Serial Killer Alexander Pichushkin Russian Worst Serial Killer Documentary
Alexander Yuryevich"Sasha" Pichushkin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Ю́рьевич Пичу́шкин, born 9 April 1974), also known as The Chessboard Killer and The Bitsa Park Maniac, is a Russian serial killer. He is believed to have killed at least 49 people, and possibly as many as 60, in southwest Moscow's Bitsa Park, where a number of the victims' bodies were found.
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Early life
Pichushkin is remembered to have been an initially sociable child. However, this changed following an incident in which Pichushkin fell backwards off a swing and was then struck in the forehead as it swung back. Experts have speculated that this event damaged the frontal cortex of Pichushkin's brain; such damage is known to produce poor impulse regulation and a tendency towards aggression. That this event happened when Pichushkin was still a child is also significant, as a child's forehead provides only 1/8 the protection for the brain of an adult's. Indeed, following this accident Pichushkin frequently became hostile and impulsive, and his mother decided to transfer him from a mainstream school to one for children with learning disabilities. Following this transfer, children from the mainstream school began to physically and verbally bully Pichushkin, referring to him as "that retard". This abuse served to intensify Pichushkin's rage and hostility. Upon his reaching early adolescence, Pichushkin's maternal grandfather recognized that Pichushkin was highly intelligent, and felt that his innate talents were being wasted, as he wasn't involved in any activities at home, and the school he was enrolled in focused more on overcoming disability than on promoting achievement.
The grandfather took Pichushkin to live in his home and encouraged him to pursue intellectual pursuits outside of school. The deepest of these interests was chess, with Pichushkin being taught how to play and, after demonstrating his ability, being introduced to the exhibition games played publicly in Bitsa Park. It turned out that Pichushkin was an outstanding chess player, and in these games against generally elderly men, Pichushkin first found a channel for his aggression by dominating the chessboard in all of his games. Unfortunately, Pichushkin was still bullied by mainstream school children throughout his adolescence and, as perhaps the cruelest emotional blow, toward the end of this period Pichushkin's grandfather died. Pichushkin was left to return to his mother's home, at which time he enrolled as a student. The death of his grandfather reportedly greatly affected Pichushkin, and, possibly in an effort to dull the pain of the loss and to calm his severe aggressive tendencies, he began to consume large quantities of vodka. He continued to play chess both at home and in the exhibition games in Bitsa Park, now joining the other men in drinking vodka, though unlike them he could play without being greatly affected by the alcohol. It was at this time that Pichushkin began to develop a more sinister hobby that at the time remained unknown to anyone: whenever he knew he was going to come into contact with children, he would take a video camera along and proceed to threaten them. On one disturbing, and alarmingly prophetic, occasion that has since been made public, he held a young child by one leg, upside down, and said to the camera: "You are in my power now... I am going to drop you from the window... and you will fall 15 meters to your death..." He then watched these videos repeatedly to reaffirm his power. However, by 1992, this practice had become insufficient to satisfy his urges.[citation needed]
Murders
Pichushkin committed his first known murder as a student in 1992 and stepped up his crimes in 2001.[1] Russian media have speculated that Pichushkin was motivated, in part, by a macabre competition with another notorious Russian serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, the 'Rostov Ripper', who was convicted in 1992 of killing 53 children and young women over a 12 year period.[2] Pichushkin has said his aim was to kill 64 people, the number of squares on a chessboard.[3][4] He later recanted this statement, saying that he would have continued killing indefinitely if he had not been stopped.[5]
Pichushkin targeted primarily elderly homeless men by luring them with the offer of free vodka. After drinking with them, he would kill them with repeated blows to the head with a hammer. In what became his trademark, or signature, he would then push a vodka bottle into the gaping wound in their skulls. He also targeted younger men, children and women. He would always attack from behind in order to take the victim by surprise and to avoid spilling blood on his clothes.[6] He claimed that while killing people he felt like God as he decided whether his victims should live or die. "In all cases I killed for only one reason. I killed in order to live, because when you kill, you want to live," he once said. "For me, life without murder is like life without food for you. I felt like the father of all these people, since it was I who opened the door for them to another world."[7] Experts at the Serbsky Institute, Russia's main psychiatric clinic, have found Pichushkin sane, but suffering from antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, making him a psychopath.
According to the documentary, "Serial Killers",[8] Pichushkin, once apprehended, led police officers to the scenes of many of his crimes in Bitsa Park, and demonstrated a keen recollection of how the murders were committed. He was filmed reenacting them in great detail, a process which is a regular part of Russian criminal investigation. He also revealed that some of the murders he committed were not done in his preferred method (hammer blows to the back of the head), but by throwing his victims down into the network of sewers running underneath Bitsa Park (although one of his victims did survive this ordeal).
The murder of Marina Moskalyova, 36, in the spring of 2006, was his last. When her body was found in Bitsa Park, complete with Pichushkin's trademark injuries, a metro ticket found in her possession led authorities to review surveillance tape footage from the Moscow metro system, where she was filmed, just hours before her death, walking on the platform accompanied by Pichushkin.[9]
Trial and imprisonment
He was arrested on 16 June 2006, and convicted on 24 October 2007 of 49 murders and 3 attempted murders.[10] He asked a Russian court to add an additional 11 victims to his body count, bringing his claimed death toll to 60, and 3 surviving victims.[11] During his trial, as with Andrei Chikatilo, Pichushkin was housed in a glass cage for his own protection.[12] It took Judge Vladimir Usov an hour to read the verdict: life in prison with the first 15 years to be spent in solitary confinement.[10]
Serial Killer Paul Durousseau The Jacksonville Serial Killer Documentary
Paul Durousseau (born August 11, 1970) is a serial killer from the United States who murdered seven young women (including two who were pregnant) in the southeast United States between 1997 and 2003. German authorities suspect he may have killed several local women when he was stationed there with the Army during the early 1990s. Typically, Durousseau would gain the victim’s trust, enter the victim’s home, tie their hands, rape, then strangle them to death.[2] All of his known victims were young, single African-American women.
Personal life
Paul Durousseau was born in Beaumont, Texas. Little is known publicly about Paul Durousseau's childhood. His first offenses with the law as an adult took place on December 18, 1991 and on January 21, 1992 for carrying a concealed firearm in California.[3] In November 1992, he enlisted in the US Army[3] and was stationed in Germany, where he met Natoca, who would later become his wife.
The two married in 1995 in Las Vegas. In 1996, they were transferred to Fort Benning, Georgia. On March 13, 1997, he was arrested for kidnapping and raping a young woman. However, in August of that year he was cleared of those charges. Soon after, he was found in possession of stolen goods. He was court-martialed in January 1999, found guilty and dishonorably discharged from the Army.[4]:3
The two moved to Durousseau's hometown of Jacksonville, Florida where they had two daughters. It was during that period that he committed most of the murders. He struggled to keep jobs and make ends meet, and the couple would often have fights over the issue of finances. In 1999, the police advised Durousseau's wife on how to file for a restraining order after he allegedly slapped her in the face and grabbed her by the neck. Later, she testified he got violently angry when she talked about getting a divorce. In September and October 2001, Durousseau spent 48 days in jail for domestic battery.[4]
Durousseau still managed to hold various legitimate jobs. In 2001, he was hired as a school bus driver and an animal control worker despite being a convicted felon. In 2003, he worked as a taxi driver in Jacksonville. It was erroneously reported that Gator City Taxi Company failed to run a background check on Durousseau[5] and it is now accepted that this is how he first came into contact with some of his victims. The City Of Jacksonville Department of Motor Vehicle/Taxicab Inspection office is responsible for background investigations of all persons applying for taxicab driver permits. Durousseau was issued a Taxicab Driver Permit from the City of Jacksonville.[6]
Neighbors and friends described him as a "lewd womanizer". He often asked young women when they planned to "make flicks" with him. A witness recalled Durousseau hitting on a girl that appeared to be 13 or 14 years old.[7]
Chronology of the murders
Less than one month after the acquittal over the rape charges, the nude body of 26-year-old Tracy Habersham was found on September 7, 1997 in Fort Benning.[8] She had been missing for 48 hours and was last seen leaving a party. She had been raped and strangled to death with a cord. Paul Durousseau was not a suspect in the murder but DNA would later tie him to the crime. He also would confess in Habersham's killing after his arrest.[3][9]
In 1999, he raped and killed 24-year-old Tyresa Mack in her apartment. Witnesses saw him leave her place with a television.[10] In 2001, he was arrested for raping a young woman in Jacksonville. He spent 30 days in jail and received two years' probation. On December 19, 2002, 18-year-old Nicole L. Williams' body was found wrapped in a blue blanket at the bottom of a ditch in Jacksonville. She had been reported missing two days earlier.[8]
On January 1, 2003, family members of 19-year-old Nikia Kilpatrick went to check on her. They had not had any news from her for several days. They found her body in the bedroom of her apartment. She had been raped then killed by strangulation with a cord two days before. Her two sons, an eleven-month-old and a two-year-old, were alive but malnourished. Kilpatrick was approximately six months pregnant at the time of her death.[4]
On January 9 of the same year, 20-year-old nurse assistant Shawanda Denise McCalister, who was also pregnant at the time of her death, was raped and strangled to death in her Jacksonville apartment. The murder scene was almost identical to that of Nikia Kilpatrick. She was killed on Durousseau's first day of driving a cab for Gator City Taxi. Her body was found the following day.
