Did sex offender stalk Groene neighborhood?

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) — During six weeks on the run with an 8-year-old girl, convicted sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan III told his young victim that he had driven around her neighborhood, scouting for children, new court documents say.

He told Shasta Groene that he spotted her playing in a bathing suit with her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, and that he stalked their home for days, using night-vision goggles to learn the layout of the house.

The disturbing new details of what investigators say was a carefully planned attack on a random family appear in records of a closed-door probable-cause hearing Tuesday.

Duncan was also charged Tuesday with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in the bludgeoning deaths of the children's mother, Brenda Groene, her 13-year-old son Slade and her boyfriend Mark McKenzie. If convicted, Duncan could face the death penalty.