The Groene Family Nightmare

HUGE TRIGGER WARNING!

This one is upsetting. Physical and sexual abuse on a child, death of a child, and the evil sack of bones that commits these acts is an actual nightmare of a human being, proceed with caution.

This case took place on May 16th of 2005, Shasta Rae Groene was asleep, in her home, when her mother frantically ran into her room at 6am to wake her. Shastas mother would only tell the 8 year old that, "there is a man in the house who doesn't want us to be here. After, she and her 9 year old brother Dylan, followed mother to the living room, Shasta would see her stepdad Mark and older brother Slade, bound face down, while a man with a mask and shot gun stood over them.

After binding the remaining family members, the man, would take Dylan and Shasta and place them outside underneath an apple tree, after beating her family with a hammer, the man would return and place the two youngest family members into his red Jeep and, would then drive for hours.

What would happen in the next 7 weeks, is truly the stuff nightmares are made of. I would like to hear your thoughts on this case.

Chapters

• 0:04 Everything Scary Podcast Episode Updates
• 6:58 Shasta and Dylan
• 15:51 Search for Missing Children and Killings
• 23:24 Shasta's Harrowing Kidnapping and Escape
• 34:48 The Horrific Case of Chasta Groening

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

Welcome to Everything Scary. My name is Lynn and I'm here with my co-host local celebrity, sorry, sorry, international celebrity. Thank you, matt McClain.

Speaker 2 0:12

Hello, hello.

Speaker 1 0:14

Every Tuesday we release a new episode, mostly true crime, but we've also been known to cover a pandemic, a haunting, a super mad, super strong chimpanzee. We'll cover anything and everything scary. Please rate us five stars and join us on Instagram at Everything Scary Pod. Here we go. Hi, hello, how are you?

Speaker 2 0:33

I am wonderful. I have a question for you. What's your Right off the bat?

Speaker 1 0:37

What's your.

Speaker 2 0:38

Now that we know that you are a phenomenal pizza maker, will I ever get some of your homemade pizza? Sure yeah.

Speaker 1 0:46

I will buy some. Actually, what we did? I'm a girlfriend to Nels' house. She has Costco pizza boxes, so we did a bunch of pizzas and then had the kids deliver them. So they went, they like took everybody's orders and then they delivered. Kids love shit like that. Of course, and they decorated the pizza box with their own logos and stuff like that oh that's funny. So hi, welcome to our Patreon episode.

Speaker 2 1:03

That is awesome.

Speaker 1 1:04

Where, if you join a certain tier, I'll make you pizza.

Speaker 2 1:09

Costco has phenomenal pizzas, so does Metro.

Speaker 1 1:11

You've said that before and I'm really into trying it. Whoa.

Speaker 2 1:15

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:16

And to Ashley R, our newest patron. This is as good as it gets.

Speaker 2 1:19

That's right, ashley R Welcome. We congratulate Ashley R too.

Speaker 1 1:23

We did in the other episode.

Speaker 2 1:24

But yes, ashley had, I'm going to do it in this one.

Speaker 1 1:25

Sir, you go ahead, then you take the.

Speaker 2 1:27

Congratulations, ashley R and your wife started to see Nope, camilla Sure.

Speaker 1 1:34

No.

Speaker 2 1:34

I still went with C. What was her wife's name?

Speaker 1 1:37

I don't know, oh, we don't know. Oh, okay, oh, I thought it.

Speaker 2 1:39

Oh, thank God, I thought I heard it and forgot. Well, congratulations.

Speaker 1 1:43

You just kept going.

Speaker 2 1:45

Her and her wife have welcomed a Scottish baby. Well, they are all Scottish, so just a baby.

Speaker 1 1:51

Right, this is the weirdest Congratulations I've ever heard. So, yeah, we'll get your laughs out now, because this is, it's going to be a rough run. I firstly want to commend you, thank you. We have been here all day.

Speaker 2 2:05

Yes, we are on hour five.

Speaker 1 2:08

And you are fucking holding it together. Thank you, and you know what this means you get four weeks off again.

Speaker 2 2:13

Whoa Jackpot. So I mean I like it, I like it, the world is.

Speaker 1 2:18

You can follow the WWE around all you want.

Speaker 2 2:21

Wicked yeah, and we're coming to Toronto on Friday.

Speaker 1 2:26

On Friday Are you going? I don't know yet. Would you have to buy it through a scalper?

