Naman Shrestha
Investigation Discovery’s ‘People Magazine Investigates: Groene Family Massacre’ chronicles the horrific killings and kidnappings committed by serial killer Joseph Duncan. It primarily delves deep into the murder of the Groene family members, including Brenda, her boyfriend Mark McKenzie, and her son Slade, and the kidnappings of Brenda’s two other children — Shasta and Dylan Groene. Eight-year-old Shasta managed to survive the ordeal and live to tell the tale of the abuse she endured at the hands of the serial killer.
Shasta Groene Was the Sole Survivor of the Groene Family Massacre
Born on November 25, 1996, to Brenda and Steve Vincent Groene, Shasta was the youngest among her four siblings — Vance, Jesse, Slade, and Dylan. After her parents got divorced, Shasta lived with her mother and her brothers, Slade and Dylan, at the Wolf Lodge, located outside of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. She was only eight years old when Joseph Duncan entered the family house on May 16, 2005, and killed her mother, her mother’s partner Mark McKenzie, and her 13-year-old brother Slade. As for her and Dylan, the killer kidnapped them and took them to the Lolo National Forest in Montana, where he held them hostage for several weeks. During the six weeks of captivity, Shasta and Dylan were sexually assaulted by Joseph. The kidnapper also shot Dylan to death in front of her, adding to the trauma the then-eight-year-old had faced.
Deciding to play along with Joseph, she convinced him that she liked him and wanted to know more about him. After gaining his trust, Shasta convinced him to take her back to Coeur d’Alene, where they sat at Denny’s to grab something to eat in the early hours of July 2. One of the restaurant’s employees identified Shasta as the missing girl and notified the police. Joseph was arrested on the spot, while the girl was rushed to the hospital, where she was treated for numerous injuries. Consequently, the killer was convicted and sentenced for killing Shasta’s family and various other crimes he had committed over the years. For the next few years, she lived with her father, Steve, at a house in Coeur d’Alene provided to her by a legal charitable trust.
Shasta Groene Battled Addiction For a Few Years
In the years following the abuse at the hands of Joseph Duncan, Shasta Groene admittedly battled against drug abuse and also entered a rehabilitation program in southern Idaho. Around March 2016, she entered motherhood as she and her fiancé gave birth to a baby boy. However, in October 2017, she got herself in trouble with the law when she was accused of leaving her one-year-old and one-month-old children near methamphetamine. In April 2018, she pleaded guilty to the two misdemeanor counts. As a result, she was ordered to serve unsupervised probation until October 2019.
About a month later, she violated the terms of her probation. This time, she received 18 months of supervised probation as a punishment. Besides that, the year 2018 was also positive for her in a lot of ways, as she got married and began a new chapter in Boise, Idaho. Unfortunately, the following year in December, she was devastated when her father, Steve, passed away due to stage four lung cancer. Nearly a couple of years later, when her kidnapper, Joseph Duncan, passed away on March 28, 2021, she was elated and stated, “Today, I woke up feeling like my soul was finally free. I hope other people affected by Joseph Duncan were able to wake up feeling the same way.”
Shasta Groene Has Found a Support System in Her Wife and Five Children
In the following years, she collaborated with Gregg Olsen, who published ‘Out of the Woods: A Girl, A Killer, and a Lifelong Struggle to Find the Way Home,’ which reveals Shasta’s life experiences and the aftermath of all the abuse she endured. Upon the release of the book in August 2025, she wrote in an essay published on OprahDaily, “I yearned to share my story, but no one could truly listen. It was too much. Too terrible to hear. For a time, I even thought that containing my trauma would foster growth, but silence felt like a lie.” By then, Shasta had gotten divorced and was raising her five sons — Lorenzo, Omarito, Natas, Sylan, and Drakeo — along with her new wife, Nikki Alvarez of Nampa, Idaho.
Complications arose in her life when she lost her house in a tragic fire, after which she started a GoFundMe page to raise funds and start a new life in Texas. On the occasion of Nikki’s birthday in September, she expressed how much her wife means to her, “…We’ve been through so much together but I wouldn’t want to do life with nobody else. You’re my person, my protector, the one who has my heart completely. Nothing and nobody could ever be you or take your place. Nobody could be you in my eyes. You’re my entire world and I love the way you took my boys in and treat them like your own.” As of today, she reportedly resides in Nampo, Idaho, as a homemaker, surrounded by Nikki, her five young boys, and two furry friends.
Read More: Linae and Tricia Tiede: Where Are the Kidnapping Survivors Now?
