Mother-of-five Shasta Groene’s oldest son often reminds her of Dylan, her brother who was murdered as a child in 2005.
Her son is now nine, the same age Dylan was when he and Shasta were abducted by a serial killer who had butchered their mom, stepdad and other brother, Slade.
Dylan was murdered right in front of Shasta, then eight years old, after weeks of withstanding torture in the Montana woods by deranged sexual sadist Joseph Edward Duncan III.
Twenty years after Shasta was miraculously rescued at a Denny’s, seeing Dylan and Slade in her sons brings her some peace.
‘It really does help, just because, in a way, I feel like my brothers live on through my kids,’ Shasta, now 28, tells the Daily Mail.
Not much has helped Shasta, though, since her 2005 escape from Duncan – and the brutal details of her fight to survive not only a serial killer but also the lasting trauma are revealed in a newly published book, Out of the Woods, by award-winning true crime author Gregg Olsen.
‘I really feel like the system failed me and my family not once, but twice, and maybe even more,’ says Shasta, who lives near Boise, Idaho, with her children.
She grew up about seven hours north in Wolf Lodge, in a home near the interstate that had no running water. It was during her years spend there when Duncan spotted her playing outside.
Shasta Groene (pictured), now 28, now lives in the Boise, Idaho, area with her five sons, ranging in age from nine to almost three years old
She was eight years old and her brother was 9 when serial sex offender and killer Joseph Edward Duncan III broke into their family’s home and abducted them after killing their mother, stepfather and 13-year-old brother
He surveilled the family, plagued by poverty and addiction issues, before breaking into the home one night in May 2005.
That night, Shasta and Dylan were woken up by their terrified mother, Brenda. Duncan then restrained Brenda on the floor using zip ties, along with her husband, Mark Mckenzie, and 13-year-old Slade.
Shasta watched in horror as Duncan slammed a hammer against her mother’s head – which made a ‘thumping, whacking noise… like nothing anyone in the living room had ever heard,’ Olsen writes.
Shasta feared all three were dead, but she couldn’t be sure as Duncan whisked her and Dylan away from the house in a stolen truck – he soon began molesting them.
Duncan drove the children across the state border to Montana’s Lolo National Forest, keeping them at a remote campsite where he’d also set up a ‘contraption’ for rape and torture.
Though the younger sibling, Shasta used every skill she had to read and manage their captor to the best of her abilities.
She feigned compassion, understanding, even love. She called him Jet, his nickname, and ‘Daddy,’ the moniker he told them to use.
Shasta listened closely as Duncan – a repeat sexual offender who’d been released from prison – told tales of other child torture and murder he committed.
Duncan (pictured) slaughtered Dylan after several weeks in the woods and attempted to strangle Shasta before crying and releasing his hold. Days later, he took her to an Idaho Denny’s, where Shasta was recognized and rescued as he was taken into custody
Duncan took Shasta back to Idaho, where she was eventually rescued on July 2, 2005. She is seen on a store surveillance camera with Duncan
Those stories later helped authorities connect the serial killer to cold cases, bringing peace to those victims’ families.
There was rarely peace at the campsite, though, where Shasta said Duncan would rave madly about religion and God while filming and abusing her and Dylan. They lived on a diet heavy with canned fruit cocktail, cigarettes and beer.
At times, the siblings could pretend and enjoy snippets of something resembling childhood, like when they embarked on a quest to capture chipmunks – a challenge for which Duncan promised he’d take them home if completed.
When Dylan – a shell of his former self, according to his sister – finally caught one of the rodents they’d nicknamed Chippie, he and Shasta were overjoyed.
She was holding her brother’s hand when Duncan opened a campsite cooler, ostensibly for celebratory drinks.
‘She felt her brother’s hand slip away,’ Olsen writes in Out of the Woods.
‘Dylan looked terrified. His eyes on hers, then downward. She followed his gaze. His hands clutched his abdomen… her brother was clenching his belly to keep his intestines from falling out onto the forest floor.’
As her brain worked to comprehend that Dylan had been shot, Duncan grabbed a sawed-off shotgun. Olsen describes in the new book how Duncan blew Shasta’s beloved brother’s body in half right in front of her – the eight-year-old recalls being hit by Dylan’s blood and pieces of his skull.
In this handout photo provided by the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Department, 8-year-old Shasta poses for a photograph at the Kootenai Medical Center July 4, 2005 in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho after she was rescued
Shasta, pictured with her biological father after her rescue, has struggled ever since – and told the Daily Mail she feels ‘the system failed me and my family not once but twice and maybe even more’
The serial killer told Shasta it was an accident. She remembers completely shutting down as he forced her to help him burn Dylan’s body.
Duncan seemed thrown off by Shasta’s withdrawal and moved her to a different campsite before telling her he’d need to kill her, too.
‘How do you want to die? I can give you two options,’ the monster told her.
‘You could die like your brother did’ – she said no.
‘She didn’t want to be split in half by a shotgun,’ Olsen writes, adding that she chose strangulation.
As Duncan tightened a rope around her neck, Shasta heard her mother’s voice in her head: ‘Keep fighting, Shasta. Keep fighting. I want you to live.’
