I had left Fargo a couple of months before (March 2005) with $10 000 cash, money I had borrowed from a friend in order to pay for an attorney to defend me against the child molesting charges in Detroit Lakes, MN. Instead of paying the attorney I got scared (of having to spend the rest of my life in prison because I touched a boy's penis on a playground essentially) and ran, with vengeance on my mind.
My intention was to kidnap, rape and murder as many children as I could before getting caught. If I was going to be punished for something, I wanted to make sure it was something worth getting punished for. I wanted to punish society for punishing me. I still believed at that time in the social lie called "justice", and I used this false belief in order to justify my wrath and vengeance. I honestly believed I had every "right" to do what I wanted to do, and to do what I did.
I first drove to Minneapolis, where I rented a Jeep Cherokee and ditched my older Pontiac Grand Am. I wanted a more reliable vehicle, one that I could drive off road if necessary, and one that would be "invisible" to ordinary police suspicion. Then I began my trek for revenge, my so-called "rampage".
By the time I had reached the outskirts of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, where I first spotted Shasta in a bikini bathing suit sunning with her mother out in front of their house and in full view of the I-90 freeway, I had already stocked up on enough camping supplies and food to last several weeks. I turned around at the next exit and drove back for another look. Shasta and her mother, Brenda, seemed to enjoy displaying themselves for all the cars driving by on I-90. I, for one, certainly appreciated the view. After driving by a couple of times, sticking to the interstate so as not to draw any suspicion or let anyone "I.D." me or the Jeep later, I decided to return after dark to case the house.
I spent the rest of the day in nearby Spokane, Washington, where I used the public city-wide free Wi-Fi to get on the Web and post one final blog entry on the original "Fifth Nail" blog (i.e. "Blogging The Fifth Nail"). Then, later in the day, I drove back to Idaho and scouted around the surrounding public forest dirt roads until I found a suitable spot to sleep a few hours undisturbed.
At around 1 a.m., I drove back on I-90 to the Groene's exit, and found an old campground that was chained off. I used a hacksaw to cut the chain, drove the Jeep in to a well concealed location behind some trees and overgrowth, then replaced the cut chain using a zip tie to hold it in place so no one driving by would see that the chain was down.
I then walked about a mile or two in order to reach the Groene home following the frontage road. There was no traffic, so no one saw me.
When I got to the house, which was secluded by a closed campground on one side and open field on the other, I walked right up their dirt drive-way stepping carefully to not make obvious noises (footfalls). I approached the front door and noted a sign over the door that read, "We have guns. Intruders will be shot." (or something like that). It may as well have been an invitation as far as I was concerned.
I had not brought the sawed off shotgun with me for this survey mission, but the sign let me know how I should load the shotgun when I returned the next night. Slugs (for maximum "stopping" power). Guns can't "protect" you against another gun unless you get "the drop". And I knew I would have the drop, so I wasn't worried. The sign just let me know they felt "safe", when they weren't.
I also noted several dog dishes and a heavy dog chain and other signs of more than one large dog. But, no barking, which told me the dogs were probably inside with the family; more false security, and good for me.
I snuck up to a nearby window that had only some torn plastic over it. It was a warm night, so I knew there might be someone sleeping in that room. I decided to try to see who (if anyone) was in the room, since it would be easy to see in without the glass reflecting back. I expected children.
I stepped up carefully and quietly on a broken lawn-chair outside of the window and peered in. I saw two beds, and clearly two children, sound asleep. I admired the scene for a moment. They were obviously very "poor". Mostly dirty clothes scattered about, and few toys. The door to the room was open. Suddenly I saw a large dog walk quietly into the room. It was moving its head around, clearly following an "odd" scent. It smelled me through the window. I froze, hoping it would go away. Instead it looked right at me, but it still couldn't see me, until I blinked. Then it barked several times and I jumped down off the chair and ran around to the other side of the house and took cover behind some low bushes.
I waited about ten minutes. All was quiet. Nobody appeared to come investigate. I knew that the dogs had probably barked at raccoons and such in the middle of the night before. So, as long as the barking did not continue, it would not likely raise any alarms.
After enough time I decided to look for a place to hide where I could watch the house. I ended up crossing the interstate and climbing up a steep heavily wooded hill on the other side. I found a position where I could see the house clearly without being seen. I had a backpack with me with some food, binoculars, night-vision monocular, a waterproof tarp and everything I thought I'd need, including pen and paper to make notes about what I saw. I settled in.