The next two victims were 17-year-old Jovanna Jefferson, and 19-year-old Surita Cohen. Their bodies were found close to each other in a ditch next to a construction site on New Kings Road in Jacksonville on February 5. Police estimated that Jefferson was murdered around January 20 and Cohen was killed 10 days later. Witnesses recount having seen the two last victims with a taxi driver fitting Paul Durousseau's description on the night they disappeared.
He was arrested and charged with five counts of murder on June 17, 2003. On December 13, 2007 he was sentenced to die by lethal injection for the murder of Tyresa Mack. As of August 18, 2013, he was still a resident on Florida's death row at Union Correctional Institution. No execution date has been set.
MUSCLE AND MAYHEM: THE REAL-LIFE STORY BEHIND MIAMI'S MURDEROUS SUN GYM GANG
Group of bodybuilders at center of one of Miami's most notorious crimes: a complicated and deadly plot that involved kidnapping, money and murder
Produced by Chuck Stevenson, Jamie Stolz, Tamara Weitzman and Alicia Tejada
(CBS News) MIAMI -- Zsuzsanna Griga will never forget the kidnapping of her brother, Frank, and his girlfriend, Krisztina Furton in 1995.
"...he loved fast cars, beautiful girls and life," Griga said. "She was very beautiful. She was only 23 years old. My heart breaks when I think of what she went through."
Felix Jimenez, now retired from the Metro-Dade Police homicide department, was the lead detective on the case.
"Very handsome couple, they looked like they were made for each other," Jimenez explained. "Frank was the American success story -- an immigrant, came to this country with $10 dollars in his pocket and made millions."
He came from Budapest, Hungary, and found a minimum wage job in New York City.
Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton
Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton
"It was like a service station ... he was changing the oil, washing cars," Zsuzsanna Griga explained. "What he accomplished ... should make everyone proud because he went from nowhere to a millionaire on his own just by using his own resources."
In fewer than 10 years, Frank was living in an upscale Miami enclave called "Golden Beach" and running a phone sex line empire. He was on top of the world until May 24, 1995.
"I started calling him and he wouldn't pick up the phone," Zsuzsanna Griga said. "I kind of knew that something really bad happened then..."
The disappearance of Frank and Krisztina would become one of Miami's most notorious crimes. But who would want to kidnap them?
"How did this all go down?" Roberts asked Jimenez.
"So we got a call that there was a missing -- a wealthy couple that was missing out of Golden Beach," he explained. "That was a little strange because in homicide we need a crime scene. We need a dead body to respond to. They're few and far between when there's actually a missing person that we would respond. It has to be highly suspicious circumstances. And it so happened in this case there was."
At first, the detectives hoped they could find Frank and Krisztina alive.
"...the missing Hungarian couple had said that they were going to the Bahamas the -- the-- following day. So all their friends assumed that the reason they weren't home was because they were in the Bahamas," said Jimenez.
All that changed, though, when a police made a stunning discovery.
"Their Lamborghini was found in an abandoned, wooded area far outside of Miami," said Jimenez.
"At this point, we realized that something bad -- something bad had happened to this couple," said Sam Garafalo.
Garafalo, also retired, worked the case for his boss, Felix Jimenez. They are now both CBS News consultants.
"We got information and -- as soon as we got it, we ended up going to Golden Beach," he said.
"So you have a missing Hungarian couple and a Lamborghini," Roberts noted.
"We had more than that. We had a next door neighbor ... that had actually been to the house the last time they were seen alive and they invited her in and introduced her to two muscle-bound men that were driving a gold Mercedes and told them they were going out to dinner to discuss a business deal," said Jimenez.
The neighbor would tell police she'd met the driver of the gold Mercedes and knew his name: Danny Lugo.
"Danny was a big muscular guy," said Jimenez.
Police would soon learn that Lugo was a burley ex-convict who had served time for running a phony loan scam operation. After his release, he became the manager of a suburban Miami health club called Sun Gym.
"This is where the Sun Gym was located. This is what we would call the gang headquarters," said Jimenez.
"Danny Lugo was a Puerto Rican-Cuban kid from the Bronx," added Garafalo.
"He thought he was smarter than anybody else," Jimenez added. "He had a way of convincing people to do things they didn't want to do."
The investigation into Frank and Krisztina's disappearance continued. Detectives learned Lugo was the leader of a group made up of drifters and petty thieves who hung out at the Sun Gym. His main partner in crime was another muscle head, Adrian Doorbal.
"Adrian Doorbal was Danny Lugo's protege," said Jimenez.
"Doorbal was just an evil, he reminded me of just an evil guy," said Garafalo.
"He was a steroid freak. ... He's like 5 foot 7 tall and 5 foot 7 wide," Jimenez continued. "He'd do anything and everything that Danny Lugo told him to do."
In May 1995, Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal would be at the center of one of the most notorious crimes in Miami history: a complicated and deadly plot that involved kidnapping, money and murder.
Eighteen years later, the story was too much for Hollywood to resist. In the new movie "Pain and Gain", Lugo is portrayed by Mark Wahlberg.
The film, released by Paramount Pictures, is part of Viacom, a company affiliated with CBS.
The movie captures what Lugo was about in real life: his infatuation with getting rich, says Patty Barrientos, who worked alongside him at a gym.
"He'd say... 'I'm gonna have a lot of money... I wanna grow, I wanna be somebody very big...'" said Barrientos.
Asked if he was money hungry, Barrientos told Roberts, "Yes."
With the little money he had, he spent a lot of it at the Solid Gold Strip Club. It was here he began an affair with a one-time Penthouse model-turned exotic dancer named Sabina Petrescu.
"She was a very, very attractive woman," Jimenez said. "She fell for Danny and believed everything he told her."
Petrescu was another recent immigrant who made a splash in Miami. She was a finalist in the Miss Romania contest in 1990, then came to the United States to begin a modeling career. She made it onto the pages of Penthouse magazine, but filled the rest of her time as an exotic dancer.
"Danny treated her well ... he gave her a BMW," said Jimenez.
Petrescu would play a crucial role as police continued gathering more evidence connecting Lugo and Doorbal to the disappearance of Frank and Krisztina.
"We have the housekeeper who was also at the home when the -- the musclemen were there. We have the next door neighbor. We show them photographs. They make identification. So we have a lot to go on," said Jimenez.
Search warrants were executed for the homes of Lugo and Doorbal and their associates.