Speaker 2 2:30

No, oh we can't see a scalper anymore. Thank you, it's okay. Ticket broker no, so there's an app called Game Time that my friend at work uses and it's just kind of for last minute tickets. So you go on and I guess all the ticket brokers panic days before the concert or the event and so they lower the price. He says with the fees on the website are so high. He'll go to like the Leafs home opener every year. Take the day off, go to Toronto, dress for the game at the ACC and buy his tickets in line.

Speaker 1 3:03

Really.

Speaker 2 3:04

On the phone from the app.

Speaker 1 3:06

I've bought tickets for the Leafs that were golds after the puck drop because the second hand sellers were like oh God, now I've got these tickets and they're like okay, fine, give me whatever.

Speaker 2 3:16

Yeah give me that $100. Yeah, yeah, so it was awesome. I've seen very few things sweeter in life than pulling one over on a scalper or a ticket broker.

Speaker 1 3:27

Gosh, we're, it's a Patreon.

Speaker 2 3:29

Sorry guys.

Speaker 1 3:31

So this is a Patreon one, and I just wanted to also say that we have a new line of shirts coming in with our cute little logo on a little iPod. I will be posting a picture. She sent one for you too, nice. Yeah, I'll be posting a picture as soon as I receive it, but the next time you and I record together, we are going to do a draw for the Patreons. And we'll be sending out one of those shirts and one of these cute little acts wish bracelets.

Speaker 2 3:56

Oh yeah, yeah, those are cool, I like them. Is that your first one?

Speaker 1 4:00

still, yeah, you called it my litter bracelet. Well, if you make a wish, yeah, and then it's just in the street somewhere.

Speaker 2 4:08

Sorry if somebody picked up my garter.

Speaker 1 4:10

So she is at True Mama style Co.

Speaker 2 4:14

True Mama style Co.

Speaker 1 4:16

There's no E on True and her name is Jess and I tag her all the time in like my Instagram posts, so if you want to see other stuff she does, she does some pretty cute work.

Speaker 2 4:24

Yes, we love you Jess.

Speaker 1 4:26

Yeah, hey-oh. Actually, jess isn't a patron.

Speaker 2 4:28

Oh sorry, Then you know what? She's not that cool. She's nice, but she's not cool.

Speaker 1 4:33

I really like her.

Speaker 2 4:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1 4:36

But so the one I'm covering today is awful, and that's why I saved it for the very end, because I didn't want you to be cranky until right now.

Speaker 2 4:43

Well, actually, if we're going to just pull back the curtain, the last thing we have to do today is a little commercial.

Speaker 1 4:48

Oh shit.

Speaker 2 4:48

So we're going to do this one and then it's going to be like hi, I'm Matt.

Speaker 1 4:54

I really enjoy when we do True Friends, I can hate this lady.

Speaker 2 4:58

Isn't that right, matt? No more, I'm done, please stop.

Speaker 1 5:04

Your mom calls me tonight, I'm going to have to ask you never do that to him again.

Speaker 2 5:09

No, we talk about some serious stuff, but we also have some fun, isn't that right, matt? Oh God, there's no hope.

Speaker 1 5:16

Look, there's a fucking buddy. He's doomed for it. You're an eagle, so here we go.

Speaker 2 5:22

The.

Speaker 1 5:22

Patreons have a bit of a tougher skin, I think. So they're going to need it for this one and for the next Patreon one. If I'm being honest, I'm going to be like I'm going to. It came as a request and it has to do with the lead singer of the lost prophets, Ian Watkins. I messaged you about him last night. Again, it was a request. I have only just touched down on researching this guy, but he is a literal demon. Oh a demon.

Speaker 2 5:46

He said literal demon.

Speaker 1 5:47

Um, I know what the word literal means.

Speaker 2 5:50

All right, I believe that he is a demon, so you are not a member of bachelor nation where they will say at my heart, literally a float at that.

Speaker 1 5:59

Well, you're still standing, sweetheart, so probably didn't literally literally knocked me off my feet. Well, he should go to jail then. Yeah, man can't touch you. So the reason this guy, ian, is back in the spotlight right now is because somebody in prison stabbed him and truthfully, I would like to shake that person's hand.

Speaker 2 6:17

I like what.

Speaker 1 6:17

I have. Yeah, maybe I mean like I don't know what the guy that was in jail for that Maybe did something, but you know what clearly our morals are in line when it comes to stabbing Ian. Yes, so we have another one to look forward to next time we record, and we have Sarah to thank. So Sadly, this one too involves some kid stuff. There is child murder and sexual assaults. I'd like to say this one kind of has a happy ending. It's really a lot of bitter, sweet stuff, probably a little bit more on the bitter side than the sweet, but it kind of has a cool aspect to it.