Almost as soon as the sun came up, I saw a young boy (Dylan) out and about with a toy gun (BB-gun) shooting at small birds around the house. He pointed the gun in my direction more than once, but did not seem to see me (the tarp I covered myself with was also green and brown camouflage). Soon after that, I saw his older brother, Slade (13), outside also, just sort of poking around aimlessly with the two dogs. A little later, the woman (Brenda) came outside, and I saw and heard her arguing with a man, her live-in boyfriend (I found out later), who I assumed was her husband.
They were clearly accustomed to "living" outside of their house as much as inside. They all moved in and out of the house often, as if the yard was just another room in the house. The only one I didn't see come out very often was Shasta, the youngest. But even she came out later, to take a walk with what I found out later was the drug dealer's girlfriend and another child who had arrived in a car. While the dealer was inside conducting business with Mark and Brenda, the dealer's girlfriend took the children for a walk, just up the frontage road a short distance.
After the drug dealer left, I decided I had seen enough. So I packed up and worked my way west until I came to a pasture, which I followed all the way back to where I had hidden the Jeep. I then drove back to the temporary camping spot in the public forests, and spent the rest of the day preparing "mentally" for what was to come that night. I remember screaming a lot, at the top of my lungs, challenging God Himself to stop me from what I was about to do, daring him to "reveal" himself, and calling him a "fake" and a "coward" if he didn't stop me. I had every intention at this point of killing everyone in the house and kidnapping the two youngest children for my sexual pleasure. In my mind, this was the "worst" thing I could do, which was exactly why I had to do it. To "teach society a lesson".
That night I waited until about 2 a.m. before driving back to the Groene exit. This time, I drove directly down the frontage road toward the Groene home (since I knew there'd be no one to see me) and parked the Jeep only a hundred yards away or so, near a neighbor's barn. Then, using a small red-LED light to find my way, I approached the Groene home from behind. I had to jump a creek that ran through their backyard, but other than that (and getting my feet wet in the process), I had no trouble approaching the house.
This time my daypack contained several heavy-duty zip ties, duct-tape, gloves, night-vision scope, extra ammo for the shotgun, and a ski mask. I was wearing gloves and had wiped everything I brought down for prints. I was also wearing old Salvation Army clothes and shoes that I would dispose of later.
I entered the home through the back-door, which was unlocked (I found out later that the lock on this door had been broken for some time before and never repaired). I remember thinking that if the door was locked, then I would abort, because if I could not get into the house quietly so I could get the drop on the man with the guns, then I would not have the advantage. That would have been a "sign from God" that He did not want me to continue. But, when the doorknob turned easily in my hand, and the door opened quietly without trouble, I took that as "permission" to proceed as planned.
I calculated two main "threats". The biggest threat was the man with the guns. But, the immediate threat was the dogs. So I had loaded the shotgun, which only held two rounds with birdshot in the chamber, and a slug in the clip. The birdshot was for the dogs, the "immediate" threat. I knew untrained dogs would never challenge a man with a gun (dogs are naturally terrified of loud noises and must be trained to not run from the blast of a gun). So the first round was to scare the dogs off, not hurt them. And the second round was, of course, my "back up", in case I needed to use the gun against the man (or any other serious threat). I ended up using neither round, or firing the shotgun at all.
I crept into the house through the kitchen. My first objective was to try to locate the man and subdue him, preferably before arousing the dogs. So I headed for the hall from the kitchen that lead to the bedrooms. But as I walked past the living room into the hallway, I noticed a table lamp was on near the sofa, and there I saw Brenda, fully clothed, sleeping on the couch. I froze and watched her breathing for a moment. Her breathing was slow, deep, and regular... sound asleep. So I continued quietly into the hall, still determined to find the man first.
In the hall there were two doors, opened on dark rooms on my left, and one door further back on my right. I thought the door on the right would be the "master bedroom", so that's where I headed, very slow and quiet, still trying not to arouse the dogs, wherever they might be.
