Posted on 05/17/2005 7:32:25 PM PDT by varina davis
May 17, 8:12 PM EDT
Three Dead in House in Idaho; 2 Missing
By JOHN K. WILEY Associated Press Writer
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) -- Three people were found slain in a home, and an Amber Alert was issued Tuesday for two missing children who live there, authorities said.
Police used a helicopter and dogs to scour a forested area near the home for any signs of Shasta Groene, 8, and her brother, Dylan, 9. Authorities said they had no clues as to their whereabouts. The FBI was also assisting in the search.
"Our main concern right now is the two children we cannot find," Sheriff Rocky Watson said.
The victims in the house were identified as Brenda Groene, 40, mother of the missing children; Slade Groene, 13, the children's brother; and Mark McKenzie, 37, of Coeur d'Alene, Watson said.
Watson said he did not know the relationship between McKenzie and the others.
Authorities discovered the bodies after they were called Monday evening by a neighbor who had gone to the house over the weekend and noticed something was amiss, sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said.
The bodies bore obvious signs of injury, but the cause of death remained unknown, he said. "They're treating it as an obvious homicide," Wolfinger said.
Wolfinger said the two missing children were not at school Monday, raising the possibility that they could have been abducted earlier.
The mother and father of the children are divorced and the children lived with their mother, Wolfinger said. Investigators have talked with the father, and he is not considered a suspect or person of interest.
Mark lives in Sandpoint, a few miles north. And he is busy selling his new book. He has been away in Florida doing the research, and now that he is back in town, he may or may not comment on this on his next KXLY radio show......
*** BREAKING: Three found dead in house in Idaho; Amber Alert issued for two missing children ***
WFRV.COM ^ | 05/17/2005 | Associated Press
Posted on 05/17/2005 11:01:28 AM CDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
Lots of tweakers hereabouts but they generally don't kidnap children. Hostages?
Will watch this one closely...
You're over in Moscow now? WTF? When did you go over the pass to that area?
Any area that's on one of the arms of Lake CDA tends to be in the higher $ areas - unlike Athol or Hayden.
I've heard that the tweakers have definitely moved in over there - but they are only violent with each other. Genereally, though, I'd classify them as timid as they are afraid of their own shadows. Never known a tweaker to take a hostage - their attention span is too short.
ROTFLMAO. Moscow, Idaho is further from Lake CDA than SPOKANE, WASHINGTON. Buy a map......
Not much that happens in these parts goes unremarked up there and vice versa. This one is particularly interesting because it's so atypical.
COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) - Three people were found slain in a home, and an Amber Alert was issued Tuesday for two missing children who live there, authorities said. A "person of interest" is also being sought.
Police used a helicopter and dogs to scour a forested area near the home for any signs of Shasta Groene, 8, and her brother, Dylan, 9. Authorities said they had no clues as to their whereabouts. The FBI was also assisting in the search.
"Our main concern right now is the two children we cannot find," Sheriff Rocky Watson said.
Officers said late Tuesday that they're also seeking Robert Roy Lutner, described as a "person of interest" in the children's' disappearance. Lutner, 33, of Hayden, Idaho, was reportedly driving either a 1975 silver Ford pickup or a 1990 white Toyota pickup, sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said.
"He's just a person of interest at this time," Wolfinger said. "He was known to be at the residence Sunday evening. He's maybe our best source of information. We're just having a hard time tracking him down right now."
He also seems to have a record -- if this is the same man:
Conviction for Unemployment Insurance Fraud
December 27, 1999
Post Falls – A fraud investigation by officials from the Idaho Department of Labor recently led to a guilty plea by a Post Falls, Idaho, resident for illegally collecting Unemployment Insurance benefits. On September 3, 1999, Robert R. Lutner pled guilty before Idaho Judicial District Court to felony charges of “misrepresentation to obtain benefits.” Lutner was found to have concealed his weekly earnings while receiving Unemployment benefits, as well as failing to report that he had voluntarily quit a job during the time he was filing for benefits.
In addition to being sentenced to two years supervised probation, the defendant was ordered to serve 15 days in the Kootenai County Jail or to complete the Kootenai County Work Program within six months. Lutner was also required to pay $388.50 in court costs and make restitution to the Idaho Department of Labor in the amount of $4,256 for Unemployment Insurance benefits he illegally received.
