By Steve Huff

Did accused killer of the Groene family, Joseph Edward Duncan III, want to be arrested?

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Coeur d"Alene, Idaho — (Crime Library) As news of Joseph Edward Duncan III's having made recordings of his abuse of Dylan and Shasta Groene while he kept them captive at campsites in northern Idaho was sending another shockwave through the public reading about the case, Duncan sent a letter to a family member.

Writing from jail in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where Duncan has been held ever since his arrest July 2, 2005, while with Shasta Groene in a Coeur d'Alene Denny's Restaurant, Duncan supposedly stated the following:

The "light" is the truth - God's truth. I "came into the light" (faced up to the truth of what I was doing) by bringing that little girl home. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do! Compared to "facing the light"- dying will be easy!

Duncan's relative has been communicating with the writer of the weblog created to track Duncan's crimes and trials, The Cellar (jetd63.blogspot.com). On Saturday, October 22, 2005, webmaster and blogger Jules Hammer, who goes by the pseudonym"Captain Fantastic," posted that portion of the letter with the relative's permission.

Since Duncan was arrested in the early morning hours of July 2, 2005, there has been a question as to why he would bring Shasta Groene back to the city from which she was snatched. He had allegedly already murdered her brother Dylan, and recent developments in the news indicate that he recorded many of the crimes he allegedly committed on a variety of electronic media.

Duncan may, with this kind of communication, be telegraphing his defense for the charges against him. Duncan never names Shasta Groene, calling her only "little girl," yet it seems he is trying to say that his return to Coeur d'Alene with Shasta in tow was a final effort to do the right thing — that he had an epiphany of sorts, where he realized he had to 'face the music.'