Joseph Edward Duncan III
Details Provided by Duncan
During the March 15, 2011, hearing in which Duncan pleaded guilty to murdering Anthony Martinez, Supervising Deputy District Attorney Otis Sterling read a document apparently written by Duncan to the court, using it to provide a factual basis for accepting Duncan's guilty plea.
According to Sterling's reading of the document, Duncan admitted that he had lured a group of boys to help him find a lost cat by offering them $1 each. At one point he pulled out a knife and forced Anthony into the car he was driving and transported him some 50 miles to the remote desert area near Indio where his body was found.
Sterling read that Duncan had forcibly removed all of Anthony's clothing, and that Duncan's intent in touching Anthony was so he "could control him to perform sexual acts on him. Duncan then proceeded to rape Anthony. Duncan admitted that he bound Anthony with duct tape prior to hitting him on the head with a rock, killing the boy. Sterling also said that Duncan's "intention was to exact revenge on society."
"I've lived with this case for three years," Sterling said. "I wanted to make sure when Duncan came to California I could do everything I could possibly do to make sure he was convicted. I spent many a night crying. Just the thought of someone taking a child from where they were playing, and doing what Joseph Duncan did — there is no other word to describe that than to say it is evil, probably evil in its purest form."