Statement by Department of Justice Spokesperson Kerri Kupec on the Execution of Dustin Lee Honken

Department of Justice Spokesperson Kerri Kupec has issued the following statement:

“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 p.m. EDT by the Vigo County Coroner.

In 1993, Honken, a meth kingpin, kidnapped, fatally shot, and buried Lori Duncan, a single, working mother, Duncan’s two young daughters — 10-year-old Kandi and 6-year-old Amber — and Greg Nicholson, a government informant who testified against Honken on federal drug trafficking charges.  Honken also murdered Terry DeGeus, who Honken thought might also testify against him, by beating him with a bat and shooting him.  On October 14, 2004, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa found Honken guilty of numerous federal offenses, including five counts of continuing criminal enterprise murder, and he was sentenced to death.

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.  The death penalty has been upheld by the federal courts, supported on a bipartisan basis by Presidents and members of Congress, and approved by Attorneys General under both Democratic and Republican administrations as the appropriate sentence for the most egregious federal crimes.  Today that just punishment has been carried out.”