October 27, 1981 the worst possible nightmare came to life – for each of you and for me – when you were kidnapped and sexually assaulted.
We lived at the Lively Oaks apartments in Lakewood just off
Steilacoom Boulevard behind what was then called Manley’s supermarket, which is
where True Value Hardware is located today. There was a chain link fence that
separated the apartment complex from the little shopping center.
I had a beef roast in the oven. It was almost ready for our
dinner. I gave you kids some money and sent the two of you together over to
Manley’s to buy a bottle of pop to go with our dinner.
There was a gate in the chain link fence and also another
unofficial opening that had been made in the fence.
You were gone for what seemed like a long time – about 45
minutes – but I thought maybe you were just having fun, playing in the store,
going up and down the aisles or had perhaps forgotten what you were supposed to
be getting. I tried not to be too worried. You were five and Evi was twelve.
After all, the two of you were together, so I thought you would be safe.
When at last you made it back home on that rainy late October
evening, you burst through the door, sobbing and crying. Evi kept saying, “The
man! The man! The man took us!!!”
“The man” had been standing in the gateway between the
shopping center and the Lively Oaks when you came back from the grocery store. He
was wearing a bandana mask. Even though we had practiced at home what to do if
anyone ever tried to abduct you – to scream, kick, fight back, make as much
noise as possible – his first words to you were, “I’ll kill you, if you make a
sound.” So, you didn’t make a sound. He grabbed each of you by one arm and
dragged you off behind one of the apartment buildings out of sight and
assaulted you there.
After the rapist threatened, he would “kill you, if you make
a sound” and assaulted Evi right in front of you, Jonathan, you were left
feeling so helpless and terrified, you didn’t understand what was happening,
what you were seeing.
Evi pleaded with the rapist let her take off her white parka
that had just come from the dry cleaners so that it wouldn’t get muddy.
And when the monster was done with you, he told you to stay
there for five minutes while he ran off into the darkness and disappeared.
At first, I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what had
happened to you. But as it became clear, I called 911. A detective from the
Pierce County Sheriff’s Department came out to our apartment. His name was
Detective Jim Wagenblast. He seemed nice and took the report at our apartment.
Evi was able to draw an excellent sketch of the rapist with
his stringy, scraggly, greasy, rain-soaked hair. And even though he was wearing
the bandana mask – the way Evi drew his eyes – was picture-perfect.
But then without even going out to the scene of where the
assault had happened, Det. Wagenblast told us to take a dish of some kind, something
like a saucer or something like that, and then go back out there and “feel
around on the ground” to see if we could find a wet spot – the kind of wet spot
that would be consistent with semen – and if we did, to scoop it up into the
saucer and bring it to the lab for analysis. Then he left.
After he was gone, you kids and I went back out there to
‘the scene’ behind one of the other apartment buildings and crawled around in
the rain on our hands and knees, crying our eyes out, patting the ground trying
to feel for any slimy semen that might be on the ground to scoop up into the
saucer for evidence.
After that and the earlier reassurance from Det. Wagenblast
that if I took you kids to Lakewood General Hospital your privacy would be
protected and you wouldn’t have to re-tell your story over and over, then I
took you to the ER. Unfortunately, despite the detective’s promises, you each
still had to re-tell your horror story to three different people at the
hospital, reliving all of the details each time.
The News Tribune reported the crime in one short little story. But the lifelong impact, the toll that took on our family can never be measured completely. It changed who each of you – Evi and Jonathan – are forever afterward. It changed our family. It devastated our family. And yet that monster disappeared into the darkness, never to be caught or held accountable after his few minutes of ‘pleasure’ and leaving our family with a lifetime of damage.
Prior to that night Evi had always had a lot of friends. We’d
have sleepovers at our apartment with a dozen or more little girls with
sleeping bags lined-up from one end of the living room to the other. But after
that, Evi would never have more than one close friend at a time.
Jonathan, your view of the world was formed that night,
because you were left feeling so completely helpless and powerless. That shaped
a lot of your behavior over all the years since. Do you remember “watching your
TV eye?”
For several years after that night, you’d suddenly seem to
go into almost a trance-like state, staring off into the distance. You’d
giggle. I’d ask you what you were doing. You’d say, “I’m watching my TV eye.”