"I mean we had so many cops it wasn't even funny," said Garafalo.
"... in fact we mobilized right in this park," Jimenez pointed out.
Police quickly hit pay dirt in the apartment of Danny Lugo's girlfriend.
"There was some damning evidence there ... bloody clothing belonging to Frank and Krisztina, there was the kidnap kit -- a case with duct tape ...guns, [stun guns], handcuffs -- there was so much evidence in that apartment," said Jimenez.
Soon Adrian Doorbal was in custody and refused to talk to police.
"The main guy that we're after, Danny Lugo, is nowhere to be found," said Jimenez.
Danny Lugo had given them the slip.
"This case was all over the news," retired homicide detective Felix Jimenez told Troy Roberts. "Miami was riveted as to this attractive Hungarian couple ... you know, this yellow Lamborghini found in the Everglades and that they're missing and they continue to be missing."
But detectives had lost their lead suspect, Danny Lugo.
"Lugo's gone, we have a warrant for his arrest," Jimenez said. "He's just vanished. We don't know where he is."
They did have one good lead.
"We had his girlfriend, Sabina Petrescu," said Jimenez.
Sabina Petrescu, the magazine model-turned stripper, had quite a story to tell. She said her boyfriend wasn't a criminal. He told her he was a CIA agent.
"Number one, she was smitten with Danny Lugo, and number two, I think she believed what he was saying -- that he was a CIA operative -- that he was working for the U.S. government in kidnapping people that were dangerous to this country," said Jimenez.
Danny Lugo had convinced her he was a spy on a secret mission. So for now, she wouldn't tell detectives where Lugo was. But it would be just a matter of time.
In an incredible twist of fate, detectives in another department at Metro-Dade police had also been looking at Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal. Their case was the bizarre kidnapping of another Miami millionaire. Now, Lugo and Doorbal were front and center of two cases.
The Miami millionaire was Marc Schiller, an accountant.
"He was Argentinean born, grew up in the U.S., went to school, got his CPA license, he had a medical billing business that did very well," Jimenez explained.
The two crimes would become one huge case -- a case that Judge Alex Ferrer, now TV's "Judge Alex", and Miami-Dade prosecutor Gail Levine would never forget.
"This case was what made me who I am today, a career prosecutor," said Levine.
"Of all the cases I've tried this is by far the most fascinating case," said Ferrer.
Schiller would eventually tell police a wild story -- that five months before the murders of Frank and Krisztina, Schiller himself had been grabbed by a gang. Bound and gagged, he'd be dumped at a warehouse and held for more than a month.
"This is a warehouse that was rented by one of the members of the Sun Gym Gang," Jimenez told Roberts as they stood outside the building.
"They drove the van with Schiller inside into the warehouse."
"Mark Schiller was the perfect victim because he was involved in something that was illegal," said Levine.
"I think he got greedy and started to get involved in Medicare fraud," said Jimenez.
Danny Lugo learned about Schiller from Jorge Delgado, who also worked out at Sun Gym. Schiller and Delgado had been in business.
"Him and Jorge Delgado started a mortgage business together," said Jimenez.
But business went badly, and later Schiller and Delgado had a falling out over a deal. Delgado wanted revenge and told Lugo that Schiller would be an easy mark.
"They basically go 'He's not goin' to the cops ... he's involved in Medicare fraud. We'll shake him down...'" said Ferrer.
So what was the plan?" Roberts asked Levine.
"The plan was actually very simple: kidnap Marc Schiller, have him write his own ransom and then kill him," she replied.
"Simple as that?" Roberts asked.
"Simple as that," said Levine.
But catching Schiller to shake him down was tougher than it looked.
"It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic ... because they made these stupid attempts," Ferrer explained. "They would hide in his yard under blankets like they were some kind of ninja ... waiting for him to come out and get the paper at five in the morning and they were gonna kidnap him ... only to be surprised that cars were coming down the street and lighting them up with their headlights...
"So then they're running through yards, screaming 'abort, abort like they're on some secret mission for the government," he continued.
Hollywood could not resist this crazy scene. The gang used costumes and comic book code names like Batman and Robin and tried to stage an accident to kidnap Schiller.
"They're waiting for him to drive by to stage this accident," Ferrer explained. "They turned the car off and as he's driving by they're cranking it and the car won't start and he goes driving by. So it's like the Keystone Cops gone bad."
Finally, after multiple attempts, the "gang that couldn't shoot straight" enlisted some serious muscle and planned to take Schiller down outside a restaurant he owned.
"They waited in a van and they had their biggest gym rats come out," said Levine.
A co-conspirator, who "48 Hours" agreed to keep anonymous, worked with the Sun Gym gang to kidnap Schiller.
"I'm a good hearted person. I just made a mistake," he told Roberts.
"I was pretty hardcore..." he said of his weightlifting.
"At your peak you could bench 475 pounds?" Roberts asked.
"505," he replied.
"505? How big were you?"
"I was like a lean 270 pounds," he said.
"Big guy... intimidating," Roberts commented.
"Yeah."
He was desperate for money and sometimes worked at the Sun Gym. In 1994, Lugo and his gang were offering cash for a little help.
"He told me, 'Look, I gotta talk to you about something,'" the co-conspirator continued. "'... he owes me money'... and 'I need you to come with me and help me collect.'"
He agreed, and in November of 1994, brought his gun.
"So you had your .45 with you?" Roberts asked.
"I always carry my firearm," he said.
"We were parked right there," the man said, standing with Roberts in the parking lot, "... and as soon as he came out of his restaurant, they saw him so they said... 'There he is, there he is...'"
"It was one of those days in Miami where a storm was coming in," Schiller recalled.
Schiller is a man who cheated death and whose harrowing ordeal is now dramatized by actor Tony Shalhoub in the new movie.
"Why are you alive?" Roberts asked Schiller.
"I guess its divine intervention. I can't explain it," he replied.
Schiller's nightmare started just as he was about to head for home after work.
"I walked out to my car ... as soon as I opened my door ... I'm grabbed from behind by three guys," said Schiller.
"... and as soon as they grabbed him the guy grabbed the steering wheel... he was screaming the co-conspirator told Roberts.
"They just kept punching me ... and they had a Taser... and they kept Tasering [sic] me," said Schiller.
"They were Tasing him," the co-conspirator continued. "He was screaming ... 'What do you want, what do you want with me, what are you doin?"
"At that point, they dragged me to the van -- a white van," Schiller said. "They handcuffed my hands behind my back."
"You must have been terrified," Roberts commented.
"I thought they were gonna take me and kill me," he said.
"They duct taped him... they put tape on his mouth ... and we took off right out of here," said the co-conspirator.
"When we got to the warehouse," said Schiller, "they called the boss."
The boss was Danny Lugo, the same man at the center of the Krisztina Furton-Frank Griga murder case.
"... told him, 'The eagle has landed.' I guess I was the eagle," said Schiller.
"When I left ... Schiller was sitting in the chair ... he was taped up -- hands and legs ... and they were beating on him," the co-conspirator told Roberts.
Schiller was tortured endlessly. Sometimes, it was with fire.
"Doorbal would yell, 'Fire! Fire!' but real sick," Schiller said. "And he would burn me, you know, burn my skin ... and then he'd do this again ... and he was laughing so hard he was crying."
Other times, they played Russian roulette.
"They would place a gun to his head, they would take a revolver and spin it and pull the trigger," Jimenez explained. "For the first couple weeks, he wasn't even allowed to use the bathroom. He would have to urinate and defecate on himself."
But the worst was yet to come.
"At this point they told me, 'Well if you don't give us a list of everything you have ... we're gonna bring your wife down here and rape her in front of you," said Schiller.
Schiller says he was allowed to make one phone call. He called his family, telling his wife to take their two young children and flee to Colombia. She chose not to call the police.
Asked why she didn't she call police, Schiller told Roberts, "I don't know. I think at that point, it was prudent not to."
