END OF THE LINE
A COLD-BLOODED meth kingpin who killed three adults and two kids recited a poem and said "Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for me" moments before he was executed by lethal injection.
At 4:36 pm on Friday, became the third inmate put to death this week after federal executions resumed for the first time in 17 years.
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Shortly before meeting his fate, he recited Heaven-Haven, a poem by English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins before he said: "Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for me."
Honken, who was known as "Iowa's Walter White", murdered government informants and two children days before he was set to enter a plea for drug charges in 1993.
The 52-year-old died by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, , where he’s been on death row since 2005.
His lawyers last-minute appeals from to delay the execution were denied by a judge.
Honken invited six people to witness his death, including a spiritual advisory, two attorneys and three family members, according to a reporter, who was one of seven media witnesses.
Heaven-Heaven by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The Jesuit priest published the poem in 1864
I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.
In his final moments, Honken read the poem “," reporters in attendance said.
Before he was put to death, and US 41, about a mile up from the federal facility, demonstrating their opposition to the Death Penalty with a silent vigil.
They said Honken's daughter thanked them for their support in the hours before his death.
The Vigo County Coroner pronounced him dead at 4:36 pm – nearly 40 minutes behind schedule, said protesters, who rang the toll at 4:39 pm.
In a released after his execution, 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," said Kupec.
A priest spoke after Honken's death was confirmed and accused the administration and Indiana state of "killing people in our name and putting blood on our hands."
"This is a time for mourning," he told the anti-death penalty advocates.
"Blessed our those who mourn for they will be comforted ... Blessed are those who show mercy."
Shawn Nolan, Honken's lawyer, said in a statement to CNN that his client had paid for his crimes.
"Dustin Honken was redeemed. He recognized and repented for the crimes he had committed, and spent his time in prison atoning for them," said Nolan on Friday.
"During his time in prison, he cared for everyone he came into contact with: guards, counselors, medical staff, his fellow inmates and his legal team. Over the years he grew incredibly close to his family, becoming a true father, son, brother and friend."
"There was no reason for the government to kill him, in haste or at all. In any case, they failed," he added.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered two last-minute injunctions for two other death row convicts but not Honken.
She said this was because he didn't successfully challenge the procedures of being injected with the powerful sedative pentobarbital, reported.
Catholic nun Betty Donoghue told AP Honken made his last calls in recent days and was friendly with Daniel Lewis Lee, a White supremacist murderer, who was also executed this week for slaying an family.
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Honken’s girlfriend and accomplice, Angela Johnson, was also convicted in the 1993 murders and sentenced to death at a separate trial.
But her death sentence was later overturned, and federal prosecutors agreed to change her sentence to life in prison in 2014.
Reminiscent of the premise of the TV show Breaking Bad, "nerdy" Honken began cooking meth after studying chemistry at a community college.
He began making meth with his best friend in 1992 and sold it to Gregory Nicholson and Terry DeGeus, who distributed it to customers in the Mason City area.
Nicholson, 34, began cooperating with investigators in 1993 as an undercover informant, which led to Honken’s arrest on federal drug charges.
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Days before Honken was to plead guilty, prosecutors say Honken and Johnson kidnapped Nicholson and his girlfriend, Lori Duncan, and her two daughters, Kandi, 10, and six-year-old Amber.
Honken forced Nicholson to make a video recanting his testimony against Honken and declaring Honken’s innocence.
They were shot in the back of the head and buried in a wooded area outside Mason City – but their bodies weren't found for seven years.
I am not going to lose any sleep if he is executed.
Judge Mark Bennett
Honken also killed his other dealer, 32-year-old Terry DeGeus.
Prosecutors dismissed the case against Honken because the key witnesses missing.
His sophisticated meth-making and distribution operation continued until he was arrested on drug charges in 1996.
Police found the bodies of the five victims in 2000, after Johnson was tricked into sketching out maps of their burial locations to a jailhouse informant.
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He was convicted of five counts of murder during a continuing criminal enterprise and numerous others.
The jury recommended a and the federal judge who oversaw Honken’s trial, US District Judge Mark Bennett, agreed.
“I am not going to lose any sleep if he is executed,” said Bennett, who has since retired. “Normally I would, but the evidence was so overwhelming.”
Honken was convicted in 2004 of five counts of murder during a continuing criminal enterprise and numerous other counts.
The news comes after Barr directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to of four federal death-row inmates last month.
Honken will be the third execution this week after "Claw-hammer killer" died by lethal injection after the Supreme Court rejected his lawyers' mental illness plea.
His prison pal, the White supremacist murderer Lewis, was also executed on Tuesday in Indiana.
Child killer Keith Dwayne Nelson will be executed on August 28.
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