But then, suddenly, I heard barking and claws scuffling on hardwood floors. I saw two shadows charging me from the first open doorway. I turned the gun in that direction, but before I fired, I heard a very distinct sound that dogs make in submission, a kind of short whimper, and then I heard and saw nothing. That was not what I expected. But, in hindsight, it made sense that untrained dogs who had been around guns would be terrified at the mere presence of one. And the shotgun I had was freshly oiled. So, I'm fairly certain that when they smelled the gun oil and saw me turn to confront them, rather than hesitate or turn away from their initial charge, they realized instantly that they were in danger... and quickly changed their minds.
I immediately dismissed the dogs as a threat and turned my attention to Brenda, who was now awake and looking right at me. But, I was still in a crouched position in a dark hallway, and with the light from the lamp in her eyes, it was clear that she could not see me, or if she did, she could not tell what she was seeing. Then she reached up and turned off the lamp. I realized when her eyes adjusted she'd be able to see me plainly, so I had to make a move, and did.
I stood up and walked directly to Brenda and into her full view. I told her in a hushed but demanding voice to turn the light back on, which she did. I wanted her to see me and the gun clearly, so she'd understand the threat and danger she was in and be more likely to comply with my demands. I was also ready to shoot her if necessary.
I asked, "Where's your husband?"
But, judging by the confused response I got, I realized that I had assumed incorrectly that the man I had seen her arguing with in the yard earlier was her husband. So I restated the question.
"Where's the man!?"
"Uh... upstairs?" she said, still seeming a bit unsure about what I was asking.
"Take me, now... Let's go!" I said.
She got up quickly and darted off through the kitchen toward the stairs I had seen earlier near the back entrance where I came in. I followed her up the stairs. She turned on a light at the top of the stairs that illuminated a king-sized mattress upon which was a large man in boxers and tank-top still asleep.
I told her to wake him up, which she did. She told him that there was a "man here, with a gun", indicating me standing at the head of the bed, still by the stairs.
The man sat up and looked at me, but said nothing (still half-asleep and trying to decide if he was dreaming, I suppose). I produced one of the sets of looped together zip-ties and tossed them on the bed and told the woman (Brenda, I'm only referring to her impersonally as "the woman", and Mark as "the man", etc. because that's all they were to me at the time... it would feel "dishonest" for me to refer to them by name in this context, even though I do think of them by name now when I remember what happened) to bind his wrists, which she did with no objection from him.
The man seemed bigger than I expected, so I tossed a second set of prepared zip ties onto the bed and told her to put them on his ankles, which she also did without complaint. Then I told them both to go back downstairs. The woman darted off down the stairs quickly, but the man struggled to just stand up from the bed, restrained as he was. He managed to stand and hobble over to the stairs. I realized he couldn't go down the stairs without help, so I told the woman to help him. But then the man himself said, "Wait, I'll do it..." and he sat down and lowered himself down the stairs by sitting on each step as he went down so he needed no help. I learned later that the reason he was so eager to get down the stairs was because if I had just turned on more lights upstairs and looked around I would have seen his prized arsenal of guns, knives, and other weapons (bows, etc.). He was leading me away from his "treasure trove".
I took them into the living room and told the man to lay on his stomach. Then I told the woman to wake up her children and tell them to come to the living room also. She went first into the room the dogs had come out of (the dogs themselves were nowhere to be seen). This was her 13-year-old son's room (Slade). She woke him up and told him to come to the living room. He mouthed off back at her and told her to leave him alone and get out of his room. She retorted in a stern voice, "Do as I say, now!" To which he finally responded when he saw me with the gun standing behind her. In the living room, I told the teenager to lie down on the floor, then had his mother bind his wrists with a single zip tie. Then I sent her back to get the younger children.
Dylan and Shasta were also still asleep. She woke them and told them to come to the living room. Unlike Slade and Mark, who were both wearing just boxer shorts and tank-tops, both children were fully dressed as they slept (except for shoes): They followed their mother's directions without question and, in the living room, I had them all lie down on their stomachs. And then I secured the woman's wrists behind her back with the last zip tie (it seems I dropped one of the prepared zip ties upstairs, which I found out from the police reports) and bound her feet with the duct tape. Then I used the duct tape to bind the children's hands and feet.
During all this time I had been assuring both the man and the woman that all I wanted was some cash and a vehicle. This, of course, was a lie to get them to co-operate. But, as a result, I found out that the pick-up in the driveway could be started without a key, which was information that came in handy a bit later.