Shasta and Dylan

Speaker 1 6:54

Let's get into it. All right, so you know what I'm talking. Today I'm covering the case of a Shasta groany. So quickly I just want to tell you about this family. They live on frontage road in Wolf Lodge, idaho. In the groany household there was the mother, brenda, who was 40, oldest, brother Slade, who was 13, dylan was nine, shasta was eight and then Brenda's boyfriend, mark, lived there as well and he was 37.

Speaker 2 7:18

Boy, top down. That's a. That is a good roster of names, right, hey, that's and I'll tell you something else.

Speaker 1 7:24

They had two more brothers, but let me get a little ways down here. They had cool names too, though, but so Dylan and Shasta were the youngest, and they were only a year apart. They were inseparable and they were best friends. They had like a very sweet relationship, which is sometimes hard to come by with siblings. If I make a few a solid hour without my kids telling on one another, it's after bedtime.

Speaker 2 7:46

Oh yeah, it's a weird. My nephews do that and I find it odd to tell him that's not to be a towel tail you know, at first I was just trying to like answer every single one of their Tatlings, like.

Speaker 1 7:57

I was like, oh, that's not nice and your feelings are validated. And and now I'm just like are you bleeding? You're not, I don't want to hear about it. Is there broken bones? Okay, so Dylan, he's the nine-year-old. He was known in his family as the teddy bear. He was the youngest of the boys and little boys I think we already had this conversation today but they're just fucking sweet, they're just cuddly, and Shasta would say that she had never met anyone like Dylan at nine years Old. He would be friends with kids who got picked on all the time, but he was still really popular. So he was just one of those kids that, like he didn't care what other people had to say, he was gonna be friends with whoever he wanted to be friends with. They did have two older brothers as well. Their names were Vance and Jesse.

Speaker 1 8:40

Oh yeah, I could call and they had decided to move in with their father Steven After he and Brenda had gotten divorced. So Brendan Steven had married in 1986. They had four boys and then they had little Shasta. She was the apple of everyone's eye and even though she was the youngest she was a little firecracker and she did not have a hard time gaining everyone's attention. She said that even though their home was small and their home was very small I didn't have a lot of things that most other homes do like. They didn't have a washer and dryer. They didn't have a dishwasher. The mom Brenda used to cook on a propane stove.

Speaker 2 9:12

Oh, oh, like in and out.

Speaker 1 9:14

Yep, but they had a lot of property, and this was actually a home that Brenda's grandparents owned, and so she had moved into, like her grandparents house right yeah and they didn't miss out on anything. Like there's a ton of love in this house and Chastis says she wouldn't have changed a thing. Like they went camping and there the reason Brenda wanted to live in that house is because she was more of an outdoor person than she. Like she wasn't hanging around inside watching TV.

Speaker 2 9:38

You know, yeah, yeah, Acreage got some wilderness probably around yeah there's a lake right by, they would go fishing camping.

Speaker 1 9:46

Shasta would say that her mother loved to dance and they would just put on music and dance in the living room, and Chastis said that she loved to cook with her mom and that they would have dinner on the table every night and they would always eat together. Has very important to her mother Steven. Their father had a good relationship with all of his kids. He was a blues musician and that was something that he and Dylan really connected on because Dylan was very into music and they bonded over that. But when Brenda and Steven divorced in 2001 it was contentious and it kind of broke down the family unit a little. But Brenda had known Mark McKenzie since they were kids, which was just a neighbor in the area, and the two struck up a romantic relationship and he loved her children as if they were his own and they were responsible in their relationship. They didn't rush into things because you know it's more complicated when kids are around and after about four years of dating Mark moved in with the family.

Speaker 2 10:40

Wow, that's definitely not a common relationship trend we hear on this podcast. It's like I met a guy, I moved in and it didn't work out. Weirdest thing Wow.

Speaker 1 10:52

So when her mom and dad had divorced, shasta was only two. So as far as like back, as you could remember, mark was always also a father figure to her. Stephen was very much in her life, but Mark was also like her stepdad. So now, unfortunately, this is going to bring us to the early morning of May 16th of 2005. Shasta recalls her mother frantically entering her room at 6 am and telling her that there was a man in the home that he did not want them to be there. Shasta followed her mom to the living room and there was a man there with a shotgun who at first Shasta mistook for a police officer. He was wearing like a black Bolly Claw.

Speaker 2 11:29

Right, you see big guns. You just kind of say, you know, when you're a kid At 6 am yeah.

