Thursday, March 28, 2024
39.0°F

Whose story should we tell?

by KERRI THORESON/Main Street
| April 14, 2021 1:00 AM

As a story teller by profession there’s always a fine line in sharing my observations versus an invasion of privacy.

There are thousands of people now living in Kootenai County who did not live here in May 2005. Who didn’t see the missing billboards for two young children and experience the palpable fear that residents back then were feeling. I’ve included a Main Street column from 2005 below.

In March of this year the news reported that the evil man who perpetrated the horrific crimes, and was on death row, had terminal cancer. On March 10 I wrote for only the second time since 2005 on the subject: “Final Word: Mark McKenzie, Brenda Groene, Slade Groene, Dylan Groene and lone survivor Shasta Groene. In recent days the monster who murdered, kidnapped and tortured these adults and children has been in the news. He deserves not a single bit of attention beyond public notification that he’s no longer breathing.”

On March 28, 2021, Joseph Duncan took his last breath and this will be my last mention of him. Shasta is now a wife and mother, an adult. She’s been in my thoughts and I'm sure the thoughts of many others a lot in recent weeks. If a day comes that she chooses to tell her story, it will be her story to tell, her choice whether or not to tell it. Hers alone. Stand in the light and feel the love Shasta.

Main Street, July 13, 2005:

With the first news of a horrific triple murder and two young children kidnapped in the dead of night, it’s been hard to fathom that something like that could happen here. Although it’s rather unreasonable to think that bad things only happen to other people who live in other towns with names national newscasters mispronounce. We all waited for news we knew would not be good and speculated on who could have done such a thing and why would they do such a thing and where could those innocent young children be...and how their family must suffer the not knowing.

Then miracle of miracles, little Shasta Groene was rescued and we had a brief fleeting moment to rejoice, as long as we didn’t think too much about the tragic, horrible fact that she’d been nearly two months in the clutches of a genuinely evil and perverted predator and that her brother, Dylan was nowhere to be found. He would be found and then it became too awful again to imagine what unspeakable terror Shasta must have survived and that Dylan did not.

A friend, the mother of a Fernan Elementary classmate of the Groene children, has agonized over the questions she’s been asked by her seven-year-old. Mommy, what is a sexual predator? We tell our kids that monsters aren’t real. They don’t live under the bed or in dark closets. Or do they?

Joseph Duncan has visited a lifetime of sorrow and tragedy on three families. He’s unsettled an entire community and stolen a bit of innocence from thousands of our children. Because of him I’ve visited www.isp.state.id.us/so_viewer/search.jsp and discovered there are 58 registered sex offenders in my 83854 zip code, 74 in 83814, 26 in 83835 and 24 in 83858. I studied their pictures and for the most part they look like anyone you might see at the grocery store and gas station, just like Joseph Duncan.

As darkness fell on this warm summer evening I realized I no longer felt safe sitting under the stars on my backyard deck. Too many trees and shrubs and shadows...too much evil made all too real in recent weeks.


Happy birthday today to Phil Damiano, Mark Robitaille, Stacey Mann, Dana Shapland, Ron Washburn and Bill Gough. Tomorrow Betsy Hawkins, Brian Walker, Denise Edmonds, Ian Waltz, Doug Harms (90!), Dave Holmes, Clay Ownbey, Caroline Crollard, Tori Gray, Randy Teall, Kara Hicks and Judy Donner celebrate.

Friday birthday wishes to JD Dickinson, Leslie Gourley, Kevin Johnson, Kay Riplinger, Chris LaVoie and Tom Fisher. On Saturday Pat Krug, Betty Stone, Andre Ney, Blythe Templin, Jonna Harris-Bowman, Sheila McDaniel, Curtis Ormesher and Peggy Fairfield will put on their party hats. Jason Allred, Anna Goodwin, Brad Dugdale, Chris Mueller, Pat Stroud, Rebecca Priano, Glenn Gatherer, Ryan Edmonds, John Cross, Branson McAlister and Lisa Johnson enjoy sunny Sunday birthdays.

On Monday Gerlinde Hamilton, Rich Piazza, Angie Hannon, Rick Seymour, Petrina Spellman, Carolyn Beard, Rick Gonzalez, Steve Adams, Charlie Staples, BreAnna Brunton and Joe Bodman will put on their party hats. On April 20 my mother Alice Rankin (90!), Hayden Hustoft, Rowan Bauman, Maritom Pickett, Sherry Mundt, Jerome Pollos, Scott Hough, Bill Hilbish, Sarah Gondo, Marcia Jimenez, Laura Warner, Sarah Myers, Blaise Koep and John M. Smith (70!) share a birthday.


Kerri Rankin Thoreson is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and the former publisher of the Post Falls Tribune. Main Street appears every Wednesday in The Press and Kerri can be contacted on Facebook or via email mainstreet@cdapress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kerrithoreson.