And for some inexplicable reason, none of Schiller's employees, friends or extended family raised the alarm. With his family safely out of the country, Schiller was still suffering. Finally, the daily torture was too much. He gave up, giving the gang everything.
"I signed. They told me my death sentence," said Schiller.
"He was signing over everything, including his life," Levine said. "It was $1.2 million in cash and assets and a $2 million life insurance policy."
"And pretty soon they had everything the man owned. They moved into his house, they changed the pool contract to their name. They were living there ... and partying in his home," Ferrer explained. "And they were taking some of the furniture they liked and putting it into their own apartments, wearing his jewelry, driving his Dodge Viper, and his Mercedes ... and just basically living off his money. ... Well, at that point, you can't let the guy live ... so they decide he's gotta go."
Having forced him to sign over his assets, the Sun Gym gang, led by Danny Lugo, was partying in Marc Schiller's house. In the Hollywood feature, "Pain and Gain", Mark Wahlberg's character depicts the depravity.
"They were living in the house. In my house," Schiller told Troy Roberts.
Despite his cooperation, Schiller still remained chained like an animal in the Miami warehouse.
"Schiller was tied to a pipe in a very small bathroom. That's where he spent the next 30 days, was handcuffed to that pipe," former homicide Felix Jimenez explained.
The businessman and father was living in kind of a hell associated with a Third World dungeon -- complete with racial slurs.
"They just told me, 'We got a matzo ball' ..." said Schiller.
"What does that mean?" Roberts asked.
"I guess they were referring to the fact I was Jewish," he replied.
Schiller can't forget the sick soundtrack that came with his daily beatings.
"They, I mean this whole time they were laughing uncontrollably. To them it was just a fun game," he said.
"While they were beating you?" Roberts asked.
"Yeah."
"Did any of your captors show you any kindness?"
"Yeah, the guy that was at night there, because they stopped feeding me," Schiller explained. "I was starved. I hadn't eaten for like three days. He brought me a can of a - canned ravioli, which I had to eat with my hands."
That would be one of the last meals the Sun Gym gang intended for Schiller to have as Lugo put his final plan into action.
"They give him alcohol to drink. Get him all drunk," said Judge Alex Ferrer.
"They plied you with alcohol for three straight days" Roberts noted to Schiller.
"It was probably more than that, it was probably like five days," he said.
"And then what did they do?"
"The last day? ... They set me in a chair, and they give me this concoction, a drink," said Schiller.
"Liquor, tequila, vodka and gave him sleeping pills. And eventually he passed out," said Jimenez.
Schiller was unconscious.
"They put him in his Toyota 4Runner, his SUV," said Ferrer.
"And they drove the car into a light pole. Doorbal was driving," Jimenez explained. "... and then douse the car with gasoline and set it on fire. And that was their attempt to kill him. They backed out about a block away to watch the car as it was engulfed in flames."
"The problem is, they don't buckle him in," Ferrer explained. "The flames revive him enough that he stumbles out of the car and towards the road."
The surprised Sun Gym gang moved in to finish off Marc Schiller.
"... and they see this guy that they just lit on fire standing by the side of the road and they yell, 'Run him over, run him over,'" said Ferrer.
"They drive forward and they try to run him over, they missed. But then they were able to back over him and then run over him again," said Jimenez.
"And they get back to their place, and they go, 'You think we killed him?' They're looking at the dent of the car, and they say, 'I don't know it's not a big dent, yeah but we ran him over, and we backed over him, I mean he must be dead,'" Ferrer continued.
Asked what he remembered next, Schiller told Roberts, "Waking up in a hospital."
It would be months before Schiller could grasp the full horror of how he ended up half dead at Jackson Memorial, Miami's top trauma center.
"I was in a coma when they picked me up," he told Roberts.
In the frenetic haze of the intensive care unit -- burned and bruised, his pelvis broken -- Marc Schiller tried to tell his story of abduction and torture to nurses, doctors -- anyone who might listen.
"Yeah, I told 'em I was kidnapped, and they go, 'No no, you were in a bad accident,'" he said. "And I go, 'No, no, no, no. I was kidnapped. And they just blew it off."
"How many times did you insist you had been kidnapped?" Roberts asked.
"About three and then I gave up," said Schiller.
"He's trying to convince the nurse to give him a phone, because he says he was kidnapped. And she just keeps going, 'No you weren't kidnapped, you were drunk, you hit a pole," said Ferrer.
"I knew they weren't gonna do anything,"said Schiller.
"Finally, she gives him the phone. He calls his lawyer," said Ferrer.
From there, it took just moments to figure out Marc Schiller needed a lot more than just a lawyer.
But even Ed Du Bois, with 50 years of experience as a private investigator, had never heard anything quite like Schiller's story.
"The call was unusual because the story was so bizarre," said Du Bois.
Du Bois met Schiller and believed his story. Soon, both men realized
Schiller had an even bigger problem: Lugo and Delgado were intent on finishing the job.
"I was a sitting duck," said Schiller.
"Did you fear that Delgado and Lugo were going to come to hospital to finish the job?" Roberts asked.
"Yeah. And my sister was there and my brother. And we were all in a panic," he said.
"And I said, 'The easy answer is for you to get out of the hospital," said Du Bois.
"Why didn't either of you go to the police at that point?" Roberts asked.
"Well ... we couldn't wait for the police," Du Bois replied.
Schiller's sister ripped the medical tubes from his arms.
"And the doctor said, 'You can't move him. He's in critical condition,'" said Schiller.
Schiller's brother and sister booked an air ambulance, grabbed their brother and bolted out of Miami, heading north -- not a minute too soon.
"We left at 8 o'clock in the morning. I guess they came at 10 to look for me, to kill us all, all three of us," said Schiller.
"Delgado and Lugo?" Roberts asked.
"Yeah, to the hospital," he replied.
The now desperate Sun Gym gang had tracked down their former captive.
"As they're walking the halls of Jackson Memorial Hospital looking for him, he's on an air ambulance flight to New York," said Ferrer.
A thousand miles from Miami, Marc Schiller, now supported by his family, began to heal; his body and bones fractured.
"First, I can't walk and second of all, who knows how many of these people are out there," he said.
Schiller would reunite with his family in Colombia. Weeks would pass, and, strangely, despite his ordeal, Schiller did not report it to police.
"What person gets kidnapped, held for a month, and when he finally gets free, leaves the country and doesn't call the police for four months?" Ferrer wondered.
"I think what's difficult to understand is why you did not go to the police sooner," Roberts commented to Schiller.
"I did," he said.
But according to authorities, it wasn't until April 1995, four months after his escape, that Schiller contacted police.
"'They want you to come to Miami to report it,'" Schiller said. "And I'm like, 'That's not happening.' ... who knows how many of these people are out there. ... I run into them by accident, I'm dead."
"Marc Schiller was asked to come and give testimony under oath four times ... and he stood up not only the prosecutor, but the police, to give that testimony four times," said prosecutor Gail Levine.
Prosecutor Levine would eventually lead the investigation and try the case. She says Schiller didn't come forward, because he had his own credibility issues due to his alleged involvement in Medicare fraud.
"The victim comes from Colombia. He has a lot of money, more money than
I would imagine most CPAs in Miami have," she explained.
"So after a while, you and Marc decided to go to the police?" Roberts asked Du Bois.
"Yeah," he replied.
But according to Du Bois and Schiller, when they finally did sit down with the cops...
"They've never listened at all," said Schiller.
"They never went out, never read them their rights, they never asked them a question, they never even said, 'Hello, here I am. We're breathin' down your neck,'" said Du Bois.
"They went to Metro-Dade's top unit that handles just crimes of this nature --just the biggest crimes. And they just didn't believe him," Ferrer explained.
It had been five months since Marc Schiller's ordeal. The muscle-headed gang had trashed his home and burned through his money. They were now hungry for another score.
"If the police had listened to him and investigated, Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton would probably be alive today," said Ferrer.
