1993 Iowa murders

Dustin Lee Honken and Angela Jane Johnson were convicted of the 1993 murders of five people in Iowa. The victims were related to a drug trial against Honken. Honken was involved in the manufacturing of methamphetamine and one of his dealers was set to testify against him, and so Honken and Johnson murdered him along with his girlfriend and her two daughters (age 6 and 10). A few months later, the fifth victim, also a former dealer, was murdered. Honken was sentenced to death and executed by the federal government on July 17, 2020, the first defendant from Iowa to be executed since 1963. Johnson was also sentenced to death, the first woman sentenced to death by a United States federal jury since the 1950s, but the sentence was overturned in 2012 and she was re-sentenced to life without parole in 2014. Background: Honken grew up in Britt, Iowa. His father was an alcoholic and a bank robber. Honken had been a drug dealer and started cooking meth after studying chemistry at college. Johnson was born in Forest City, Iowa. Honken and Johnson were in a relationship at the time of the murders and Johnson, who had a child from a previous marriage, was pregnant by Honken Crimes: In July 1993, Johnson posed as a saleswoman to get into the house of Honken's former drug dealer who was set to testify against him. Honken forced him to record a statement of Honken's innocence. The informant was taken to the woods along with his girlfriend and her two daughters, where they were shot and buried. A few months later, the fifth victim Terry DeGeus was murdered. The victim was also a dealer for Honken and had previously dated Johnson. The victim was beaten with a bat and shot. Circuit Judge Roger Leland Wollman, writing for the unanimous court of appeals, described Johnson's participation thus: "The killings resulted from her substantial participation in the murders; namely, that she procured the murder weapon, participated in the hunt for Nicholson, employed a ruse so that she and Honken could gain entry to the Duncans' residence, bound and gagged at least one of the victims, and exploited her relationship with DeGeus to lure him to the remote location where he was killed." Conviction and sentence- Angela Johnson: In 2005, Johnson was found guilty of involvement in the murders, which had all been committed in Iowa. Capital punishment has been abolished in Iowa since 1965, but Johnson was charged under federal law because three of the victims were witnesses in a federal methamphetamine prosecution of Honken. The jury that convicted her handed down four death sentences. The presiding judge stated "I am troubled by the lack of certainty in the record concerning the precise involvement of Angela Johnson in these crimes". Under federal law, however, the judge is bound by the jury's verdict. In July 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld the conviction, finding sufficient evidence to conclude that Johnson had participated in the murders. On March 23, 2012, federal judge Mark W. Bennett vacated Johnson's death sentence, citing a failure by her attorneys to introduce evidence about her mental state. The vacating of her death sentences did not affect her convictions in the case. Prosecutors did not pursue another death penalty sentence, so Johnson was re-sentenced to life without parole in December 2014. Federal authorities had stopped pursuing the death penalty for Johnson. Johnson, Federal Bureau of Prisons #08337-029, is being held at Federal Correctional Institution, Waseca. Dustin Honken: Johnson's former boyfriend, Dustin Lee Honken, was convicted of five counts of Continuing Criminal Enterprise murder. Although it was Honken who pulled the trigger, killing three adults and two children, Johnson received the death penalty for four of the victims, while Honken was sentenced to death for only the two children. The unanimous Eighth Circuit affirmed Honken's conviction and sentence in September 2008. On July 25, 2019, United States Attorney General William Barr approved the use of the single drug pentobarbital for federal executions, and an execution date of January 15, 2020, was set for Honken. On November 20, 2019, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan issued a preliminary injunction preventing the resumption of federal executions. Honken and the other three plaintiffs in the case argued that the use of pentobarbital may violate the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994. On December 5, 2019, the Supreme Court denied a stay of Chutkan's injunction while the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reviewed Chutkan's decision. Honken was imprisoned at the United States Penitentiary, Terre Haute. While in prison, Honken had converted to Catholicism. The Archbishop of Newark, Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin had written to president Donald Trump in early July 2020 asking him to commute Honken's sentence, claiming that he had witnessed Honken's "spiritual growth in faith and compassion". In April 2020, a divided panel of the D.C. Circuit vacated District Judge Chutkan's injunction in a per curiam decision. Circuit Judges Gregory G. Katsas and Neomi Rao wrote concurring opinions concluding that Honken may be executed, but for different reasons. Circuit Judge David S. Tatel dissented, arguing the statute explicitly requires the federal government to follow state execution protocols. On June 29, 2020, the Supreme Court denied Honken's petition for review, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissenting. On July 17, 2020, at 3:36 p.m. CST, Honken was executed by lethal injection. His final words were, "Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for me." His body was cremated, ashes given to a friend or family.