1993 Iowa murders

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.

Honken grew up in Britt, Iowa.

His father, Jim Honken, was an alcoholic schemer who was allegedly neglectful.

Honken reported in his pre-sentence investigation that his father struck him numerous times during his childhood, although he denied that his father was physically abusive and maintained that the emotional turmoil in his early life mostly stemmed from his father's alcoholism.

Jim once convinced his son to steal and copy a key to a bank.

Jim committed two bank robberies before getting caught and sent to federal prison.

Honken's parents divorced when he was nine.

Honken had a healthy relationship with his stepfather.

Honken had a notably healthy relationship with his mother, who he described as perfect.

Although Iowa abolished capital punishment in 1965, the crime was a federal case since it involved a continuing criminal enterprise.

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 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 Honken and Johnson murdered him along with his girlfriend and her two young daughters.

A few months later, the fifth victim, also a former dealer, was murdered.

In the early 1990s, Honken started selling marijuana and cocaine.

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.

He also decided to switch to meth.

Honken enlisted his best friend, Tim Cutkomp, moved to Arizona, and borrowed $5,000 from his brother to buy chemicals and equipment.

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 made hundreds of thousands of dollars from several drug runs.

On one of his drug runs, Honken met Angela Johnson, who was then dating DeGeus.

Johnson told Honken that DeGeus was personally using too much meth which was supposed to be sold, and that they should deal with each other instead.

The two started a romantic relationship and Johnson soon became pregnant with Honken's child.

Honken, seeking to expand his drug dealing business, studied chemistry textbooks at the library, read science journals, kept extremely thorough records, made plans to expand his business to the Internet, and considered writing his own book about how to make and sell meth in the United States.

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."Honken, who was proficient in math, science, and writing, earned a scholarship to North Iowa Area Community College in 1991.

He later said that he had initially planned to become a pharmaceutical lawyer.

During Honken's capital murder trial, his mitigation expert, Lisa Rickert, wrote to his lawyers that not only had she struggled to find any possible mitigation, what she discovered only further cast Honken in a negative light.

The defense did not have Rickert take the stand out of the fear that she might conclude Honken was a sociopath or had narcissistic personality disorder.

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.

Johnson was raised by extremely religious grandparents who would hold her down, wave Bibles over her head, and speak in tongues in an attempt to exorcise demons from her.

Johnson's mother was an abusive and neglectful alcoholic.

During Johnson's trial, it was revealed that she had been molested as a child.

In March 1993, Honken and Cutkomp were arrested on federal drug trafficking charges.

While preparing for his trial, Honken discovered through legal documents that Nicholson had turned witness.

He wore a wire to a meeting and recorded Honken making a future $3,000 deal.

Authorities had found almost 150 grams of pure meth in Nicholson's house, and he'd agreed to become an informant in exchange for leniency.

Over the next few weeks, Nicholson became extremely paranoid.

His then-wife, Leslie Olson, said he prevented her from going outside or staying near windows for very long.

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.