But days after the still-undiscovered killings of Nicholson and the Duncans, he told the court he would stick to his not guilty plea. MEAWW brings you the best content from its global team of [7], Honken said he planned to plead guilty, and a hearing was scheduled for July 30, 1993. He believed he would go to heaven. Inmate on death row may know secrets about Jodi Huisentruit case - WXOW hitType: 'event', By 1992, their multi-state ring was netting hundreds of thousands of dollars. Later that month, she was re-sentenced to life in prison without parole. document.querySelector("#google_image_div").addEventListener('click',function(){ He then came back for the children and shot them, too. The agency refused to answer any questions about the money, procedures or details of what happened. The government is doing so much of this in the dark, so we dont always get to see the full weight of what its up to, said Cassy Stubbs, director of the ACLUs Capital Punishment Project. Dustin Honken, 52, was sentenced to death for killing government informants and children in his effort to thwart his drug trafficking prosecution in 1993. document.querySelector("#adunit").addEventListener('click',function(){ Moments before being sentenced Honken maintained his innocence, accusing the judge in his case of having a "death agenda." Honken was convicted in October 2004 of murder in the 1993 deaths of five North Iowans. }); Three death row convicts, Daniel Lewis Lee, Wesley Ira Purkey, and Dustin Honken were put to death last week in a series of first federal executions in 17 years in the United States. They discovered him staying at the home of a friend, Lori Duncan, a single mother with two children, Amber, 6, and Kandi, 10. He plotted to murder Cutkomp and gave a fellow inmate directions to Cutkomp's house. Honken conspired with another inmate to escape from jail by breaking a hole in the wall of his cell and having Johnson deliver a hacksaw and a rope. Honken an Iowa meth kingpin who kidnapped and killed five people, including two young girls, to thwart his prosecution for drug trafficking in 1993 is set to become the third federal inmate to be executed this week. Its unclear what that training involved, but records show it cost thousands of dollars. He'd apologized, saying "I wasn't expecting things to go this way. After a two-month-long trial, the jury found him guilty on all 17 counts. The man they killed today was a human being, who could have spent the rest of his days helping others and further redeeming himself. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotOnload', function(event) { Follow her on Twitter @courtneycare. For his last words, he turned to the writings of a Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, reciting lines from the poem Heaven-Haven. They took us anywhere we needed to go.. But unlike the two executed earlier this week, Honken lacked headline-grabbing mitigating circumstances. Lawyers for Honken requested in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia a stay of execution. Using a ruse to gain entry, Johnson and Honken did make a video of Nicholson denying his previous police statements, but then bound and gagged the adults, forced the children to pack bags and walked them at gunpoint to their car. window.googletag.pubads().addEventListener('slotRenderEnded', function(event) { Although details of his last meal were not revealed, Honken, in his last words, recited a poem by an English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ called Heaven-Heaven. Mueller uses a wheelchair, which he said can complicate the logistics of plane travel, so he decided to drive to Indiana from his home in Arkansas. 3d 937", "From meth to murder: How a small-town Iowa boy became the state's first death row inmate in 50 years", "FindLaw's United States Eighth Circuit case and opinions", "Witnesses Testify about Honken's Drug Operation", "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA vs. ANGELA JOHNSON", "184 F3d 961 United States of America v. Dustin Lee Honken", "Fred Tokars, lawyer who set up murder of his wife, dies in prison", "OPINION: Maybe wife-killer Fred Tokars got a fate worse than death", "Iowa meth kingpin is 3rd executed by US government this week", "Johnson v. United States, 860 F. Supp. Not only that, the police found Terry DeGeus body in a field a few miles from the crime scene. Iowa Drug Kingpin Who Killed 5 Is Executed - VOA Iowa killer Dustin Lee Honken faces execution | The Gazette Dustin Honken, 52, who prosecutors said killed key witnesses to stop them from testifying in his drugs case, received a lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. According to his attorneys, he recited a poem by a Jesuit priest in his final statement. There was no reason for the government to kill him, in haste or at all.". Well never put our work behind a paywall, and well never put a limit on the number of articles you can read. However, the plot was discovered and stopped by guards. Just before his death, Lee reportedly implored to the media at his execution to ask the judge about DNA evidence that was left out of his trial. Email