Where I live in Canada it’s not too far to cross the border into the USA, so my family and I pop over the border often (in fact, we went just a few days ago on the Labor day weekend)…for camping, eating out, sightseeing, traveling and sometimes shopping.

When I heard about a Denny’s waitress in nearby Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, recognizing a serial killer and his most recent kidnapping victim and phoning the police who nabbed the perpetrator, I was in shock to know that all this happened in an area we frequent.

Joseph Edward Duncan III had kidnapped then raped, tortured and murdered a 9-year-old boy in a campsite (and also kidnapped and raped the boy’s 8-year-old sister), after brutally murdering their older brother, mother, and the mother’s fiancé in their Coeur d’Alene home.

Duncan was sentenced to death last Wednesday upon the recommendation of jurors who watched a horrifying video Duncan made of himself brutality inflicting his abuses upon his victims.

And as if the story isn’t horrifying enough, labeled as adaptable and dangerous to society, to fellow inmates and to prison guards, Duncan admitted to raping a boy at gunpoint in 1980, killing two half-sisters from Seattle in 1996, and is charged with killing a young boy in Riverside County, California, in 1997.

Then…believe it or not…as the verdict was passed to the judge, Duncan showed no reaction other than to smile.

What are your thoughts on the death penalty?

What if it was your child or grandchild or friend or loved one who was victimized by a rapist and killer?

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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