By May of 1995, five months after his harrowing escape, the Sun Gym gang had burned through all of Marc Schiller's money.
"They'd been partying and going to strip clubs, and dropping thousands of dollars on strippers and it was all his money," said Judge Alex Ferrer.
With Schiller's fortune spent, the gang targeted their next victims: Frank Griga and his beautiful girlfriend, Krisztina Furton.
"There was never any pretense. They knew they were gonna kill them from the outset," said Ferrer.
The millionaire had it all.
"Lugo and Doorbal, on the other hand, they wanted to live that life," Ferrer continued.
The life Frank Griga had built on those dial tones of his sex phone empire.
"It made me very proud that my kid brother made it so big," Zsuzsanna Griga said.
"You know we were very poor when we were young..." she continued.
"It's a true rags-to-riches story," said Roberts.
"Yes it is," Griga replied.
Zsuzsanna had seen her brother's love for the glittery side of the American dream.
"Money was there for him to make other people happy and to play, to buy toys," she said.
"His wealth did afford him certain luxury items," Roberts noted.
"Oh he loved cars, yes, he loved cars," Griga said.
Frank Griga's yellow Lamborghini was legendary. It was that car that caught the eye of Adrian Doorbal. He'd been told about it by a woman who once dated Frank Griga.
"And Doorbal's face lights up and says, 'Who has the yellow Lambo?' And she says, 'Oh, don't you know? That's my friend Frank. He's my old boyfriend," Levine explained. "And he says, 'How would I know him?' 'Oh, he comes into this dance club Solid Gold all the time. Don't you know him?' Doorbal wasn't that stupid. Bingo. We got our next victim."
Doorbal and Lugo approached Frank Griga with a phony, made-up business scheme and a meeting was set at the Solid Gold strip club.
"And they told him that they were investors and that they had a way to make 20-percent return on the dollar," said Levine.
But the real plan mirrored the violent abduction of Marc Schiller: kidnap and torture Frank Griga until he signed over every nickel he had and revealed to the gang where his assets were kept.
"They also needed Krisztina," said Levine.
Asked why, she told Roberts, "They needed Krisztina because if Frank was missing, Krisztina was going to go to the police, 'cause why wouldn't she go to the police? Frank was completely legal."
Lugo and Doorbal, posing as businessmen, lured Frank and Krisztina back to Doorbal's apartment. Within minutes, Doorbal was strangling Frank in the bedroom.
"Doorbal, not knowing his own steroid strength, either broke his neck or suffocated him," said Levine.
And she screams, and Danny tackles her and injects her with horse tranquilizer, which they had basically bought to tranquilize the two of them," said Ferrer.
"And it killed her?" Roberts asked Levine.
"Not initially," she replied.
"They had a dead person and another one, another person near death," said Garafalo.
Krisztina Furton, 23, who loved animals, swimming and had dreams of being a professional diver, was now shot full of horse tranquilizer. Then, Lugo demanded she give up the access code numbers to Frank Griga's house.
"And Doorbal goes and speaks to her and he comes back and says, his exact words were, 'The bitch is cold.' They had injected her with enough horse tranquiller to kill four 1,000-pound horses. And now they're both dead -- Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton. And these two guys don't have a dime," Ferrer explained.
Asked what did they do with the bodies, Levine told Roberts, "Well, they got creative."
With the help of Jorge Delgado, Doorbal and Lugo stuffed the bodies of Frank Griga into a couch and Krisztina Furton into a large cardboard box.
"So here you have these two muscular guys, and on a Saturday morning, during the middle of the day, it looks like they're moving. And they're moving boxes and they're moving a couch. And what they contain are two bodies," said Jimenez.
They took the bodies to an empty warehouse. The horror was just beginning.
"So they went to Home Depot and bought a chain saw. They come back and they're gonna use this to dismember the bodies. But the chain saw doesn't have enough power. So these geniuses take this chainsaw back to Home Depot and return it," said Ferrer.
"You're kidding me," said Roberts.
"... and they brought that back and they end up buying an electric chainsaw," said Garafalo.
"It boggles the mind that they would return a chain saw that they were going to use to dismember these people," Roberts told the detectives.
"There's a lot of things about this case that boggle the mind," said Jimenez.
But the second chain saw jammed in Krisztina Furton's beautiful, thick hair. That's when Doorbal and Lugo reached for an ax.
"And they started chopping the body parts. For hours," said Levine.
"And they disposed of the torsos in one part of the county in oil drums," said Ferrer.
"And they left those hands, heads and feet in buckets at the 31 mile marker," Levine continued.
"... in the Everglades, on the Alligator Alley that goes from Ft. Lauderdale to Naples," said Ferrer.
"I have never passed that mile marker without saying a little prayer for Frank and Krisztina," said Levine.
Another gang member would dump Frank Griga's yellow Lamborghini on the side of the road, in the swampy Florida Everglades.
Police didn't need a GPS. The map was clear and it led straight to the Sun Gym gang.
"And I remember saying, 'We don't have a missing persons, we have a very major homicide,'" said Levine.
Soon, Frank's big sister was on a flight to Miami.
"The bodies were found that day," Zsuzsanna Griga told Roberts of the day she arrived. "Sergeant Jimenez and Sgt. Garafalo ... came and picked me up at the airport and they explained that they just had, you know, they had the bodies. Yes." Griga paused before continuing. "Sorry. It's still very hard after 17 years."
As investigators put the pieces together, Marc Schiller's kidnap story echoed like thunder.
"And they said, 'I think we got another case just like yours ... could you come down to Miami?' I said, 'Yeah, yeah. I'll come to Miami,'" said Schiller.
The Sun Gym gang left a massive, bloody trail of evidence. The last of the muscle heads would be busted when Danny Lugo's girlfriend, Sabina Petrescu, told police that Lugo was hiding out in the Bahamas.
The crimes and the trial would captivate and horrify all of south Florida.
"It was disturbing on every level. And I've tried serial killers," Ferrer said. "But this case really got to me."
Almost four years after he was left for dead, Marc Schiller faced off again against the Sun Gym gang.
In February 1998, almost three years after the gruesome murders of Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton, Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal were set to go on trial.
The case would be career defining for prosecutor Gail Levine.
"It was so encompassing ... from the day I got the call, from the day I started investigating it, from the day I met the victim's family, from the day I met everybody involved, from the relationship that I developed with police in investigating the case," she explained.
Lugo's girlfriend, Sabina Petrescu, was granted immunity in exchange for her testimony. She knew all the gang's secrets and details of their plots, though she believed they were undercover CIA agents.
"Sabina Petrescu's probably one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life," Levine said, "but she was also one of the most naive women I have ever met in my life. She was in love with Danny Lugo and she thought he was her CIA agent."
With 100 witnesses and thousands of pieces of evidence, the case would drag on for 10 weeks, overseen by Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the State Attorney for Miami-Dade County.
"... when you have a case that's that grotesque and you know people suffered ... what do we do to bring justice to the victims of this case, either in their name or for their surviving members ," said Rundle.
Justice was what Marc Schiller got this time. He was in control as the prosecution's star witness.
"Walking in and seeing Lugo and Doorbal ... I realized that -- I was in the driver's seat ... because they never imagined that I'd be sitting there accusing them," said Schiller.
The prosecution rested. Lugo and Doorbal's attorneys chose not to put on a case.
"There's sometimes when, as a defense lawyer, you don't have anything to go on. You just don't. You can't claim misidentification. You can't claim anything," said Ferrer.
"What was the defense strategy?" Roberts asked Levine.
"Save their lives," she replied.
Jurors wasted little time making their decision. Within hours, they reached their verdict: Daniel Lugo was found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Krisztina Furton and Frank Griga.
Doorbal was also found guilty and both men were sentenced to death.
It's a moment Judge Ferrer will never forget.
"As I was sentencing him, Danny Lugo was standin' there lookin' at me, and his eyes were ... watery. Noel [Adrian] Doorbal, on the other hand, he was joking. He was turning around to his girlfriend, and making faces like a goofball," said Ferrer.