But it wasn’t for several years before you were actually able to put into words
just what exactly your “TV eye” was. Finally, you explained it to me. You would
“watch your TV eye” whenever you’d be reliving what had happened that night,
October 27, 1981 and seeing what that man was doing to Evi and feeling so
helpless, you would block it out of your mind by instead switching on a
favorite TV show in your head and “watching your TV eye” rather than being
tormented by reliving what had happened that night. Once you were finally able
to verbalize that to me, it seemed that those episodes of “watching your TV
eye” were no more. Somehow you had come to terms with it.
As a family we went to therapy, each of us to individual therapists for a time. Evi went the least amount of time, but the therapist she saw said that she would be most affected by what had happened to her when she was older and would be involved in a serious relationship. Jonathan, you went for a longer period of time and saw two or three therapists off and on over the years including after going into treatment down in Oregon. I saw a therapist consistently for several years, because I had a lot of issues and have struggled ever since with the guilt over how I could have let that whole nightmare happen to the two of you. I should have been wiser. I should have protected you better.
I failed you both also by allowing Allen to come into our lives and into our home. I will never forgive myself for that. Where he had been a military police officer in the Army, I felt that he was someone who was trustworthy and that you kids were safe with him. So, after being divorced from your dad, that's why I married Allen. That was the most important thing to me -- that you and Evi were safe. Even though he betrayed my trust in our relationship in those two years we were together by sleeping around and fathering other kids with other women during that time, it wasn’t until many years later that I found out what he had been doing to Evi during that time, too. Here when I was going to work in Seattle at KOMO at night and believing that you and Evi were safe at home in Lakewood with Allen, instead he was doing unspeakable things to her. Not until her suicide mission to St. Lucia and then after she and I were at the ICU in Miami Beach, it was only then that the doctor who was caring for her there shared with me that she had told him what Allen had been doing to her all those years ago. It was absolutely diabolical that anyone would ever do that to a child, but even worse to have done that to her after what she and you had been through at the hands of the masked rapist/murderer prior to that. the worst and most despicable excuse for a stepfather ever.
Evi was a wonderful kid and a great student, always responsible, caring for you and so loving. And I was so proud of Evi for her passion for animals, her work
at Button Veterinary Hospital, her college life here, then serving in the Army,
and going on to college from there. My heart was broken into a million pieces
when she went to St. Lucia to commit suicide.
Marrying Charles was such a happy occasion. I was so proud
of you, Jonathan! And so happy to have both of you – Evi and Jonathan – with us
for the wedding: Evi creating floral
arrangements and so many other special touches and Jonathan walking me down the
aisle to give me away. My heart was bursting with pride to have both of you
there and to be a part of our special day.
But it was only six weeks after Charles and I had gotten
married and when she had come home for our wedding, that Evi decided to kill
herself. I didn’t see that coming. Again, something else I will never forgive
myself for…
But after getting help from the U.S. State Department (they sent a Learjet down to St. Lucia to pick us up) and bring her back to Cedars Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach where she was admitted to ICU, she drifted in and out of consciousness over the next few days. I was advised to seek legal guardianship of her. She flew into a rage when she learned I wanted to obtain legal guardianship of her so that when/if she survived, I would be able to bring her home to Washington to continue caring for her. She ordered the nurses to put it in her chart that I was not allowed to see her. And I have never seen her, heard from her or spoken with her since that day. It’s been 27 years now! I think I’ve been punished enough. A lot of people who serve time for murder serve shorter sentences than that. But Evi has banished me (apparently) forever – and yet – she not only survived, but moved back to Washington herself, got married and had a child. A grandchild I have never seen – except in pictures that were inadvertently sent. My heart continually aches over this unresolved brokenness…
And you, Jonathan, here when Charles was in Seattle for the
kidney transplant back in May of 1997 and you were living with us, then when we
finally got home back to our apartment in Lakewood, you were gone! Gone without
a trace. No note, no nothing. Just gone. And for the next ten years I couldn’t
find you. I searched everywhere. I asked your friends. I called the hospitals.
I checked the jail roster. I read the obituaries. I checked Facebook. I did
Google searches. But it wasn’t until I found a Google reference to Justin
Prozora in a post on Google by Donna Bagley, and then I searched for her on
Facebook and found her there, that I finally was able to reconnect with you
after ten years of an agonizing search for you. And now more years of silence
and alienation…
So, here’s what has led me to write all of this to you today
– and I’m hoping you will forward this email to Evi, because it is important
for her to know, too – all of it.
