still on the table. May he be sentenced as harshly as he sentenced others... and then be given a swift and short ride to the execution room.

Joseph Duncan was to get his jury today, in the case of the murders of three people: Slade Groene, Brenda Matthews Groene, and Mark McKenzie from back in May of 2005. I say was, because the jury selection was oddly canceled. And then a hearing was held today. The Cellar- a blog started by Mickey Rat soon after learning the identity of Duncan in the murders and kiddnappings, and then left in the care of Jules- has had ongoing coverage of these recent events. Prosecutor Bill Douglas has accepted Joseph Duncan's plea offer. Melissa Luck at KXLY reports that the plea accepted is essentially the same offer which was previously rejected by Douglas on October 6th . Crimeblog.us , ran by Steve Huff also has ongoing coverage you may want to keep an eye on. While many of us longed to see the death penalty in this case- the crimes were more heinous than we could even begin to imagine- the deal saves the lone survivor Shasta Groene from having to testify, and will likely bring comfort to the ...

A question has been on my mind, and although I feel as if I already have the correct answer to it, I thought I would put it in your heads, and see what you come up with. For those that are willing to humor me, all I ask is that you be honest in your reply. Explain your answer as much or as little as you like. Last year the media was swarming around stories like Joseph Duncan and the Groene murders. Anyone who watched more than 30 seconds of a news story was quickly made aware to the fact that he had been previously convicted and had recently been arrested (and released on bond) for sexual offenses. There was an increase in attention to cases that seemed to highlight today's routine of "catch and release, and catch again" when it comes to sexual offenders. Early in March, the nation watched in shock and horror as Jessica Marie ``Jessie'' Lunsford was reported missing, only to be found days later- sexually assaulted and murdered at the hands of another previously ...

I was checking crimelibrary.com for Steve Huff's entry on the Kevin Underwood , perverted murderer story, wanting to read it without having to await his announcement of it being up... (I know I have no patience as all...) but instead of finding the desired story I stumbled upon this one: Krystal Dawn Steadman . I sometimes believe that I have lost the ability to know just when I shouldn't click some links. Because, instead of continuing my search for Steve's entry, I became captivated by the image of the pretty little blond girl show beside the link to the Thomas Soria story, and couldn't help but click that link. The story begins by placing you inside a church, surrounded by people mourning the loss of a beautiful young girl... quoting some of the letters read during the nine year old's funeral. But it wasn't until the last paragraph that I really found myself at loss: Krystal had the entire world at her fingertips, but it all came crashing down around her on M...

Watching the news tonight, I couldn't help but be reminded of Joseph Duncan . It was a mix of so many details that tied the two stories together in my mind. A youthful child, with a charming smile; a family shattered; a heinous murder... and a Saturday new cast caught during a random surfing of the 24 news channels. And it's just a few months away from being a year ago that Duncan's cold calculated crimes were discovered. Jamie Bolin's death could not possibly be more tragic- the thought that for nearly two days her body lay within walking distance of the apartment her family lived in, the gruesome details of the madman's plan to end a life in the most heinous way possible... it's too much to think about even now. So instead I'm going to just focus on the bastard accused of the crime. Single, white, male, depressed and oddly creepy- Kevin Underwood seems to have spent his life unnoticed by all accounts. Having 20/20 hindsight- one look at his blogger profile...

I know that many of you have had the pleasure of reading the other members of the True Crime Blogroll, and for those that do, this may be old news. But for those that don't (you should by the way) read the others- I wanted to share this. Joseph Duncan, the man currently sitting in jail on charges of killing three people and abducting two children last summer, has been writing letters. Of course, many of you regular readers are aware that he had again starting blogging from jail, and more information can be found here on that. The new revelation is the recent letter he wrote to a member of the Citizens for a One Strike Law in Washington. The letter can be found here , in it's entirety. For a news story on the letter, please see here. However for reasons of responding to it, I'll only be quoting pieces of it. I must face it (God says so) to give the world a chance to understand, and hopefully grow, so that the next time a man like myself comes into the world (and there are c...

For those looking to catch up on recent crimes in the news, or that simply have a passion for true crime stories, I'm happy to present the Eighth Edition of the Carnival for True Crime Blogs. So in no apparent order, here you go: Randomized Drivel presents us with a plea from the Arizona authorities. Robert Vigil, 46 is a registered sex offender, and slipped out of the watchful eyes of authorities while attending attend vocational training Monday morning. For more information see the whole entry from Tina here . Trench from over at the Trenchcoat Chronicles poses an interesting question, while reviewing the death of Christopher Penley. Penley killed in a police shooting while holding a toy gun, at a school. Christopher Penley brandished an authentic looking gun. Before the standoff with police he had held another student hostage. Then when confronted by police he held the gun to his own head then raised it at police like he was going to fire. Continue reading Trench's " ...

