'Iowa's Walter White' has been put to death over the 1993 murders of five people, marking the third federal execution this wee...
'Iowa's Walter White' has been put to death over the 1993 murders of five people, marking the third federal execution this week after his white supremacist death row friend Daniel Lewis Lee was the first to be executed in 17 years.
Dustin Honken, 52, recited a poem by a Jesuit priest before he was executed by lethal injection at Terre Haute penitentiary in Indiana Friday afternoon, after a judge denied his request earlier this week for a delay to his execution because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Honken, who went from being a nerdy chemistry student to a methamphetamine kingpin and murderer, was sentenced to death in 2004 for the brutal slayings of five people including two children and government informants.
His execution comes as Attorney General William Barr pushes ahead with executions ahead of the 2020 presidential race after a 17-year pause which began with Lee Tuesday followed by the execution of 'claw hammer' killer Wesley Purkey Thursday.
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, in 2004. 'Iowa's Walter White' was put to death over the 1993 murders of five people on Friday
He had been on death row since 2005 convicted of the murders of Greg Nicholson, Terry DeGeus, Lori Duncan and her daughters Kandi, 10, and Amber, 6, in Mason City in 1993.
Honken was pronounced dead at 4.36pm EDT by the Vigo County Coroner.
The killer, who has always maintained his innocence of the murders and made a long statement of his innocence at his sentencing, went to his grave without confessing to his crimes.
Honken failed to show any remorse or address his crimes or the victims' families in his final words on his death bed.
Instead he recited a poem by the English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins called 'Heaven-Haven' and then simply said: 'Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for me'.
Honken's lawyer, Shawn Nolan, said his client had repented for his crimes and was a devout Catholic who 'cared for everyone he came into contact with' in prison.
'There was no reason for the government to kill him, in haste or at all. In any case, they failed. The Dustin Honken they wanted to kill is long gone,' Nolan said.
'The man they killed today was a human being, who could have spent the rest of his days helping others and further redeeming himself. May he rest in peace.'
In a statement, Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec said 'just punishment has been carried out.'
'Nearly three decades after Honken coldly ended the lives of five people, including two young girls, all in an effort to protect himself and his criminal enterprise, he has finally faced justice,' Kupec said.
Honken is led by US Marshals into the Federal Courthouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, prior to his sentencing in 2005. Honken, 52, was sentenced to death for killing government informants and children in his effort to thwart his drug trafficking prosecution in 1993
Honken's daughter, who has visited him on death row for years, reportedly visited her killer dad earlier in the day and thanked pro-life protesters who gathered outside the jail in opposition to the death penalty.
Honken had become close friends with white supremacist Lee while the two killers have both been on death row.
Sister Betty Donoghue, a Catholic nun who spoke to Honken over the phone Wednesday and had visited him regularly over the last decade, said Honken had been 'very upset' about his friend's execution earlier in the week.
'He was very upset with the way Danny died,' she said.
The nun said the multiple murderer had appeared calm about his own impending death and was 'ready to meet his maker'.
'He was at peace. I was totally amazed,' she said. 'He believed he would go to heaven. He is ready to meet his maker.'
Honken made his last calls to his family and friends and his mother, brother and daughter had all visited him in prison in recent days, she added.
Honken is the first Iowan since 1963 to be put to death.
The state abolished the death penalty back in 1965, but federal prosecutors sought to execute Honken because of the nature of his heinous crimes killing government informants and children.
Susan Torres, 54, Duncan's sister-in-law and aunt to Kandi and Amber, said earlier this week she planned to attend her family's killer's execution along with the relatives of other victims.
'He does deserve what he's getting. I can tell you that. He deserved it a long time ago,' she said this week.
Mark Bennett, the federal judge who oversaw Honken's trial, said he generally opposes the death penalty but if anyone deserves to be executed, it is Honken.
He said Honken's crimes were reprehensible and he had a fair legal process, including talented lawyers who 'did an outstanding job with virtually nothing to work with'.
'I am not going to lose any sleep if he is executed,' said Bennett, who has since retired from the bench.
'Normally I would but the evidence was so overwhelming.'
Honken's lawyers made several eleventh-hour pleas for a reprieve, but their requests were all denied.
While the two previous executions were stopped and started amid back-and-forth legal maneuvering this week, Honken's began almost on the minute it was scheduled at 4 p.m. Friday.