Back in 2005, there was a horrific crime case here in the
Northwest that involved a guy who had kidnapped, raped and murdered children –
a young brother and sister.
The instant I saw him on TV at his arraignment back then I
felt that I recognized him.
I recognized him from the sketch that Evi drew of the rapist who kidnapped the two of you back in 1981. His eyes are still the same.
KIRO
TV story about convicted rapist and murderer Joseph Duncan
I began some research into more of that guy’s background.
His name is Joseph Duncan. He was convicted and given not just a life sentence,
but was also to be executed. What else I learned about him – even though the
high-profile part of what he was convicted for and sentenced for did not
include all of his crimes – he is the one who is also tied to the kidnapping
and murder of two young sisters from a motel in Seattle; their bodies were
found in Bothell or Lake Forest Park. His pattern is obviously that he would
always take two kids -- always young siblings.
What I also learned is where Joseph Duncan was at the time
of your kidnapping and the sexual assault on October 27, 1981. He was a
juvenile then and living at Western State Hospital in one of the cottages on
the West End of the hospital campus, the ones that are right alongside the rock
fence. They are unlocked and only have adult supervision part of the day. The
patients/residents are free to come and go, and walk about the community. It
isn’t a stretch to see how easy it was for him to walk the 2 blocks to Manley’s
and the Lively Oaks apartments where he kidnapped you and Evi. And when he said
he’d “kill you, if you make a sound” – he meant it. That became his pattern and
he repeated it over and over as an adult.
I’ve known for years now that he is in prison awaiting the
fulfillment of his death sentence. I even contacted the FBI about him once he
was in custody, since he had committed crimes across state lines in Washington,
Idaho, Montana – and also now linked by DNA to a murder in California, too. I
asked the FBI to pursue further follow-up of your case from 1981.
What led me to write to you today is that it was on the news
yesterday that Joseph Duncan is terminally ill with a brain tumor, so he will
be dying soon – sooner than he will be executed by the State.
I just wanted you and Evi to know that the monster who did
that to you – to both of you – and to our family will soon be dead and gone.
It is still my hope that we can all be reunited one day
before any of us dies… I will love each of you forever.
Mom
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UPDATE 03/31/2021 01:35 a.m.
On Saturday, March 27, 2021 Joseph Lee Duncan's miserable life came to an end. It's unfortunate that the trail of misery and heartache that he inflicted on so many families will not end with his death. But at least he is dead and cannot hurt anyone else now. --Mom
Serial killer and child molester Joseph Duncan, 58, dies on death row from brain cancer decades after slaughtering three young boys and an Idaho family
- Duncan died in a hospital Saturday while serving a sentence on federal death row at a prison in Indiana
- Duncan's attorneys disclosed late last year that he had terminal brain cancer
- The 58-year-old was convicted in 2005 of killing nine-year-old Dylan Groene, his brother Slade Groene, 13, his mother Brenda Groene, 40 and her fiance Mark McKenzie, 37
- DNA evidence linked Duncan to the 1997 killing of 10-year old Anthony Martinez in California while he was on parole for a rape charge
Duncan was also linked to the killings of two young girls in Seattle in the 1990s.
In 2005, Duncan was accused of molesting a young boy on a playground in Minnesota. He posted a low bail and skipped town.
Duncan was driving to Washington, where his family lived, when he said he spotted the Groene children playing outside their home along Interstate 90.
He planned to kidnap the children, buying night vision goggles and stalking the family.
Duncan videotaped many of his crimes against the Groene children, leading a veteran investigator to say the footage shook him to his core.
'While I would've liked to witness his execution, knowing he is now standing before God being held accountable for what he has done, what he did to my son, and the horrible crimes he committed to others, that is the real justice,' Anthony Martinez's father, Ernesto, said.
Anthony's younger brother, Marcos, said there is now 'less evil in the world.'
'Nothing can bring my brother back, but now Duncan can never hurt anyone again. Because of him, I will spend the rest of my life doing everything I can to fight against any evil left in the world,' Marcos Martinez said.
'God has brought pure justice for all those Joseph Duncan has hurt,' he said.