Incredibly, she said the rope loosened. As she gulped for air, she remembers seeing her captor crying.
‘I couldn’t kill you,’ he said, according to Olsen’s writing. ‘I saw God in your eyes.’
Shasta and Dylan were woken up by their terrified mother, Brenda. Duncan then restrained Brenda on the floor using zip ties, along with her husband, Mark McKenzie (pictured), and 13-year-old Slade
Shasta’s mom Brenda Groene is pictured above
It wasn’t long before Duncan took Shasta to a Denny’s in Coeur d’Alene where staff recognized her.
Police turned up to take him into custody, and one of the first things Shasta told them was to keep her underwear as evidence.
A new book published this month by true crime author Gregg Olsen traces Shasta’s traumatic journey before, during and after Duncan targeted her family
Incredibly, she also led authorities back to the scene of Dylan’s murder ‘with her eyes closed,’ Olsen writes.
‘Up the narrow road that shot up the mountain, Shasta felt each bump and the way the road went from smooth to rough, then very bumpy,’ he wrote, adding that she stopped the authorities to say,‘It was here.’
They gathered evidence and listened to all the details she shared about Duncan’s other victims – Sammiejo White, 11, and her sister, Carmen Cubias, nine, who vanished in Seattle in 1996, and Anthony Martinez, 10, who vanished in 1997.
Duncan was sentenced to death in 2008 on federal charges, but died in 2021 of natural causes while in prison before the penalty could be carried out.
‘He just did not, in my eyes, get what he deserved,’ Shasta tells the Daily Mail, noting how even during trial ‘he was always very protected – he had bulletproof vests on.
‘That didn’t happen for my family,’ she says. ‘So I just feel like he got to eat three meals a day. He was housed. He had a bed to sleep on. That, to me, has always angered me… with the death penalty, I just don’t understand why it takes so long.’
The home of Shasta and Dylan Groene is seen on July 3, 2005 outside of Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho
The scene of the Groene family murders and Shasta’s abduction near Wolf Lodge, Idaho, is pictured the day after she was spotted and rescued at a Denny’s
And as Duncan was fed and clothed in prison, Shasta was still struggling to survive.
She had a tempestuous relationship with her biological father, who had no clue how to parent such a traumatized child. She was eventually sent to a now-shuttered Utah treatment facility that took $10,000 a month from a trust set up after her rescue.
‘None of them knew how to help me; a lot of them weren’t even licensed to be practicing that type of therapy,’ Shasta claims. ‘That, to me, was very backwards of what needed to happen. Because when I was taken by transporters, I felt like I was being kidnapped all over again.’
She feels like she was ‘failed in more ways than one, especially with my trust fund… paying for me to be there.
‘It was 10 grand a month, and I was there for so long, by the time I got out, my trust was depleted,’ she says. ‘Had I not went there, I think I would be in a better place financially, I guess, in life… I would have had more help later on.’
She’s been in and out of custody, treatment and relationships, feeling like ‘life has a way of just kicking me while I’m down’.
Shasta says, ‘My life has always been just one thing after another.
‘I don’t feel like I’ve ever had a point in my life where I could just relax and be content and not have to worry about anything… and I honestly feel like that’s important for someone that’s gone through something.
Shasta is seen in a photo from her childhood before she was kidnapped by a serial killer
Shasta’s brother Slade is seen above. He was killed by Duncan before the serial killer kidnapped Shasta and her other brother Dylan
‘Having survived what I did, sometimes I just feel like, was it a blessing or was it a curse?’
Just last year, Shasta’s house burned down. She’s now trying to make ends meet near Boise with her five sons through a body piercing business that’s ‘not really going so well’.
She has terrible nightmares, at times. Small triggers, like the sight of fruit cocktail, will make her ‘start zoning out, thinking about my time at the campsite and everything’.
She finds it hard to look at men with blue eyes – they remind her of her tormentor’s icy gaze. And if one of her son’s hands slips from hers, she’s brought back to Dylan’s killing.
‘I have that memory a lot – that feeling of his hand just slipping from mine and letting go,’ she says. ‘When I’m holding my kids’ hands – like at the grocery store and stuff – when they let go of my hand… it kind of snaps me back into that time.’
She admits she’s understandably overprotective of her boys.
‘I don’t allow them out of my eyesight at all,’ she says. ‘I don’t even let them play outside.’
Their love and presence, though, do go a long way in helping her heal, and she hopes the new book will help others with trauma, too.
Just last year, Shasta’s house burned down (pictured). She’s now trying to make ends meet near Boise with her five sons through a body piercing business
Duncan is seen in a mugshot published in 2011. Duncan was sentenced to death in 2008 on federal charges, but died in 2021 of natural causes while in prison before the penalty could be carried out
‘I just want people to have a little bit more compassion for survivors, because all my life – even struggling with a drug addiction and stuff – I felt like I could not show any weakness. I felt like my world was crashing down because you have millions of people that look at you and expect you to be strong.
‘I just really hope that people start seeing the way that survivors deal with things differently, because unless you live it, you wouldn’t understand.’
