1993 Iowa murders
American mass murder case
Dustin Lee Honken (March 22, 1968 – July 17, 2020) and Angela Jane Johnson (born January 17, 1964) are American mass murderers convicted of the 1993 murders of five people in Cerro Gordo County, 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, so he and Johnson, who was his girlfriend, murdered him along with his girlfriend and her two young daughters, on July 25. A few months later, the fifth victim, also a former dealer, was murdered on November 4. The killings all occurred in unincorporated woodland outside of Mason City.
Although Iowa abolished capital punishment in 1965, the crime was a federal case since it involved a continuing criminal enterprise. 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 resentenced to life without parole in 2014.
Background
Dustin Honken
Honken grew up in Britt, Iowa. His father, Jim Honken, was an alcoholic schemer who was allegedly neglectful.
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