Speaker 1 11:34

So when he asked the family to lay face down and began binding them with the duct tape and zip ties, she realized that this most certainly was not police officer, please. Mark was pleading with the man explaining to him that they didn't have any money. But that didn't stop him. One by one, he beat Brenda, mark and Slade with a hammer. He took Shasta and Dylan out of the house and placed them underneath an apple tree and he went back in to make sure everything was done. And then Slade, the 13 year old son, stumbled out of the house and the man turned his attention on Slade again and ruthlessly beat him more. Wow. He then put the two kids in the car and proceeded to drive with them for hours. And little Shasta was saying that she remembers looking at Slade and he slumped down on a picnic table and he looked at her and then he just kind of like fell into like a lying position and she thought in her little eight year old brain that her brother had died looking at her. So I know.

Speaker 1 12:34

So he drove with them for hours. He brought them to a secluded campground in the Lolo National Forest in Western Montana. This forest is over 2 million acres and it's like up a big, big, big mountain. When they arrived, they were about 150 miles away from their home. Wow, the man showed the petrified siblings his hammer and he said do you see this hammer? This is what I used to kill your mom, stepdad and brother. They're not alive and you're never gonna see them again. Oh my.

Speaker 2 13:01

God, this is like a criminal minds episode.

Speaker 1 13:05

Again, there's no words for this man.

Speaker 1 13:07

The things that he does so at the campsite. Their family's murderer wasted no time sexually and physically abusing the children. Shasta would say that he would get angry and he would throw things and that a lot of the physical abuse was taken out on Dylan and that he liked to have her watch and if she would cry at the sight of her brother getting hurt he would hurt him even more. Wow, this monster would have these babies write letters to their dad and their brothers and tell them that maybe they'd be allowed to go home one day, and in the letters he would have them talk about what had happened to their other family members. Like just the absolute sickness of it all.

Speaker 2 13:43

Like it's just Like Trinidad is gonna relift it all. He's just milking. That pain, that tort, my God.

Speaker 1 13:50

He's torturing them. That's exactly what he's doing. It's 100% torture. There's no other word for it. Like I can't even fathom what these little kids were going through emotionally, physically, and now he's just playing like mind games with them. He's just like the worst type of monster. I can't even begin to try and understand it. Like my daughter is seven and like she's you know she tries to act like she's older, but like she's still seven at the end of the day. And like I took them into toys arrest the other day and I got them all. I said you guys can eat, you get one thing. And she chose a stuffed pig. Like she's seven and like she still likes bubbles. And like dude, she made a fucking habitat and she made me give her like a giant, like rubber made tub. And she dug in the mud for like an hour the other day and made a habitat for a slug. She's like it needs cold mud so that it can like you know, slug mansion.

Speaker 1 14:36

Slugs be slugging. That's what I always say. It breaks my heart to think of what these poor kids were going through. Yeah, totally, and it's going to get worse before it gets better, I'm sad to say.

Speaker 1 14:45

But back at their home, a neighbor named Bob Hollingsworth made his way over to their house and he had made arrangements with Slade to pay him $10 to cut his lawn, and he was headed over with the money in hand to pay. When he got there, he knocked on the door and no one answered. So he peaked in the window and he saw that there was blood all over the walls and floor. He called 911 and he explained the situation, and when they advised him that they would send a deputy down to have a look, he said you're probably going to need to send more than one deputy down. When the Kootenay County police arrived, they went through the open door in the back and what they found inside that home that was once filled with so much love was the bodies of Brenda, slade, mark, and even though Slade had been brutally beaten twice, he managed to get back in the house and died beside his mother.

Speaker 2 15:36

Oh, he got off the tape like he fell dead. Oh my.

Speaker 1 15:40

Crawled back in the house and his head was at the feet of his mom.

Search for Missing Children and Killings

Speaker 2 15:43

Oh my, God, I know what a tough little fucking guy. Oh, I know, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 15:51

So of course now they were on the search for the missing eight year old, nine year old children. Usually in the case of missing children it almost always has to do with like a custody issue.

Speaker 2 16:02

Oh, like a parent, yeah.

Speaker 1 16:04

So they went right to the children's father, stephen, and questioned him. But you know, would he really be capable of killing Slade, his own son, and in such a brutal way? But, like, the killings also did look really personal because, like you know, if you're just trying to kill people, you're not going in there with a hammer.

Speaker 2 16:19

Like it's no, like that's overkill, it's very personal, like it's raging yeah.

