Idaho Suspect Linked To '97 Death

A convicted sex offender accused of murdering three people in Idaho and killing one of the two children he allegedly abducted is now being investigated in the 1997 kidnapping death of a 10-year-old California boy.

Joseph Edward Duncan III, 42, is linked by a single fingerprint to the scene of the killing of Anthony Martinez, Sheriff Bob Doyle told a press conference on Wednesday.

Duncan was arrested last month after people at an Idaho restaurant spotted 8-year-old Shasta Groene, who went missing with her 9-year-old brother Dylan in May. Dylan's body was later found in Montana.

FBI agents involved in the Idaho investigation contacted Riverside authorities on July 14, and said Duncan mentioned the name Martinez and the general area.

Investigators flew to Idaho to fingerprint Duncan. They tried to interview him but he refused to talk. Confirmation of the fingerprint match was received Monday, the sheriff said.

"We're pretty confident that he's our suspect. ... This is huge," Doyle said. "We followed up 15,000 leads over eight years. You can imagine the elation that everybody has."

In April 1997, Anthony Martinez was forced into a white car in Beaumont as his friends watched. The children were playing when a stranger offered them a dollar to help find his lost cat. Sixteen days later a forest ranger found the boy's nude, bound body in a desert area about 70 miles to the east.

The kidnapper was described at the time as blue-eyed and mustachioed. Before the end of that April, authorities had evaluated more than 100 people as suspects.

Duncan has been charged in Idaho with kidnapping and murdering Shasta's mother, Brenda Groene, 40, her boyfriend Mark McKenzie, 37, and Shasta's 13-year-old brother, Slade, at their home outside Coeur d'Alene.

Federal prosecutors have said they will file charges in the abduction of the children and Dylan's death.

Authorities also have said Shasta and Dylan were sexually assaulted. While it is The Associated Press' policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual assault in most cases, the search for Shasta and her brother was so heavily publicized that their names are widely known.

Duncan was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Tacoma, Wash., in 1980. Authorities said Duncan was paroled in 1994 and moved into a halfway house in Seattle.

Documents show he got a job as a phone solicitor for a publishing company, went to counseling and later got a second job with a small software company.

In 1996, Duncan tested positive for marijuana during a routine urine test, and he was arrested, then released on parole again, records show. In 1997, he again tested positive for marijuana use, records show. He disappeared with his girlfriend's car, according to parole reports.

He was captured and returned to prison in 1997. He was released in 2000 and enrolled that year at North Dakota State University. At the time of his arrest, Duncan was a fugitive charged with molesting a 6-year-old boy in Minnesota.