After securing the residence, I stepped outside to make sure everything was quiet. Then I did a quick look around the downstairs part of the house. I discovered that the last door in the hall - where I thought the master bedroom would be - was only a bathroom being used as a storage room (I learned later from the children that the plumbing did not work at all in the bathroom).
Then I returned to the living room and told the teenage boy (Slade) to get up and come with me. I helped him to his feet and lead him outside through the back-door and then to the backside of the house... out of earshot from the others.
[WARNING: This is where this narrative turns extremely violent and graphic. Do not read further unless you are sure you want to know what "really" happened.]
While I was making sure everything was quiet outside a moment before I had put away the sawed off shotgun and retrieved the framer's hammer I had purchased for this purpose a few weeks before. I now used the hammer to kill Slade. I struck him with no warning and with full force on the crown of his head. He dropped to his knees. Then I struck him again with full force on the side of his head. He fell forward on his face and did not move. I assumed as I intended that he was dead or at least unconscious and soon would be dead.
I could not have been more wrong. I did not realize that such blunt force to the brain does not kill instantly, which was the reason I chose to kill with a hammer. My thinking was that it would render the person unconscious immediately, and then dead painlessly. I was sorely mistaken.
I left the teenager face down in the grass, and returned to the living room, where I picked up the little girl and carried her outside and put her in the yard behind the house but away from where I had left her older brother for dead. I told her, "Stay here, and don't move!"
I then went back inside and got the young boy, and likewise carried him outside to the same local as his sister. I was only inside long enough to grab the boy, but when I came back out, the girl, Shasta, was sitting up in defiance already of my demand that she not move. I put her older brother next to her then pushed her back down and told her in an even more forceful voice, "Don't move again, or I'll hit you!"
Shasta explained to me later that the reason she was sitting up was because she had seen Slade, the boy I had just left for dead. He was on his feet and beckoning for her to come untie his hands, apparently not only not dead or knocked out, but fully conscious and trying to escape. It gets worse...
Unaware yet of Slade's revival, I returned to the house to get the woman and kill her next. She was lying on the floor half in the living room and half in the kitchen (there had been no more room in the living room before for her to lie down). I told her to stand up, which she did with my help. Because I needed her to be able to walk, I tried to rip off the duct-tape using the claw of the hammer. But when I pulled hard, the tape did not give in, and I ended up pulling her feet out from under her and, with her hands still bound behind her back, she hit the floor hard on one shoulder.
She cried out in pain, and that made me panic a little. I honestly did not want to hurt anyone, just kill them painlessly and mercifully (the same way the System does... and for the same delusional reason: to avoid so-called "guilt").
So I told her, "Sorry! Here, this will help..." And then I struck her in the head several times, each time from a different angle and in a different location on the skull in order to inflict as much damage to the brain as quickly (and "mercifully") as possible.
I had told her, "this will help" only because I did not want the man to realize what I was doing when he heard the blows. If he thought I was trying to help her then he would not figure out what the blows were. But I knew it was only a short-term ruse. So, as soon as I thought the woman was dead, I stepped over to the man, said something to him in order to waylay his suspicion as I moved into position to kill him also (though I no longer recall what I said anymore). Then I struck him several times, also from different angles, though I remember striking a couple of times in the same location on his skull, more so than any of the others, which the police later told me made them think the killer (or killers) had some sort of vendetta against him personally. But the truth is that I only struck him more times because he was bigger, and it just seemed like it should take more to kill him quickly and, of course, "mercifully".
Well, it seems Mark, the man, did not die right away either, though by all rights he certainly should have. I remember seeing the dogs again only once before I left. They were sniffing around the man's head (their former "master"?) at all the blood that had quickly puddled there, which I was careful to step around as I made one last walk through the house before leaving with my prize: the two youngest children. But the crime scene photos showed Mark lying in a different position than the way I remember leaving him. It appears as though he regained consciousness at some point, and tried to get up from the floor, but couldn't because of the zip ties still on his hands and feet. It appeared from the photo that he fell back down onto the glass coffee table he was lying next to and smashed it in the process. Only his blood was found mixed with the glass, so no one else could have broken it - and by "no one else" I mean Slade, who actually survived long enough to re-enter the house after I left. But now I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
After I though I had killed everyone I meant to kill, I returned outside to check on the children. They were both sitting up now, and clearly talking to someone in the direction of the side of the house where I had left the oldest boy for dead. When I got out the door and looked in the direction they were talking, I saw no one. But when I looked back at the children, I could see that they both had that terrified "I'm caught"-look on their face, which told me all I needed to figure out someone - though I still did not expect the other boy was still alive - had been there. So I ran quickly around the backside of the house, expecting to find some other unaccounted for person. And instead I found the older boy's body missing. That explained everything. (Actually, I still thought maybe the "mystery" person had moved the body, but that thought didn't last long...)
