Shasta's Mission

Convicted sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan never thought he could be taken down by an eight year old Idaho girl whom he'd traumatized repeatedly over the course of six weeks.

While he bragged to her about using night vision goggles to case her house and family for two days, and about details of how he killed them, Shasta was busy burning those details into her brain. She's provided investigators with precise information about the murders' timetable, where to find her brother Dylan's remains across the state line in Montana, and what Duncan told her was the only motive: to obtain the children for sex. She knows the brand name of the hammer he used to bludgeon her family because he showed it to her.

Child abusers never think they are going to be caught. Sooner or later, as Duncan became more brazen about appearing with Shasta in public places within miles of her home, someone was going to recognize her.

And now she is taking him down.

There are millions of child abuse victims who never got that chance with their own abusers -- and it leaves wounds that are hard to heal. Shasta's going to need a lot of support and therapy to come to terms with what happened to her family and herself. But she empowers herself and her future with each detail outlined for the police.

What a gutsy little girl.