"You believe the jury got it right?" Roberts asked Levine.
"One-hundred percent," she replied.
"Think my final words were, probably, 'May God have mercy on your soul,'" said Ferrer.
Asked is she's gotten justice, Zsuzsanna Griga told Roberts, "What sort of justice can be done, OK? Short of bringing him back?
... he was reaching for the skies, " Griga continued. "And the message that he -- he had out there was ... you can do whatever you want. And this is what these guys -- broke short.
"Were you satisfied with the verdict? Roberts asked Schiller.
"Well, guilty, yeah, but -- I don't believe in the -- death penalty," he replied. "I think being in a jail cell for the rest of their life is worse punishment."
The ordeal wasn't over for Marc Schiller. As he left the court after the trial, he was surrounded by armed FBI agents who arrested him on charges relating to an extensive Medicare scam.
The Medicare fraud that made Schiller such an easy target for the gang had come back to haunt him.
"It was a sham," Ed Du Bois said. "They never returned the money to Marc Schiller. Marc Schiller did not commit that $14 million worth of Medicare fraud."
In a highly unusual twist, Judge Alex Ferrer stood up for Schiller during the federal fraud investigation. He described how important Schiller's testimony was in bringing down the Sun Gym gang.
"He was treated like a prisoner of war or actually worse. The torture and the beatings and the -- the attempts to kill him and all of that. For some reason, it just felt to me that that should be taken into consideration," said Ferrer.
Incredibly, one of Schiller's torturers, Jorge Delgado - the Sun Gym member who had first told Lugo about Schiller and his millions - ended up helping the federal government make their case.
In a plea deal, Schiller ended up serving two years in federal prison and paying $137,000 in restitution.
"He felt betrayed," Roberts noted to Levine.
"His jail sentence is what he did, but the pain and suffering that he endured, that -- nobody deserves that," she said. "Did Marc Schiller deserve to go to prison? I leave that to the federal government. I wasn't involved in that at all."
Today, while Schiller refuses to talk about the charges, he does say he lost everything -- his health, his home, his millions. Even now, with a big Hollywood movie, he won't get a dime.
"It's a comedy, which is unfortunate, because there was nothing funny that happened to me," he said. "These were inept, incompetent people, but they were at the same time malicious and cold-blooded murderers."
Ultimately, the rest of the gang went to prison, too. The co-conspirator was sentenced to two years imprisonment for his involvement in Schiller's kidnapping and Jorge Delgado got 15. In all, seven members of the gang would do time.
It's been 18 long years since the gang tortured and killed their way through Miami.
Gail Levine has continued her career at the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office. She's tried more than 80 cases.
Judge Alex Ferrer left the bench in 2005, and continues to enjoy success with his syndicated television show.
Video: Ferrer on his early life, career in Miami
Marc Schiller has just released his tell-all tale, "Pain and Gain - The Untold True Story".
Lugo and Doorbal remain on death row.
Lugo and Doorbal have appealed their convictions multiple times over the past 15 years.
Once their appeals have been exhausted, Florida's governor will sign a death warrant and they will be executed by lethal injection.
Serial Killer Morris Solomon Jr The Sacramento Slayer Documentary
Morris Solomon Jr. (born March 15, 1944[1]) is a convicted serial killer now sitting on death row in San Quentin, California
Early life
Relatives and friends described Solomon's upbringing in rural Georgia as abusive. He was raised primarily by his grandmother, Bertha, who beat him and his brother daily for infractions such as bedwetting, mispronouncing words, or crying during a beating. Sometimes, she hit them for no apparent reason. When Solomon was very young, Bertha beat him by laying him over her lap and hitting him repeatedly. She also made him remove all his clothing and stand on a stool in the corner, where she beat his bare body, including his genitalia, with an electrical cord or switches she made him bring to her. Bertha sometimes beat him until he bled. Once, she tied his hands around the pole of a bed with an extension cord to keep him from backing away from her during a beating.[2][3]
Solomon had little contact with his parents for the first 13 years of his life. He was reunited with them when Bertha and the family moved to Isleton, a small farming town 40 miles south of Sacramento. They were among a handful of black families living in a poor, rundown section of the town known as “Cannery Row” or “Tinpan Alley.” His parents frequently beat and sexually assaulted one another in front of him. His mother and grandmother often beat him and verbally abused him in public. Friends and relatives would later describe his mother as a “loose woman” who regularly “entertained” different men.[2]
After high school, he attended community college and worked at various jobs, including carpentry, car repair, and bus driving.
He served in Vietnam for one year starting in the summer of 1966.[3] He returned to Isleton after his tour of duty ended in the summer of 1967. During this time, he became engaged to a woman he had known before going to Vietnam. When she broke off the engagement, he relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area, got married, and fathered a daughter. After he and his wife divorced, he moved back to Sacramento, where he found employment as a handyman.[2]
The murders
Yolanda Johnson (22) – found 18 June 1986.
Angela Polidore (25) – found 20 July 1986.
Maria Apodaca (18) – found 19 March 1987.
Cherie Washington (26) – found 20 April 1987.
Linda Vitela (24) – found 22 April 1987. She had been dead for about a year.
Sheila Jacox (17) – also found 22 April 1987 and had likewise been dead for about a year.
Sharon Massey (29) – found 29 April 1987 and had been dead for around 6 months.
Investigation[edit]
The investigation began with a report to police of the discovery of Yolanda Johnson's body. The report was made by Solomon.[4] Johnson had been bound, was found partially nude, was a drug user and a prostitute. Apodaca was bound, a drug user, a prostitute and buried wrapped up in bedding. Polidore was bound and partially nude. Washington may have been bound, nude, possibly a drug user, a prostitute and wrapped up in bedding. Vitela was nude, a drug user, a prostitute and wrapped in bedding. This was also true of Jacox. Massey was bound, nude, possibly a drug user, a prostitute and wrapped in bedding.[2] These common factors were interpreted by police to mean they were dealing with only one killer.[3]
Solomon possibly took the initiative to report Johnson's body in order to appear innocent.[3] Police questioned him after this discovery and he gave fingerprints and a blood sample, but he gave several inconsistent statements and he failed to properly identify himself. He was questioned a second time after Apodaca's body was discovered and gave false statements to police but later explained that he was concerned about outstanding misdemeanor warrants. On 20 April 1987 he gave police permission to search his (abandoned) car on a lot where he lived. When they were at the premises, police noted a depression in the soil, borrowed a shovel, excavated and discovered Washington's body. On 22 April 1987 police discovered Vitela and Jacox's bodies buried at a residence associated with Solomon. He was arrested. Police found Massey's body on the same lot where Apodaca's had been found.[2]
In the course of their investigation police had discovered that Solomon had said to a third party that he would kill Johnson over the theft of some stereo equipment and that Apodaca had visited him at his residence several times. It was also indicated that the sheet in which Apodaca's body was wrapped, came from his bed and that Washington had been seen following him into his bedroom.[2]
Trial and sentencing
The prosecution case was largely circumstantial, because there was no evidence directly connecting Solomon with the crimes. Witness testimony connected him as an acquaintance of some of the victims. Tellingly, except in one case, all the victims were found at locations where Solomon had either lived or had worked as a handyman. Although police had a blood sample, DNA testing was in its infancy and no connection was made by means of that technology. However, a semen sample had been collected from Johnson's body and it was determined to be consistent with Solomon's blood.[3]
During the trial defense attorneys, Peter P. Vlautin III and Constance Gutowsky, presented an extensive case in mitigation; 18 witnesses testified over the course of seven days.
The defense case largely attempted to show that defendant's crimes stemmed from psychopathology born from the abuse he suffered as a child, compounded by his tour of duty in Vietnam and his cocaine use.[2] Clinical forensic psychologist Brad Fisher and clinical psychologist John P. Wilson both testified that the abuse Solomon suffered as a child led to mental, emotional and behavioral problems that were strongly linked to his crimes.
