An Iowa drug kingpin was executed Friday afternoon, after he was convicted of murdering two young women and three adults, marking the third time this week that a federal prisoner was executed after a 17-year hiatus in capital punishment.
The Prison Office said Dustin Honken, 52, was pronounced dead at 4:36 pm. The family of the victims is expected to present a written statement to the public sometime soon.
Justice Department (DOJ) spokeswoman Kerri Kupec released the following statement after the execution took place.
“Today, Dustin Lee Honken was executed at USP Terre Haute in accordance with the death sentence imposed by a federal district court in 2004. Honken was pronounced dead at 4:36 pm EDT by the Vigo County coroner,” wrote.
“In 1993, Honken, a meth boss, kidnapped, fatally shot, and buried Lori Duncan, a working and single mother, Duncan’s two daughters, Kandi, 10, and Amber, 6, and Greg Nicholson, an Informant. of the government that testified against Honken on federal drug trafficking charges. Honken also murdered Terry DeGeus, who Honken thought could also testify against him, by hitting him with a bat and shooting him. On October 14, 2004, a jury in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa found Honken guilty of numerous federal crimes, including five counts of continued criminal murder in companies, and was sentenced to death. “
DANIEL LEWIS LEE EXECUTED FOR TORTURING AND KILLING THE ARKANSAS FAMILY IN 1996, FIRST FEDERAL EXECUTION IN 17 YEARS
Kupec added: “Almost three decades after Honken coldly ended the lives of five people, including two girls, all in an effort to protect himself and his criminal enterprise, he finally faced justice. The death penalty has It has been upheld by federal courts, with the bipartisan support of presidents and members of Congress, and approved by attorneys general under Republican and Democratic administrations as the appropriate sentence for the most egregious federal crimes. Today, that fair punishment has led to out. “
Honken also befriended Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, who was the first federal prisoner to die this week, hours after the Supreme Court authorized the first federal execution since 2003.
Lee was convicted of multiple crimes, including three counts of murder in aid of organized crime in the 1996 killings of William Frederick Mueller, his wife Nancy Ann Mueller and their 8-year-old stepdaughter, Sarah Elizabeth Powell, in Arkansas.
Wesley Ira Purkey was the second man to be killed two days later, after being convicted in 1998 of the kidnapping and murder of Jennifer Long, 16, whose body was dismembered, burned, and thrown into a septic tank.
That same year, Purkey was also convicted in Kansas state court after using a hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who had polio.
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After Honken was convicted in 2004, the jury recommended a death sentence. US District Judge Mark Bennett, who claimed to be largely opposed to the death penalty, said: “I will not lose sleep if he is executed,” The Associated Press reported.
Vandana Rambaran, Greg Norman, Jake Gibson and The Associated Press of Fox News contributed to this report.