The following is a letter from the One Strike Law Blog , out of Washington. Next week, they will be interviewed by WIMA Radio in my own city of Lima, Ohio. Although I certainly had nothing to do with it, I'm still overwhelmingly happy that they will be able to spread their message here. Dylan's Law has been filed & Your Help is Necessary! Dear One Strike Supporters, Citizens for a One Strike Law (CFAOSL) has filed Dylan's Law in honor of Dylan Groene who was sexually brutalized and violently murdered by Joseph Duncan III. Dylan's Law is a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole for violent and predatory sexual crimes such as kidnapping, to the vicious rapes and molestations of our young and defenseless children. People like Joseph Duncan can not ever be let out of prison! Duncan served 17 years of a 20 year sentence and was let out of a Washington state prison were he allegedly left a trial of missing and murdered children from Oak Harbor, Washingt...

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho - Prosecutors agreed Wednesday to withhold graphic videos from the trial of a suspected killer, resolving a dispute with the defense. The videos were found after the capture of Joseph Edward Duncan III, who is charged with killing three members of an Idaho family in May so he could abduct Shasta Groene, 8, and her brother, Dylan Groene, 9, for sex. The defense had demanded copies of the tapes, but prosecutors had refused, saying the tapes had "vile" images made during the seven-week period when Duncan allegedly held the children captive in Montana. District Judge Fred Gibler last month ordered prosecutors to make copies after Duncan's public defender, John Adams, insisted they were necessary to mount an adequate defense for his client. But Prosecutor Bill Douglas asked the judge to reconsider and the attorneys reached a deal Wednesday. Duncan faces the death penalty if convicted of three counts of murder. His trial is set to start in January. U.S....

I'm relieved to say that prosecutors have not given up the fight to keep the videos made by Joseph Duncan which include graphic scenes of the children he kidnapped, from being copied and released. I do not believe that doing so would serve justice in anyway- and it has always been their position that the defense council may view the tapes at any time. In truth there is just no good reason for releasing these tapes. I do not see how having an extra copy lying around would do anything by compromise the ability to safeguard what is on the tapes from being released into the public. And, that happening would be extremely horrifying. SOURCE " COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- Videos allegedly made by Joseph Edward Duncan III contain "vile, horrific, shocking" images of child pornography and should not be duplicated and given to defense attorneys, Kootenai County Prosecutor Bill Douglas says in new court filings. .... ...Douglas argued that the videos are not relevant or necessa...

Reading this morning brought me to a story about a family in Montana of a man found dead near Devils Lake three years ago. They believe, and h ave asked the FBI to investigate- that their son may be yet another victim of Joseph E Duncan. He had been to Fargo just the day before his disappearence. Russell Turcotte of Wolf Point, Mont., was 19 when he disappeared in July 2002. He called his mother from Grand Forks, and she promised to wire him money so he could take the bus home. His body was found in a tree grove along U.S. Highway 2 near Devils Lake the following November. His father, Bill Turcotte, said his son had been in Fargo the day before he disappeared. He also said Russell Turcotte appeared younger than his actual age. "Russell did have a real boyish appearance about him," Bill Turcotte said. "He was a young man, but if you take a look at the last picture of him, he did appear to be a little boy." FBI Special Agent Brent Robbins declined to comment on the Tu...

empirical- ADJECTIVE: Relying on or derived from observation or experiment: empirical results that supported the hypothesis. Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment: empirical laws. Guided by practical experience and not theory, especially in medicine Kennedy hate crimes rider may doom Hatch's sex offender bill By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune WASHINGTON - A fight over federal hate crimes legislation could torpedo Sen. Orrin Hatch's push to strengthen the nation's sex-offender registries and clamp down on sex crimes. The Senate Judiciary Committee gave quick, unanimous approval to Hatch's bill Thursday, clearing its way for consideration by the full Senate. But Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said he plans to try to attach language to a bill that would require tougher sentences, provide federal assistance and offer grants to prosecute hate crimes - those motivated by hatred for a race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. The White ...

I've made known my issue with the Becker County Judge who let Joseph Duncan run free on $15,000 bail. That he still can sit in a court room- let alone on the bench, bothers me to say the least. However, I had noticed while browsing the news that the families of his victims of extremely unacceptable judgement have filed a law suit against him. Wow, I like that almost as much as I would like hearing that due to his outright stupidity in the "bailing" of Duncan he was not voted back into his seat. And no longer collecting his $118,000 a year to make horrible judicial decisions. I was going to write up a whole long post on this with links to the news source and all- but I've had a busy weekend. And in my laziness and lack of time- I wasn't able to complete that mission. I was about to start it tonight, but I stopped over at another blog, and found that they had already done a great job. So in continuing with my extreme laziness of the weekend- I am going to just give ...