Solomon was convicted of six of the murders; the charges were dropped with respect to the Polidore murder.[2]
Penalty phase
Solomon's first death penalty phase was declared a mistrial, though a second jury voted unanimously to put him to death in July 1992. When news about the case was made public, Solomon's victims who had survived his attacks, came forward and testified about their experiences. The following summarizes these incidents.[2]
Mary K. (18) testified about having been knifed 19 September 1969.
Virginia J. (20s) testified to having been grabbed from behind, threatened with a gun, forced into a car and subjected to sexual assault and rape 12 January 1971.
Dale W. testified that Solomon kicked her in the face (for which he was subsequently convicted of assault and intent to commit rape) on 17 May 1971.
Connie S. testified that Solomon pulled a chain over her neck, choked her to unconsciousness, urinated on her face, assaulted and raped her on 18 October 1975. He was convicted of aggravated assault and false imprisonment.
Darlene G (18) testified that she was choked to unconsciousness on December 1976. Solomon was convicted of assault with intent to commit rape and false imprisonment. This happened at San Quentin State Prison, where he worked as a forklift operator.
Solomon had also been convicted of three counts of grand theft in 1984 in Arizona.[2]
The second jury at the penalty phase unanimously decided on the death penalty and the decisions in this case were affirmed by the California Supreme Court.[2] Solomon was the 342nd person to receive the death sentence in California and is now on death row in San Quentin, California. His conviction was affirmed by the California Supreme Court on July 15, 2010.
Media
A documentary of Solomon's serial crimes appeared on the criminal documentary, "Crime Stories" at Discovery Channel and Biography Channel, featuring Antonio "Tony" Harvey, an Associated Press correspondent/author, retired Sacramento police detective John Cabrera and former Sacramento Bee photographer Tom Parker.
Antonio "Tony" Harvey, a correspondent for the Associated Press and journalism graduate from Sacramento State University, has completed a detailed true crime novel on Solomon's case. Currently, Harvey's book is titled, "The Homicidal Handyman of Oak Park."
Serial Killer Joseph E Duncan III Jazzi Jet Documentary
Joseph Edward Duncan III (born February 25, 1963) is an American convicted serial killer and sex offender who is on death row in federal prison in conjunction with the 2005 kidnappings and murders of members of the Groene family of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He is also serving 11 consecutive sentences of life without parole in conjunction with the same crimes as well as the 1997 murder of Anthony Martinez of Beaumont, California. Duncan has confessed to but not been charged with the 1996 murder of two girls in Seattle, Washington.
Born in Tacoma, Washington, Duncan's criminal history dates to when he was 15 years old. In 1980, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually assaulting a boy in Tacoma and as a result has spent all but six years of his adult life in prison. He was paroled in 1994 but was returned to prison in 1997 for violating the terms of his parole.
In May 2005, Kootenai County, Idaho authorities discovered the bodies of Brenda Groene, her boyfriend, and her 13-year-old son in the family home near Coeur d'Alene. Authorities also noted that Groene's two other children were missing: Shasta, 8, and Dylan, 9. After an intense search for the two children, Shasta was found alive with Duncan at a restaurant in Coeur d'Alene nearly seven weeks later, and Duncan was arrested in conjunction with her kidnapping. Dylan's remains were found days later in a remote area near St. Regis, Montana. Duncan was subsequently charged with murdering Dylan as well as the three victims at the Coeur d'Alene home.
During his incarceration, authorities connected Duncan with the unsolved murders of Anthony Martinez in California and two girls in Seattle, all of which occurred during Duncan's parole from 1994–1997. Of those murders, Duncan has only been charged in the California case. In all, Duncan has been convicted in Idaho for kidnapping and murdering the three victims in Coeur d'Alene, for which he was given six life sentences; in federal court for kidnapping Shasta and Dylan Groene and murdering Dylan, for which he was given three death sentences and three life sentences; and in the state of California for kidnapping and murdering Martinez, for which he was given two life sentences.
Early criminal history
Duncan has a long history as a violent sexual predator. He committed his first recorded sex crime in 1978 in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington, when he was 15 years old. In that incident, he raped a nine-year-old boy at gunpoint. The following year, he was arrested driving a stolen car. He was sentenced as a juvenile and sent to Dyslin's Boys' ranch in Tacoma, where he told a therapist who was assigned to his case that he had bound and sexually assaulted six boys, according to a report by the Associated Press. He also told the therapist that he estimated that he had raped 13 younger boys by the time he was 16.
In 1980, also in Tacoma, Duncan stole a number of guns from a neighbor and then abducted a 14-year-old boy and sodomized him at gunpoint. Duncan was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but was released on parole in 1994 after serving 14 years. While out on parole, Duncan is known to have lived in several places in the Seattle area. He was arrested in 1996 for marijuana use and released on parole several weeks later with new restrictions. Authorities believe that during his parole Duncan murdered Sammiejo White and Carmen Cubias in Seattle in 1996 and Anthony Martinez in Riverside County, California in 1997; however, both those cases went cold and were not tied to Duncan until after his arrest in the Groene case. Duncan was arrested in Kansas and returned to prison in 1997 after violating the terms of his parole;[3][10] he was released from prison on July 14, 2000 with time off for good behavior[10] and moved to Fargo, North Dakota.[11]
In March 2005, Duncan was charged with the July 3, 2004 molestation of two boys at a playground in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. On April 5, 2005, he appeared before a Becker County judge, who set bail at US$15,000.[12] A Fargo businessman with whom Duncan had become acquainted helped him post bail; however, Duncan skipped bail and disappeared.[13] On June 1, 2005, a federal warrant was issued for Duncan's arrest on the charge of "unlawful flight to avoid prosecution."[14]
Idaho murders and kidnappings
On May 16, 2005, authorities discovered the bodies of Brenda Groene, 40; her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, 37; and her son, Slade Groene, 13, in their home along Lake Coeur d'Alene, outside the city of Coeur d'Alene.[4] Two of Brenda Groene's other children, Dylan, 9, and Shasta, 8, were missing. An AMBER Alert was issued and searchers combed the area for the missing children while authorities investigated the deaths at the home as homicides.[4] Autopsies determined the cause of death to be "blunt trauma to the head"; authorities also noted that the victims had been bound.[15]
Seven weeks later, in the early morning hours of July 2, 2005, Shasta Groene was seen at a Denny's restaurant in Coeur d'Alene in the company of an unknown man. A waitress, manager, and two customers at the restaurant recognized Shasta from the media attention. They surreptitiously called police and positioned themselves to prevent the man from leaving.[16] Police officers arrived at the restaurant and arrested the man, later identified as Duncan, without incident.[16] Shasta Groene identified herself to a waitress at the restaurant and to authorities, and was taken to Kootenai Medical Center for medical treatment and to be reunited with her father.[14] Coeur d'Alene police, meanwhile, detained Duncan on kidnapping charges and on his outstanding federal warrant.[14]
When Shasta Groene was found without Dylan, authorities held little hope of finding the boy alive. Police asked the public for tips, specifically with respect to sightings of the stolen red Jeep Cherokee with Missouri license plates that Duncan was driving at the time of his arrest.[17] Authorities discovered that Duncan had rented the car in Minnesota and never returned it. A gas station employee in Kellogg, about 40 miles (64 km) east of Coeur d'Alene, recognized the vehicle as one that had stopped at her station hours before Duncan was arrested.[17] The employee suspected the girl wandering around the station might have been Shasta, but did not confront her, as nothing appeared out of the ordinary. The employee and her manager notified authorities after reviewing surveillance camera footage and seeing Duncan and Shasta in the video.[17]
Many tips provided to authorities centered around remote areas along the Idaho–Montana border. On July 4, 2005, investigators found human remains at a remote makeshift campsite in the Lolo National Forest near St. Regis, Montana.[18] The remains were sent to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia for DNA testing and were positively identified as Dylan Groene.[18]
Shasta Groene's interview
Much of what is known about the murders of the Groene family was revealed by Shasta Groene herself. According to Shasta Groene's police interview, Duncan killed her mother, older brother and her mother's fiance and then took her and her brother away in the red Jeep Cherokee.
