Video: Raw: Groene family reacts to Duncan death sentence

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BOISE, Idaho - A federal jury has decided convicted child killer Joseph Edward Duncan III should be put to death for the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of a northern Idaho boy.

The jury of eight men and four women deliberated just three hours before reaching the unanimous verdict, which was announced in court around 1:30 p.m. Pacific time.

The jury ruled Duncan should get the death penalty on three of 10 federal charges related to the kidnapping and murder of Dylan Groene. He pleaded guilty to all 10 counts in December, and last week the jury unanimously decided that Duncan was eligible for the death penalty.

Duncan may now be brought to Riverside County, Calif., to face a murder charge there for the 1997 slaying of 10-year-old Anthony Martinez.

Dylan and Shasta Groene

More than three years ago Duncan came to Idaho, stalked a family and entered their Coeur d'Alene-area home, fatally bludgeoning 13-year-old Slade Groene, his mother, Brenda Groene, and her fiance, Mark McKenzie. He then kidnapped two younger children, 9-year-old Dylan and his then-8-year-old sister Shasta Groene.

Duncan pleaded guilty to the killings at the house in state court in 2006.

As the verdict was read Wednesday, Steve Groene, Dylan and Shasta's father, reportedly clutched his girlfriend's hand and silently nodded. Afterwards, Darlene Torres, Brenda Groene's mother and Dylan and Shasta's grandmother, expressed both relief and sadness.

"Justice has been served. It's been a long three years. It's finally done and over and I couldn't be happier. It's been very painful," she said, choking back tears.

Torres said she looked at Duncan a few times to see if he had any reaction.

"I see nothing. I see nothing but an evil, empty cold-hearted shell. That's all I see," she said.

"We've had a hard time with all of this. There's never going to be closure. Nothing is going to bring Brenda or those children back, and Mark...but at least this part is over and justice has been served to the person who did this to them."

In closing arguments Wednesday morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Traci Whelan reminded the jury of Duncan's lifelong "pattern of violence."

"This defendant is dangerous. He is a predator who takes pride in his work," Whelan said. "He earned this day. His actions ... call out for the death penalty."

Duncan, who represented himself, offered no response to prosecutors' call for his death.

"I have no argument," he told the court.

His past is littered with arrests and prison time, including a conviction for raping a boy at gunpoint in 1980. Duncan has told investigators he killed of two half-sisters from Seattle in 1996 slayings, and he is charged with killing a young boy in Riverside County, Calif., in 1997.

In January 2007 he was charged with 10 federal felonies involving Dylan and Shasta, who were threatened, sexually abused and tortured before Dylan was killed at a remote western Montana campsite. Duncan subsequently returned with Shasta to Coeur d'Alene, where a waitress recognized them eating in a Denny's restaurant and called police.

The jurors were asked to decide whether Duncan should be sentenced to life in prison without parole or be executed for three of the 10 federal charges: Kidnapping resulting in death, sexual exploitation resulting in death and use of a firearm in a crime of violence resulting in death. U.S. District Judge Edward J. Lodge is bound by their decision.

Each day in the two-week long death penalty hearing unveiled a new layer of horror. The jury was shown a video that Duncan made of himself sexually abusing, torturing and hanging Dylan until the boy lost consciousness.

The heinousness of the evidence in the case will make it particularly difficult for the jurors to remain impartial as they deliberate, said Art Patterson, a jury consultant and senior vice president of the trial consulting firm DecisionQuest.

"Generally, for human beings, it's pretty hard to maintain impartiality when confronted with such horror," Patterson said. "They can say as much as they want, 'My duty as a juror is to be fair and impartial' but they're human beings -- they're not computers. The absolute depravity of what occurred there has to have a biasing effect."

Patterson anticipated a death penalty verdict, especially since Duncan failed to offer any mitigation.

"How could any juror not want to see this person removed from our list of living human beings? How could you live with yourself as a juror if there's any chance this human being could escape from jail and do something like this again," he said.