Mark's too busy hating Catholics and now he's got a new target.....Jim West....
this Lutner guy doesn't sound like a guy who would kill three people and do God only knows what with two little ones......umemployment fraud?....I can tell you that most people do that.......
I am from this area.....the local news media has been all over this case....
the mom and the boyfriend both had criminal records...as did one of the older sons not in the home, currently in the county jail.....
sounds as if the kids were very nice and the 13 yro was popular in school.....
in addition, there is another older son, but can't say what his criminal background if, if any.....
I just hope that Lutner is not a pedophile on top of everything else.......
A tweaker is a methamphetamine addict. They tend to violence and paranoia. It's easy for them to do their cooking in rural areas but if the police find the lab on somebody's property that property becomes a hazardous waste dump immediately and the cleanup can cost enough so you lose your land. Some of these guys occasionally disappear for that reason. Shoot, shovel, and shut up...
Well the way society has fallen off the deep end would it be to far fetched to wonder if the kids killed their family?
Since families IMO have been declining in actual parenting skills since the late '60's that is four generation of bad parenting passed down.
I am not a grand parent and only have one adult kid so I am not much in the mix of households today but what I do see is it is sooo common for Gramma and Granpa to have to raise kids because parents simply abandon their responsibilities as parents and leave.
Big dif of running on hard times and needing help with the kids and those who just don't give a crap and leave.
They tend to dismantle what ever they can get their hands on in order to "fix" it but things just get more dismantled
THAT would tend to explain the origin of the term: Always trying to tweak things...including themselves, always with disasterous results.
I've seen some of the messes they've left. A fairly nice, though slightly, uh, VENERABLE (sounds better than run down) Victorian house in Medford, OR had to be totally razed by a hazmat company due to some of them. I don't know which was the worse crime: making/selling the crap; or, the wonton contamination of somebody else's property.
A lot of small fires in that area were later attributed to "bad chefs" whose "cooking" got out of hand.
According to a reporter on Greta tonight, Brenda Groene has been arrested for drugs in the past.
******
Steven and Brenda Groene were separated in 1998 and divorced in 2001. Brenda Groene had custody of the three younger children and her husband had custody of two older children, Vance Robert, now 20, and Jesse, 18, court records showed. Investigators have talked with the father, and he is not considered a suspect or person of interest.
"None of it can even begin to make sense," Vance Groene told KREM-TV. "They've always been taught don't talk to strangers, they never left the yard. "The only thing I really have to look forward to in this situation is a positive outcome with my brother and my sister," he added.
Kootenai County Sheriff identified the person they want to talk to as Robert Roy Lutner, 33, of Hayden, Idaho. The lookout is for a 1975 Silver Ford pick-up, Idaho license K161057, or a 1990 white Toyota pickup with Idaho license K308811.
"Lutner is only a person of interest at this time. He is believed to have been visiting the Groene home on Sunday evening," the sheriff's statement said.
Lutner's stepmom, contacted by CNN Radio, said she had not heard from her son since Sunday, which she said was unusual.
A Mark McKenzie is listed as a neighbor of Brenda Groene, according to property records.
Neighbor Janie Riley, who with her husband owns a nearby campground, said the younger children often played at the campground. She did not recall any obvious signs of trouble at the house.
"But there was a lot of activity going on there," Riley said.
Kootenai County court records indicate that family members have had minor scrapes with the law, including a June 2003 arrest of Brenda Groene for investigation of drug possession.
Jesse Groene is currently in the Kootenai County Jail for investigation of assault, battery, burglary and possession of stolen property, according to a jail employee who refused to give his name.
"This is just tragedy," Jesse Groene told KREM in a telephone interview from jail. "I can't think of anybody who's twisted and evil and lunatic enough to do this."
Authorities were called Monday evening by a neighbor who had gone to the house to pay the 13-year-old for mowing his lawn over the weekend and noticed something was amiss, Wolfinger said.
The neighbor, Bob Hollingsworth, said he grew suspicious because dogs were barking and the door of one vehicle was open while none of his neighbors were in sight.
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