Shasta told investigators her mother called her into the living room, from her bedroom where she had been sleeping, and she saw Duncan wearing black gloves and holding a gun. Her captor tied her mother's hands with nylon zip ties, and did the same to her mother's fiance and her brother Slade. Dylan and Shasta were removed from the house and placed inside the stolen rental car. While she waited with her brother, she heard her mother's fiance scream out and then saw her injured older brother staggering away from the entrance to the home. Duncan then bludgeoned the three to death; neither Shasta nor Dylan witnessed the murders. Both Shasta and Dylan were removed to other locations, where they were repeatedly molested for six weeks. She said that they drove a long distance and stayed in two different campsites, where Duncan told her of having beaten her family members to death with a hammer.[19]
Other crimes
Duncan's arrest led the FBI to launch a nationwide review of unsolved missing child cases. He was implicated as a possible suspect in several crimes that occurred between 1994 and 1997, when he was on parole, and between 2000 and 2005, when he was free from prison. Although he was cleared as a suspect in some cases, authorities in California and Washington had enough evidence to believe Duncan had committed unsolved murders in their jurisdictions.
Anthony Martinez[edit]
On April 4, 1997, 10-year-old Anthony Michael Martinez was playing with friends in the front yard of his home in Beaumont, California, when an unknown man approached the group asking for help finding a missing cat. When the boys refused, the man grabbed Martinez at knifepoint and threw him into his vehicle.[13] After a 2-week search, on April 19 Martinez's body was found nude and partially decomposed in Indio. Investigators noted that he had been sexually assaulted and bound with duct tape.[13] Although a composite sketch of the suspect was made available and a partial fingerprint taken from the duct tape found on Martinez's body, the case eventually went cold.
In July 2005, bloggers noticed similarities between Duncan and the composite sketch in the Martinez case, as well as between Duncan's vehicle and the one Martinez's assailant was driving.[13] The FBI and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children became involved, and in turn contacted Riverside County authorities. Riverside authorities were able to match the fingerprint taken from Martinez's body to Duncan, and on August 3 the Riverside County Sheriff officially announced Duncan's connection with the Martinez case.
Sammiejo White and Carmen Cubias
Federal prosecutors also revealed that Duncan confessed to the murders of Sammiejo White, 11, and her sister, Carmen Cubias, 9, who vanished on July 6, 1996, after leaving the Crest Motel in Seattle, Washington, to panhandle. Their remains were found February 10, 1998, in Bothell, Washington.[20]
Trials
Joseph E. Duncan III has been convicted by three separate courts: first, by the state of Idaho for the kidnapping and murders of Brenda and Slade Groene and Mark McKenzie; second, by U.S. federal court for the kidnapping of Shasta and Dylan Groene, the murder of Dylan Groene, and various other crimes; and third, by the state of California for the kidnapping and murder of Anthony Martinez.
Idaho[edit]
Duncan first appeared in a Kootenai County court on July 13, 2005, where he was charged with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of first degree kidnapping, all in conjunction with the deaths of Brenda and Slade Groene and Mark McKenzie.[21] Kootenai County prosecutors had initially planned to charge Duncan with the kidnappings of Shasta and Dylan Groene; however, they deferred those charges to the federal courts, as transporting children across state lines for the purpose of sexual exploitation is a federal offense.[21] Trial was set to begin on January 17, 2006, but was delayed until April 4, after the district judge granted a request to the defense for more time to prepare for the trial, and then again to October 26, after the judge in the case stated that "No one wants to try this case twice, including me."[22] Duncan's attorneys blamed the multiple postponements on the prosecution's insistence on pursuing the death penalty.[22]
On October 16, 2006, shortly after jury selection began, Kootenai County prosecutors and Duncan's attorney reached a plea bargain in which Duncan pleaded guilty to all state charges against him.[23] He was immediately sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the three kidnapping charges.[23] Sentencing on the three murder charges was continued pending the outcome of his federal trial on kidnapping and murder charges; the judge said that if he did not receive the death penalty on the federal charges, he would return to Kootenai County for a death penalty phase on the state murder charges.[23] Over two years later, after being sentenced to death on federal charges, Kootenai County sentenced Duncan to three additional life sentences.[24] Duncan also agreed to cooperate with Kootenai County sheriff's detectives investigating his crimes and provide passwords to encrypted files stored on his computer.[23]
U.S. federal court
On January 18, 2007, Duncan was indicted by a federal grand jury in Coeur d'Alene on 10 counts of "kidnapping, kidnapping resulting in death, aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, and sexual exploitation of a child resulting in death," and other crimes related to illegal firearm possession and vehicle theft.[25] He was arraigned the following day at a federal court in Boise, Idaho, where a judge ordered Duncan to stand trial the following March.[25] Duncan's defense attorneys immediately requested a postponement,[25] which was granted the week the trial was originally scheduled to begin; a new trial date was set for January 22, 2008.[26]
On December 3, 2007, Duncan pleaded guilty to all 10 charges against him.[27] As a condition of the agreement, Shasta Groene would not have to testify in the penalty phase of the trial. Due to a gag order, other details of the plea agreement were not released.
Jury selection for the penalty phase for Duncan's federal trial began on April 14, 2008. During jury selection, Duncan dismissed his attorneys and chose to represent himself. His attorneys objected, asserting he was not competent to do so, and requested a formal hearing as to the issue. The district court ordered an evaluation of Duncan to determine his competence, and accepted the evaluator's conclusion that he was competent to proceed without counsel.
On August 27, 2008, after three hours of deliberation, the jury recommended the death penalty, and the judge imposed three death sentences for "kidnapping resulting in death, sexual exploitation of a child resulting in death, and use of a firearm in a violent crime resulting in death," all related to the death of Dylan Groene. On November 3, 2008, Duncan was sentenced to an additional three consecutive terms of life without parole in federal prison for kidnapping Shasta Groene and for sexually abusing Shasta and Dylan.
Duncan's standby counsel filed a notice of appeal. Duncan subsequently wrote the court and informed it that any appeal was taken "against his wishes".
In July 2011, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court's decision to permit Duncan to represent himself without first holding a hearing as to his competence to do so and remanded for a hearing as to this issue.
As of May 18, 2012, on remand, the district court had not set a competency hearing. As of September 2012, Duncan is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute in Indiana.
California
On January 18, 2007, the same day Duncan was indicted in federal court, Riverside County officials announced that Duncan was charged with Martinez's murder.[25] Despite attempts by Riverside County officials to extradite Duncan to California, including an appeal by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Duncan's federal trial proceeded. He was eventually extradited to California on January 24, 2009, five months after being sentenced to death by the federal court.[34]
On March 15, 2011, Duncan pleaded guilty to Martinez's murder, and was sentenced to two life terms on April 5, 2011.[35] As part of a plea deal, the sentence comes without the possibility of parole or right to appeal.[2][36] Although Duncan could have faced a separate death sentence in addition to the ones he had already been sentenced to in federal court, Riverside County District Attorney Paul Zellerbach justified the life sentence by stating that he had consulted with the Martinez family who wanted closure in the case and that "the federal system will kill him long before the state of California would have seriously considered it."[2]
"The Fifth Nail" and "Fifth Nail Revelations"
Prior to his arrest for murder, Duncan published his ideas on the Internet. He titled it "The Fifth Nail", which is also the URL for his personal website.[37] According to lore, in addition to the four nails used to pierce the body of Jesus Christ in his crucifixion, there was a fifth nail that was taken away and hidden by Romani. Duncan adopted the name for his own website and blog. The website depicted Duncan's day-to-day life as a sex offender.