US District Judge Leonard Strand wrote Tuesday that he would not intervene to delay Honken's execution date due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Strand said the Bureau of Prisons was in the best position to weigh the health risks against the benefits of carrying out the execution.
Strand also denied Honken's motion to declare his execution void due to an alleged procedural error by the government and affirmed the executive branch's power to set the date for executions.
A federal judge also turned down on Tuesday a request by Honken's spiritual adviser - a Catholic priest - to put the execution on hold until after the pandemic.
Honken was convicted in 2004 of the brutal 1993 slayings of his two drug dealers turned informants Nicholson and DeGeus, as well as single working mom Duncan and her daughters Kandi and Amber.
Nicholson, Duncan, Kandi, and Amber vanished on July 25 and DeGeus disappeared on November 5.
The bodies of Nicholson and the Duncan family were found buried in a single hole located in a wooded area outside Mason City in 2000 after an informant provided authorities with maps of where Honken's accomplice girlfriend Angela Johnson told him the bodies were buried.
Kandi and Amber each had a single bullet hole in the back of their heads.
Nicholson and Duncan were bound, gagged, and shot multiple times, including once in the head.
DeGeus's body was found in a field a few miles away, face down in a shallow hole with a severely fragmented skull having been shot one or more times.
Honken shot and killed the two men because they planned to testify against him on drug charges.
The single mom and two kids were murdered after Nicholson hid out with them.
Duncan didn't know Nicholson was an informant and she wasn't involved in drugs.
Lori Duncan (left), a single, mother raising her two girls, 10-year-old Kandi (center) and six-year-old Amber (right) were all slain by Honken
Honken was also convicted of murdering his meth distributors, Gregory Nicholson (left) and Terry DeGeus (right), who were scheduled to testify against him
Honken's murderous spree all started when he moved from Iowa to Arizona to try to get rich by cooking meth, which he learned to do after studying chemistry in college - drawing parallels with TV show Breaking Bad's Walter White.
He and a friend began operating a meth lab and distributing their product through two dealers - Nicholson and DeGeus - based in Iowa.
In 1993, Nicholson was pinched by police and turned informant.
Honken was arrested and indicted for conspiring to manufacture meth after Nicholson secretly recorded Honken and testified before a grand jury.
Honken informed the court that he would plead guilty.
But when he was released, he began a desperate hunt for Nicholson with Johnson.
They found him hiding out at the home where he lived with his girlfriend Duncan, Kandi and Amber.
All four victims were kidnapped, shot to death and buried.
The two little girls were still in their swimsuits when they were shot execution-style in the back of the head.
Their bodies weren't found until 2000 - seven years after they disappeared.
Five days after the four victims vanished, Honken appeared for his plea hearing, but declined to plead guilty.
He told his attorney he heard a rumor Nicholson had skipped town.
Honken also provided his attorney with a VHS tape of Nicholson saying Honken was not guilty of the charges against him.
The government turned its attention to the other possible witness against Honken, his other dealer DeGeus.
A judge denied Honken's (pictured) request to delay his federal execution earlier this week
DeGeus then disappeared as well when Honken murdered him and buried his body around a mile from his other victims.
Charges against Honken were dropped because the witnesses could not be found but the following year, authorities discovered his meth lab and arrested him for meth trafficking.
He was sentenced to 27 years in prison in 1998 for drug charges.
In 2000, an informant provided investigators with two maps Johnson gave him showing where the bodies were buried.
When behind bars, Honken also admitted to other inmates he killed witnesses to avoid earlier charges. Honken went into great detail about the murders but told the court he was innocent of the crimes.
On October 14, 2004, a jury in the US District Court for the Northern District of Iowa found Honken guilty of numerous offenses, including five counts of murder during the course of a continuing criminal enterprise, and he was sentenced to death.
His trial featured extraordinary security measures because of the danger he posed, including an anonymous jury and Honken was bolted to the floor of the courtroom and wore a stun belt under his clothing to prevent escape attempts.
Johnson was also convicted and sentenced to death at a separate trial but her death sentence was later overturned and changed to life in prison in 2014.
Honken's execution was the third this week and came just one day after 'claw-hammer' killer Wesley Purkey, 68, was put to death in the same federal prison Thursday.