Speaker 1 16:24

So in questioning Stephen, they found that he had been in a fight with Brenda a few days earlier and it was over the custody of the children. He would then go on TV to plea for the safe return of Dylan and Shasta. But one thing that he said made everybody even more suspicious. He said they had nothing to do with any of this. So how do you take that? Like if he had nothing to do with this, how, why?

Speaker 2 16:46

would he say that? Well, yeah, you're implying that there's something looming over this situation and it sounds like you're kind of really pleading to the kidnapper.

Speaker 1 16:54

Right, like you know something more yeah. Like and they were saying that he was part of like a biking, and so they thought maybe he knew like, maybe it was retribution from another biking or something like that.

Speaker 2 17:06

Yeah, they don't tend to fuck with families. Kids, no, yeah, especially kids like bikers like they go and like the top of fucking grizzled bikers, escort bullies to school and to like their court cases. When they got to like testify against their parents and they're afraid the bikers, like the Hells Angels, show up and take you to court.

Speaker 1 17:26

When I first met my husband he was like there's a bike gang but he wasn't part of it. But he was like friends with the people that were part of it and they did like fucking, hey, I'm not a cop.

Speaker 2 17:38

Hey, it's all good with me, girl, I ain't no cop.

Speaker 1 17:40

But they did bike rides for autism and stuff Like.

Speaker 2 17:44

A lot of it is they do the rides, toys, toys for tots.

Speaker 1 17:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the thing.

Speaker 2 17:49

Yeah, I know it is. You see a ton of like the service work that they do and within the community. But apparently, like you're not allowed to like wear a patch unless it's like your part, like there's big deals about the patch, yeah well even some people are getting this shit kicked out of them over Sons of Anarchy because they're wearing the leather patch of the Sons of Anarchy and I don't know. I guess it's just if you don't, you're just not supposed to be in certain territories.

Speaker 1 18:16

It was so funny because you know I'm not here to disrespect anybody. Do your thing if you want to, but like so my husband wasn't part of it. He was just kind of like you didn't even have a bow.

Speaker 2 18:25

You made that very clear.

Speaker 1 18:27

Oh, please, like, if you met him you wouldn't think, yeah, I'd say that. But they had like people that were like not members, but were like being like what are they called when you're like in a frat or something?

Speaker 2 18:38

Yeah, like you're. It's not an intern, but it's like a patch You're called, then they patch you over.

Speaker 1 18:44

You're like, essentially a nominee.

Speaker 2 18:46

Exactly Prospect. Yes, that's what's called. Yes, it's a prospect.

Speaker 1 18:48

You're so smart, are you part of a biking?

Speaker 2 18:50

Yeah, I know comment. But I'm not a cop, I'll tell you that I'm definitely not a biking guy's named Matt.

Speaker 1 18:56

It's just you, my husband and our patron. That's right. So that's ranking. They decided to ask Steven to go for a polygraph and he failed. But then, using computer forensics, which they were able to determine that he was at home at the time of the murders, they were able to clear him as a person of interest. So of course Amber alerts are issued and there's billboards up with a picture of these two missing children. People made shirts with the kids' faces on them and you know they did their best to just get their information out there. But weeks into the search, shasta and Dylan are still being held by this complete fucking monster. He is now forcing the kids to take drugs and drink alcohol and once he believed them to be intoxicated he would tell them stories about the awful things that he had done to other children.

Speaker 2 19:47

What the fuck is going on here.

Speaker 1 19:50

But he was outsmarted by an eight-year-old because Shasta was doing the best that she could to not swallow the alcohol that he was giving her. Oh, and she knew that if she got out of there alive she would want to remember all of the details of these confessions.

Speaker 2 20:04

I'm sorry she is eight. Okay, I'm 41. I'd be like, oh, I'm drinking.

Speaker 1 20:13

Thank you actually. Yeah, thank God, I won first thing. So he would tell them where he hid the bodies of two half-sisters, Sammy Joe White, aged 11, and Kermyn Kubais, who was aged nine. After Shasta knew what this man was capable of, she knew that she would not be able to overpower him. Oh my God. But that's the thing she's listening, she's weighing her options.

Speaker 1 20:37

She's listening and she's like, okay, so he's killed kids before, like he's going to kill me. I could try to fight him, but I'm an eight-year-old little girl, or what she did do was she decided that she was going to befriend him and start talking to him about his family, and she even asked him if she could meet them. One day he started to believe that she actually cared about him, and one day this waste of skin pulled the siblings If they were able to catch a squirrel. That was getting on his nerves. It was like coming around the campsite and whatnot, like it was a literal, it was a tent.