I continued running around to the front of the house, hoping to catch whoever the children had been talking to. That's when I saw the boy I had left for dead standing now in the front yard. He was cognizant enough to realize the danger he was in, but when he saw me, he just froze in sheer terror. The look on his face haunts me to this day, which is why I don't like even thinking about it, much less writing about it. But, I feel I must. Even though this boy, Slade Groene, was such a bully in school that it is certain many other kids were relieved when they heard they would never see him again, in the end, when all his fears came true, and all his hopes were crushed, all he wanted was to "go home", back to where he felt safe, to be with his mother. In the end, he was the terrified child that he spent most of his life picking on and tormenting, and THAT is really all this blog, and life itself, is about - how we all become the very thing we fear and hate the most, the thing we judge and condemn, the thing we crucify by driving our nails into its heart. The "Fifth Nail" is the one that we drive into our own soul; it is the nail that destroys us, and causes us to be reborn at the same time. It is the apex of the cycle of life and death, judgment and condemnation. And here, this boy, Slade, was me. But, all I knew then was that he had to die, and die quickly.
I stopped running when I saw him, but, without hesitation, I walked quickly to where he stood, and hit him with the hammer again several times in the head. But this time I hit him as he faced me, so he saw every blow coming. I felt I had no choice. He fell again, and this time I thought he was dead for certain. But he wasn't. Yet.
I returned my attention to the younger children and walked quickly back to the other side of the house, the "backyard" proper, where I had left them. I picked up the girl first and carried her around the other side of the house to the dirt driveway where the pick-up was parked. I set her down on her feet next to the truck, and as I headed back to get the boy, I noticed her staring at something in the front yard. When I looked, I saw the teenage boy, Slade, once more on his feet. But, this time just staring at his little sister, eyes locked with hers, and not paying attention to me at all. I remember thinking he was dead but just didn't know it yet, so I continued on to the backyard to get the younger boy.
I returned with the boy to the front yard and put both children, still bound hand and foot, in the bed of the truck. Then I got in, turned the ignition with no key, and the truck started. I drove out of the driveway and then around the field next to the Groene home and to the place where I had parked the Jeep. I then tore the duct-tape off the children and put them in the Jeep, down on the floor of the passenger seat area, and covered them with a blanket I had already prepared. Then I backed the Jeep out onto the paved road and, as one last measure, I got out and scraped away the Jeep's tire tracks from the dirt road.
In the end I made a completely "clean" getaway, and I knew it. I wore gloves the entire time, and left no prints on anything, not even the zip-ties or duct-tape. No one saw me or the Jeep at anytime near the Groene home, and nobody knew I was even in that part of the country. I drove the children to a secluded location more than a hundred miles away and in another state (which is why I am currently on Federal death row), and enjoyed their company, sexually and otherwise, for a full seven weeks before I decided to take the girl back to Coeur d'Alene and turn myself in after I had already killed her brother. But that's another story, and one that also needs to be told someday.
After my arrest, I found out that Slade, the boy left for dead in the front yard, had managed to find his way back inside the house. Blood smears on the front door showed he tried that first, but it was locked. Then he found his way to the back door and went first to his room where he apparently climbed into bed (his bed was found covered with his blood) and then back out to the living room where he placed a blanket under his mother's head and then died next to her.
I don't feel bad about killing anyone. But that doesn't mean I don't feel bad about the way they died. I would gladly die the way Slade, or any of the people I killed died. But doing so wouldn't change anything, and it wouldn't stop it from happening again. The only thing that can stop this insanity is for all of us to realize what the Fifth Nail is, and stop judging and condemning ourselves so senselessly (by judging and condemning each other).
The only cure for crime is love.
Everything else is just more crime.
[J.D. April 15, 2018]
