COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho - Sexual predator Joseph Edward Duncan III was trying to return 8-year-old kidnap victim Shasta Groene when he was captured with the girl in a restaurant, Duncan's brother told a newspaper.

In a story in Friday's edition of the Coeur d'Alene Press, Bruce Duncan said his brother was planning to turn himself in to authorities when he and Shasta entered a Denny's restaurant in the early morning hours of July 2.

That information came in one of several letters he has received from Joseph Duncan, Bruce Duncan told the newspaper in the first comments from a Duncan family member since the case broke.

"I knew from day one he didn't get caught by accident," Bruce Duncan, who lives in the Tacoma area, said. "He was in another state. He could have gone 500 different directions. Yet, he took (Shasta) back."

Joseph Duncan faces three counts of first-degree murder in the May slayings of Brenda Groene; her 13-year-old son, Slade; and her boyfriend, Mark McKenzie. Authorities contend Duncan killed the three in their home so he could kidnap Shasta and Dylan Groene, 9, for sex.

"If he's convicted and it's cut and dry, there's no way around it and there's no question about it," he said. "He may be my brother, but there is no excuse. If somebody were to do something like that to me or my family members, I'd want to see him dead. The law is the law. We all live under it."

Joseph Duncan, 42, of Fargo, N.D., has pleaded not guilty. He is awaiting a Jan. 17 trial on charges that he bound and bludgeoned the three to death on May 16 at their home near Coeur d'Alene.

Federal prosecutors have said they will charge Duncan later with kidnapping the two children and killing Dylan, whose remains were found at a remote Montana camp site.

Joseph Duncan told prison therapists that he suffered incest and other abuse at home, and had molested numerous children before he was caught. Bruce Duncan disputes that, saying the stories were fabrications.

"You take a teenager who is confused about his sexuality, commits a horrific crime that was inexcusable even for a child, and you throw him in prison with a bunch of murderers and rapists," he said. "He's 100 pounds soaking wet" and became the target of other prisoners looking for sex.

Bruce Duncan said he didn't pay much attention to the May killings, or the urgent requests for any information seeking the return of the two Groene children.

At the time of the killings, Joseph Duncan was a fugitive for failing to appear in a Minnesota court on charges he molested two boys in July 2004 at a playground in Detroit Lakes, Minn. Weeks before he fled, he was released from jail on $15,000 bail.

"I know that society can't get at him and we're afraid they are going to do the best they can to strike out at the family, so that's pretty much why the family is laying low," he said.

"Certain people in the family (are) in denial," he said. "Other people (are) angry and other people just wanting to ignore this like it never happened."

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