Speaker 2 21:13

Oh, okay, they're still in this national park.

Speaker 1 21:16

Yep, and they're like right up a mountain. That's like it completes the collusion Right. So he said, if you're able to catch the squirrel that's been getting on his nerves, then he would allow them to go home. After several failed attempts, Dylan was able to catch the squirrel and, though you know, they thought that their nightmare was over, but they were sadly mistaken.

Speaker 2 21:38

The psychopathic killer was not a man of his word is what you are telling me right now.

Speaker 1 21:42

He is the worst of the worst. He's also a liar. Yeah, chasta had said that she gave Dylan a hug and after they embraced they were just kind of like holding hands and when that's when she heard a bang and then her brother's hand fell from hers.

Speaker 2 21:58

Oh fucking hell.

Speaker 1 21:59

I'm sorry. And then she heard another bang and she said it all happened so fast that she didn't even have time to react. The man would tell her that his gun went off accidentally the first time, but the second shot was so that Dylan wouldn't suffer. Chasta was beyond devastated. This was her best friend in the world, her support system. She even cries as she recalls telling this story because of fucking court she does Because obviously and she had told Dylan before this that she promised that they would make it out alive.

Speaker 1 22:28

And she says to this day, she doesn't make promises anymore because of this. Wow, this man had effectively taken nearly her entire family away from her and she had to pretend as if she cared for him.

Speaker 2 22:38

Oh right, she's still playing this, that's the only option she has.

Speaker 1 22:42

Oh my God, god. How she found the strength to do this is so fucking beyond me. Like I couldn't be nice to him, my only option would be get the gun.

Speaker 2 22:52

Yeah, I'm just like a ball up into a rock and I just wouldn't stop sobbing. That's how I would.

Speaker 1 23:01

But even imagine a little eight-year-old trying to fucking handle a shotgun. Imagine the frigging what's it called when you're the recoil, the recoil. Yeah, look at that, yeah, she fucking fly across the mountain. But okay, so I'm going to give an extreme trigger warning here.

Speaker 2 23:16

What the hell have we been talking about?

Speaker 1 23:17

I'm so sorry, Matt.

Speaker 2 23:18

Oh God.

Shasta's Harrowing Kidnapping and Escape

Speaker 1 23:21

You're going to need a drink after this. After killing him, this monster made Shasta help move her brother's body onto a tarp, where he then doused him in kerosene and burned Dylan's remains.

Speaker 2 23:35

Wow.

Speaker 1 23:37

That really takes the cake, doesn't it?

Speaker 2 23:39

I mean, it's not the, I mean having her be any sort of assistant, or yeah, that is boy. This guy really fucking loved that psychological torture.

Speaker 1 23:52

Every kind of torture. After Dylan's death, Shasta said that she was unable to even speak, Like she was trapped in her own head for about a week, and she said she'd never felt more alone in her entire life.

Speaker 2 24:03

which of course, yeah, of course, yep.

Speaker 1 24:05

In an interesting move, the kidnapper moved her to a lower, like less secluded area on the mountain. Shasta was chained up, but she could actually sometimes see people out the window, like walking by, so she was much closer to civilization. I don't know for a fact, because I don't think this man has a single fucking moral in him, but I don't know if, like maybe, he just didn't want her to be around the scene that where Dylan had died. I don't know why he would have moved her closer to civilization, but he did, yeah.

Speaker 2 24:36

He did.

Speaker 1 24:37

but one day the man came up to Shasta and informed her that he was going to kill her. Now he gave her the options of being strangled or being shot, like her brother. He advised her that if she chose being shot, it would be quicker and she wouldn't suffer as much. But Shasta wanted every last second that she could try and get him to change his mind, so she chose being strangled.

Speaker 2 24:57

Like. Is this one of those stories where at the end, we'll find out it's like a 30 year old that looks like an eight year old and it's been an adult this whole time, that's like so calculating, because I have a real hard time believing that like this is crazy to me that if this was a story about an adult who's calculating, you'd be like that's still a bit much.

Speaker 2 25:17

I know like the choosing, the strangulation because it's going to last longer and you think you might have more of a chance, to me is like a level of self-awareness and confidence I will never get to.

Speaker 1 25:29

Right. So he wrapped a rope around the little girl's neck and he began to tighten it. She knew that, although this man was pure evil, there was maybe something deep deep down inside of him that was resembled an emotion, because he always talked to her and, like he, told her about his family. But he had once told her that he went by the name Jet in prison because he had a husband in prison who called him Jet. So as he was choking this little eight year old, she looked him in the eye and she said please don't Jet.