Purkey was convicted and sentenced to death for kidnapping, raping and killing 16-year-old Jennifer Long before dismembering, burning and then dumping her body in a septic pond in 1998.
He was also convicted in a state court in Kansas after using a claw hammer to batter 80-year-old polio sufferer Mary Bales to death when he was called out to her home for a plumbing job.
The double murderer expressed remorse for Jennifer's slaying in his final words right before his death, saying he was 'deeply sorry'.
However, the killer showed no remorse for bludgeoning to death his second victim, making no reference at all to Bales, and instead slamming his death sentence as 'sanitized murder'.
The father of his 16-year-old victim attended the execution and said 'I hope he rots in hell'.
'Claw-hammer' killer Wesley Purkey, 68, (pictured) was put to death in the same federal prison Thursday. Purkey was convicted and sentenced to death for kidnapping, raping and killing 16-year-old Jennifer Long before dismembering, burning and then dumping her body in a septic pond in 1998
Purkey's victims: Jennifer Long, 16, (pictured) was last seen at East High School in Kansas City, Missouri on January 22, when she skipped lessons. Purkey confessed to her murder, saying he abducted the teenager, drove her to his home where he raped her and stabbed her to death
Purkey's victims: 80-year-old Mary Bales (pictured) was beaten to death by the killer when he came to her home to fix a kitchen faucet
Purkey's lucidity and show of apparent remorse also cast doubt on his lawyer's claims that his dementia had left him unable to understand why he was being executed.
His defense had tried to halt the execution arguing he suffered severe dementia, did not understand why he was on death row anymore and thought his execution was part of a government conspiracy against him because he had complained about prison conditions.
The killer was granted a delay by a judge Wednesday hours before the execution was scheduled to go ahead, on the basis of looking into these claims.
But the Supreme Court then voted 5-4 early Thursday for his execution to go ahead, paving the way for it to take place that morning.
This came after Daniel Lewis Lee was the first to be put to death by the federal government in almost two decades earlier this week.
Lee, 47, of Yukon, Oklahoma, was executed Tuesday morning at the same Indiana facility, when he died by lethal injection after the Supreme Court cleared the way overnight with a 5-4 vote.
The self-confessed white supremacist was convicted in Arkansas of the 1996 killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife Nancy, and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell.
Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, of Yukon, Oklahoma, became the first to be executed by the federal government in almost two decades Tuesday. He is pictured above waiting for his arraignment in Arkansas in October 1997
Lee, a self-confessed white supremacist, was convicted in Arkansas of the 1996 killings of gun dealer William Mueller, his wife Nancy, (pictured above) and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell
Eight-year-old Sarah (pictured) who Lee suffocated, before taping rocks to her body and dumping her in a nearby bayou
Lee continued to maintain his innocence up until his death, saying 'I didn't do it' and 'you're killing an innocent man' just moments before he was executed.
His execution, which came over the objection of the victims' family, was carried out after a series of legal volleys that ended when the Supreme Court stepped in early Tuesday in a 5-4 ruling and allowed it to move forward.
It had been scheduled for Monday afternoon but was put on hold just hours earlier by a US District Court judge over concerns from death row inmates on how executions were to be carried out.
The Supreme Court removed those obstacles, noting Tuesday that Texas and other states have used pentobarbital 'without incident' in more than 100 executions.
The decision to move forward with federal executions has drawn scrutiny from civil rights groups.
Critics have argued that the Trump administration, which has been pushing for the executions, was creating an unnecessary and manufactured urgency for political gain ahead of the 2020 elections.
Attorney General William Barr has said the Justice Department has a duty to carry out the sentences imposed by the courts, including the death penalty, and to bring a sense of closure to the victims and those in the communities where the killings happened.
Honken's execution is only the third federal execution but the 10th execution overall carried out in the US in 2020, including three in Texas, which executes more inmates than any other state.
Last year, 22 prisoners were executed, the fifth straight year that fewer than 30 people were put to death in the US - far lower than the 65 executions that were carried out in 2003, the last time a federal inmate was executed.
Child killer Keith Nelson has his federal execution date set for August 28 for the kidnapping, rape and strangulation of a 10-year-old girl.
The Terre Haute penitentiary in Indiana where Honken was put to death. It is the same prison that the executions of white supremacist Daniel Lewis Lee and 'claw hammer' killer Wesley Purkey took place this week
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