Missing Girl Found With Sex Offender

An eight-year-old girl, missing for more than six weeks after her mother and two others were bludgeoned to death at home, was found in an Idaho diner with a registered sex offender whose weblog had warned he was preparing to seek revenge on society.

A waitress and a customer at Denny's restaurant in Coeur d'Alene called police at 2am on Saturday after recognising Shasta Groene from missing person photographs. When the police arrived they arrested Joseph Edward Duncan, who served more than 10 years in prison for raping a 14-year-old boy at gunpoint and recently skipped bail on charges of molesting a six year-old boy.

There was no sign of the girl's brother, Dylan Groene, 9, who disappeared at the same time. Police said that based on information from Shasta and undisclosed evidence found in a stolen vehicle, he was almost certainly dead.

The hunt for the two children began on May 16 when their mother, Brenda, their 13-year-old brother Slade and the mother's boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, were found bound and bludgeoned to death in their rural home near Coeur d'Alene, in Kootenai county.

On Sunday the children's father, Steven Groene, spoke about being reunited with his daughter. Mr Groene said police had told him not to ask Shasta questions about what had happened.

Captain Ben Wolfinger of the Kootenai county sheriff's office, said Mr Duncan had no apparent connection to the Groene family and his arrest brought many questions.

Days before the children disappeared, a message was posted on a web site maintained by Mr Duncan, police said.

"I am scared, alone and confused, and my reaction is to strike out toward the perceived source of my misery, society," the May 11 entry said. "My intent is to harm society as much as I can, then die."

Duncan, 42, of Fargo, North Dakota, disappeared while on bail this year, charged with molesting a boy, six, at a Minnesota school playground.