He can be rehabilitated. SIOUX CITY Dustin Honken and Angela Johnson strangled two little girls to keep them quiet after the pair now charged with five murders killed the girls' mother and her . Law enforcement had enough evidence to believe Johnson had something to do with the murders, though Honken remained their suspected triggerman. On February 7, 1996, officers executed a search warrant on Honken's house and discovered his meth lab, chemicals, equipment, books, and notes, including ones on manufacturing drugs and how to bind and gag people. During the sentencing phase, the prosecution said Honken, who they described as an "evil mastermind", deserved to die since he had committed mass murder, killed children, killed a second time months after committing the four initial murders, showed no remorse, and had continued to try to escape prison and commit even more murders while in maximum security prisons. Inside, 2,600 prisoners in the two-prison complex were locked down. Dustin Lee Honken was born in Britt, Iowa, on March 22, 1968, and suffered from an abusive childhood. The agency also fed the guards and some of the other law enforcement agencies that came to help with outside security, racking up a tab of more than $3,990 for snacks and light refreshments.. [8] On July 24, 1993, Johnson pretended to be a lost saleswoman to get into Nicholson's home, where she and Honken bound him and forced him to record a statement claiming that Honken was innocent. During one of their drug runs, Dustin met Angela Johnson, Terrys erstwhile girlfriend, and the two struck up a business relationship that soon evolved into a romantic one. A statement from the Department of Justice echoed the Duncans' sentiment that due process had been seen through. Consequently, Honken's offense level under the United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines was set at 38, which called for a sentence of 235 to 293 months in prison. "[30] She called him a "sociopath who will never admit to what he has done. Upon learning that Nicholson had disappeared, the government turned to Honken's former dealer, DeGeus. The hotel was nice enough, and only a 10-minute drive from the federal execution chamber in Terre Haute where the man who killed Muellers father would take his last breath. His last words were, Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for me.. A former Fulbright and H.F. Guggenheim fellow, he has reported on a range of criminal justice subjects, including jail conditions, sheriffs, wrongful convictions, and art by incarcerated people. Just go in and check him., Its not clear how much the agency paid for lethal drugs themselves, a few grams of pentobarbital, and its not clear whats buried in the redacted expenditures marked confidential.. He worked for Holland Construction in Forest City and later drove a semi for Schmidt Trucking of Britt. Federal court appeals later described their relationship while dismissing claims that there was substantial mitigation in his upbringing: The movant's mother provided a stable, nurturing and loving environment, never abandoned him, did not fail to provide any sort of safe space or comfort to him, never neglected him, never failed to calm him or tell him that things were going to be okay, acted as a loving caretaker and facilitated the movant's attachment to her by making herself available to him. [9], Johnson was born in Forest City, Iowa. hitType: 'event', Iowa meth kingpin is 3rd executed by US government this week - Yahoo News FILE - In this Aug. 18, 2004 file photo, Dustin Honken is led by federal marshals to a waiting car after the second day of jury selection in federal court in Sioux City, Iowa. Since many of the other witnesses didnt live close enough to drive, they flew in, and the bureau spent more than $4,310 on plane tickets for July and August. [34], Honken exhausted his appeals in 2014, but at the time, the U.S. federal government had a de facto moratorium on capital punishment. But his lawyer, Shawn Nolan, countered, saying that Honken had been "redeemed" and that he "recognized and repented for the crimes he had committed. Justice Department Executes Dustin Honken, 3rd U.S. Execution In - NPR After finishing a year of community college chemistry classes with an A-minus, Honken, decided to become both a drug manufacturer and a dealer using what he had learned. Dustin Honken, convicted of killing five people, will be executed July 17, 2020. eventAction: 'view' Upon learning that she had been tricked, Johnson attempted to hang herself. ga('ads.send', { [7] Within a year, Honken and Cutkomp managed to produce several pounds of nearly pure meth, which they sold in northeast Iowa, primarily through two dealers: Terry DeGeus and Greg Nicholson. The two young Duncan girls never had a chance to grow up and share in the joys and sorrows of their life, it said. A prison official in Terre Haute, Indiana, reportedly told the New York Post: "We will not be providing details of Mr. Lees last meal.". He compared the feeling of killing someone to a football game, saying, "Once you go a certain distance, there ain't no turning back.