Speaker 2 26:04

Oh.

Speaker 1 26:04

And with that he looked at her in the eyes and he started sobbing and he loosened the rope and said that he couldn't do this. Oh my God. After this, shasta said she felt as if things there was tests that he was giving her so he would talk about her one day going home and she would say that she wanted to stay with him. And then, on July 2nd of 2005, he asked her if she would call him dad and she could meet his mom and she could be his kid. Now Shasta acted as though she was all for it.

Speaker 2 26:37

And probably had to be excited.

Speaker 1 26:39

Yeah, she had to pretend that she wanted to be this fucking monster's kid. Wow, when they set off for their trip to meet his mother, shasta asked him if they could go by her old neighborhood and she would show him areas there that were important to her, because he was important to her and she wanted to share those things with him, to which he happily agreed. Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:00

Of course she's a fucking idiot Getting outsmarted by an eight year old.

Speaker 1 27:04

And so he agreed and she would show him her school and her best friend's house. They stopped to get gas and he would take her into the gas convenience store, and the manager did feel like something was off with the pair, but checked the video footage again just to be sure, and by the time she called it in they were long gone. As they were driving, he asked if she was hungry and not one to miss an opportunity to be in public. She said that she was and he took her to a Denny's. As they entered, shasta noticed her missing poster on the wall. They sat down and she caught the eye of a man who noticed her poster and then noticed her. He nodded his head to her no, as if to say is this you? Oh my God. And she nodded back. He then went to the counter and looked as if you do you have goosebumps.

Speaker 2 27:54

Yeah, that's crazy. Like all up and down my arms.

Speaker 1 27:58

Yeah. He then went to the counter and looked as if he was placing an order. Woo hoo, hoo, hoo hoo. Amber Dean was the waitress who was serving Shasta and the man. Now this was like 1.30 in the morning.

Speaker 1 28:11

Oh really, at this point in time, yes. So she told her manager and she noticed, even before the man had come up, that something was off, because when she went to get their drinks she wouldn't talk, shasta wouldn't talk at all, and he never took his eyes off of her. He never even looked at Amber and when she had come back a second time and said are you ready for your drinks now? Do you want to order a drink? And he nodded to her that she could talk, and Shasta said she'd have a milkshake. So she felt off about this already.

Speaker 1 28:39

And then the man came up and said this, and so she told her manager we have to call 911. I feel really weird about this. If I'm wrong, I'll pay for their bill. So they called 911 and Amber tried her best, because as soon as she went back, she hadn't even given them the milkshake yet and they were ready to leave. They were standing up to go. Oh really, and she felt like something was off and she was, like her milkshake's almost ready and then she was acting like she was having trouble. So she's trying to stall to keep them there yeah.

Speaker 1 29:06

And he never stopped looking at Shasta the entire time. And then she was like her milkshake's almost ready, Like can I get you guys? And he's like the bill, get the bill. And then she's trying to act like her printer's jamming and like she can't get the bill to rate up.

Speaker 1 29:17

She goes. And then, just in an instant, there was like 30 officers that barbearded in there. They identified Shasta and they took this man away in cuffs. The whole restaurant erupted in cheers. You know shit, she had been held for seven weeks with this monster. Wow. Her kidnapper had been 42 year old, joseph Duncan, and he would plead guilty to three counts of kidnapping and three counts of first degree murder. The three counts of kidnapping I can only imagine is he wants kidnapped the both of them, and then I think, when he moved her to a second location, that would count as the third kidnapping.

Speaker 2 29:54

I think when you bind somebody is kidnapping. Oh, like I think, once you have the three people bound in your house you don't let them go. That's, I think, like.

Speaker 1 30:03

Well, although that might be a lawful confinement, I'm not too up on my Whatever, he got three counts of kidnapping, three counts first degree murder and October 16th of 2006. He admitted to stalking the children and he would use GPS to mark houses that he saw had kids in them. He saw Dylan and Shasta playing in their yard one day and that was when he targeted them, and for days before this he would feed their pit bull treats in order to gain the dog's friendship.

Speaker 2 30:34

Wow.

Speaker 1 30:34

Yep. He also had taken videos of the torture that he had inflicted on Shasta and Dylan and unfortunately for everyone in the courtroom, the videos were shown when determining sentences.

Speaker 2 30:45

I mean I you know, listen, I don't think there is any need for any of that shit, he pled guilty. Like yeah, listen, yeah, there is no need.