Source SPOKANE — A letter purportedly sent by convicted sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan III was listed on an Internet auction site specializing in selling items related to serial killers. The letter was listed for auction starting at $20 on a site called murderauction.com. The seller was listed as jerry4516. Efforts to e-mail jerry4516 were kicked back with an error message. The four-page letter, written in pencil, was allegedly written by Duncan from the Kootenai County Jail in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where he is being held without bail on three murder charges. The Web site included a picture of part of the letter, in which the writer thanked a person for support and discussed possibly posting the person's comments on his blog. Duncan operated a blog in the two years before his arrest. "Thanks again for writing and for your support," the letter concluded. "P.P.S. can you type fast? I have a lot to blog about!" He signed off with a smiley face. The picture a...

Joseph Duncan, the terrorist who reeked fear throughout the world with the horrific story that would start with the capture of the man accused of murdering three people and stealing away two children and lead us to the very deviant thoughts he kept in his blog, is in the news again. Not that he ever was truly out of it- but major media seemed to drop the story rather quickly only to replace it with the Holloway case. Leaving only local news agencies and bloggers to report most of the updates to this unsettling case. None the less- reports have been given that 10 days after his arrest notes where found in his cell. Notes to God, his mother, and to the little girl who he traumatized during his heinous crime spree. Source HERE "... Authorities seize Duncan jail notes to Mom, God, Shasta GroeneNICHOLAS K. GERANIOSAssociated Press COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho - Ten days after Joseph Edward Duncan III was arrested in the company of an abducted Idaho girl, authorities seized notes in his jai...

"...Reputed to be cowardly and timid, the hyena can be bold and dangerous, attacking ... the spotted hyena is a skillful hunter but also a scavenger. Truly an opportunistic feeder, it selects the easiest and most attractive food..Hyenas are social animals that communicate with one other through specific calls, postures and signals.... make their various intentions known to other members of the clan, or to outsiders...." The writer above was indeed talking about wild animals, but I found it befitting of the subject I am about to share with you. The animals in my story however are human- barely- their clan would include uncounted numbers who subscribe to their groups, join in their chat rooms and read their message boards and blogs/blogrings. And their hunted prey would be our children . And for those that would search it out- they are willing to sharing their intentions. We call them child molesters , pedophiles - they call themselves 'child lovers ". After reading, i...

People say the strangest things some times. It's almost as if they are giving away excuses for deviant behavior. Geraldo has given an excuse to child molesters everywhere. He has decided to declare it that they are "born" not made. I take offense to that. To say that is to say they are predestined to become what they are. Let's think about that. I speak English, I know anyone who has read much of my blog may wonder just how well I speak it- I promise the grammatical errors and occasional typing errors fit more with my " less than perfect " personality than reflect upon the many fine English teachers I had had throughout my life. I never did take much to French- although I endured the classes for two years. My complete ability to speak or understand the French language begins and ends with " Bonjour, oui, je t'aime, au revoir ." I could say I was born to speak English- but I have to say had my parents run off to France before I was born- I woul...

There are times when you have to entrust the judicial system in America to scour through the facts, and make a fair decision. Usually one side of any given case is less than thrilled with the outcome. We expect a judge- even after the Joseph Duncan case and Judge Rose Guerra Reyna’s knitting sentence, and of course the Tippecanoe County judge who decided that a child molester didn't pose a nuisance - will make a fair rendering of the law when it comes to child predators. If not because it ensures the safety of the people- then at least in preventing their names to be cast out as ones unwilling to demand justice for innocent victims. I mean, come on most of these judges are still elected in- one day they have to run for their seat in the bench again. You'd think that they care about what could be their political deaths, if not about innocent victims. And yet somehow some just don't seem to care about protecting the nations most valuable resource- OUR CHILDREN. It boils my b...

I believe in long, lengthy, never going to live long enough to actually serve, prison sentences. So I am delighted that 42-year old Ricardo Zamora will die in prison sometime way before he completes his 300 years prison term. Source HERE " Wednesday's sentence follows his guilty plea on Monday to a dozen counts of sexually assaulting his step daughter. There were six life sentences and six 20-year sentences handed down, which Judge Manuel Banales ruled would be served consecutively, meaning one at a time, not concurrently. Both he and the jury felt Zamora needed to be put away for good, to protect the victim in this case and prevent him from abusing anyone else ." I have to agree with him needing to be put away for good. A little more: " On the first day of the punishment phase Monday, the now 18-year old victim told the jury of seven men and five women about the 10 years of abuse she endured from Ricardo Zamora that began with simple touching and progressed into v...