Speaker 1 30:58

That just ruins like 12 more lives Right absolutely. So he was ultimately given three life sentences and sentenced to death, but he ended up dying on March 28th of 2021 of brain cancer. He was 58 years old, but I'm unsure how that translates into demon years. When Shasta heard of him passing, she said I woke up, feeling like my soul was finally free, jesus, I think it'll come as no shock that this man was pure evil and he always had been. So brace yourself.

Speaker 2 31:28

Oh, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 31:29

Yeah, at 15, he raped a nine-year-old boy at gunpoint, and that was in 1978, in 1979. He was arrested for stealing a car. Because he was a juvenile. He was sent to Jesse Dysland Boys Ranch in Tacoma where he told a therapist that if he had to guess, he would say that he had raped about 13 young boys at that point, and he was 16 then. In 1980, he stole a neighbor's gun and raped a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint, and he was given 20 years but only served 14.

Speaker 1 31:58

In March of 2005, he was arrested again, this time for molesting one six-year-old boy. Well, another six-year-old boy watched at the playground. He was able to post bail for this while awaiting trial, and he fled. He rented a 2005 red Jeep Cherokee. He stole license plates and swapped them out, so when the Jeep was reported stolen, he wouldn't get caught right away. By this time he was a fugitive and a federal warrant was issued for him. After he was arrested, they were able to link him to the 1996 murders of the half sisters that he told Chasta and Dylan about. He was also linked to the sexual assault and murder of nine-year-old Anthony Martinez. This man was so evil that I don't even think there's a word for how evil he was. Wow, of course little Chasta had to have surgery and have her body stitched back together after all the repeated assaults. She awoke in the hospital and her dad was by her side crying, and she just remember zailing Daddy. Aww, I know she hated being recognized everywhere she went.

Speaker 2 33:01

No shit, especially for the level of survivor guilt.

Speaker 1 33:05

Right, that's exactly right.

Speaker 2 33:06

You must have never buddy saying, oh, so happy that you're alive must be so great yeah.

Speaker 1 33:13

She hated going to therapy every Thursday. She felt survivor's guilt. She also thought about the what ifs constantly. What if she and Dylan hadn't been playing in the front yard? Would her family still be here?

Speaker 2 33:23

Oh God, that's a dangerous, dangerous game.

Speaker 1 33:26

Chasta has not had an easy go since her rescue. She battled with drugs and alcohol. She said her dad was always a huge support system, even when she was going through. She was addicted to meth and whatnot.

Speaker 2 33:39

I mean listen, addiction is tough and really there's. You know, you never turn to drugs for deal with your problems. You kinda I wouldn't be super angry.

Speaker 1 33:50

No.

Speaker 2 33:51

If that was my daughter, If you had like. You have to treat that addiction with a lot of compassion.

Speaker 1 33:56

And she did end up. She got arrested for something and they gave her 18 months unsupervised probation.

Speaker 2 34:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1 34:05

Because they knew who she was and they knew what she had been through. You know, her dad was by her side and trying to get her back on the right track. Sadly, he passed away in 2019 from cancer, but Chasta is married. She was married in 2018. So, thankfully, her father was able to experience her wedding.

The Horrific Case of Chasta Groening

Speaker 1 34:23

Her husband's name is Michael and though they try to keep a very low profile, understandably, it is noted in many sources that Michael is related to the two Seattle sisters who Joseph Duncan had murdered. So they struck up oh, that's kind of beautiful. And the couple have five children together. I know that the first four were boys, just like her own family. I'm unsure of the last baby because it was just born last August and that's it. You did it. That was the awful case of Chasta Groening.

Speaker 2 34:51

I think that the fact that she married the two kind of victims of this asshole like it's, you know it's a rose coming out of a sidewalk right.

Speaker 1 35:01

Yeah, it's a two-pock, right, it's something beautiful.

Speaker 2 35:03

Wow, that's beautiful, coming out of the most horrific environment in the world.

Speaker 1 35:05

Yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 35:07

And five kids.

Speaker 1 35:08

Five kids, that's a lot of kids.

Speaker 2 35:11

Wow, that's a lot of kids. Yeah, when you were telling it, when you know, just kind of towards the end of this pod, and I was just like where are the pre? Like I was shocked if this was this guy's first crime. No, Like.

Speaker 1 35:25

He's a fucking vile individual and I hope he felt pain until the moment he left this earth and I hope he's still feeling pain.

Speaker 2 35:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1 35:33

And that's all I have to say about that.

Speaker 2 35:34

I hear you.

Speaker 1 35:35

So fuck you, joseph Duncan, yeah, fuck you. Okay, bye patrons, bye.