Angela Jane Johnson

Angela Jane Johnson was born on January 17, 1964, in Forest City, Iowa. Her early life was marred by severe abuse. Raised by religious grandparents who performed abusive exorcisms, Johnson also suffered from neglect and sexual abuse by her mother, an alcoholic. As an adult, Johnson entered into a relationship with Honken, became pregnant with his child, and became an accomplice in his drug operation.

Though her exact role in the killings would later be debated, Johnson was instrumental in locating victims and facilitating their murders. Her relationship with Honken was marked by emotional dependency and manipulation. Johnson had previously been in a relationship with one of Honken’s dealers, which she betrayed in favor of Honken's rising power in the drug trade.

In 1993, facing a federal drug indictment, Dustin Honken sought to eliminate potential witnesses. With Angela Johnson's assistance, he located his former dealer Greg Nicholson. On July 25, 1993, under the pretense of reconciliation, Johnson entered Nicholson’s house posing as a door-to-door saleswoman. She and Honken bound Nicholson and his new girlfriend, Lori Duncan, and forced them to record a statement claiming Honken was innocent.

Honken then abducted the couple and Lori's daughters, 10-year-old Kandace and 6-year-old Amber. He took them to a rural wooded area near Mason City, Iowa, where he executed all four adults and the children, shooting them and burying the bodies in shallow graves.

When the drug charges against Honken began to falter due to Nicholson’s disappearance, the government turned to another dealer, Terry DeGeus. On November 4, 1993, Johnson lured DeGeus to a secluded meeting where Honken beat, shot, and buried him as well.

The federal drug case collapsed. Honken later resumed meth production, but was re-arrested in 1996 after an informant exposed his new lab. During his pretrial release, Honken plotted to kill witnesses, including police, prosecutors, and former partners. He also discussed previous killings with various inmates, unaware they were recording him.

Johnson, meanwhile, confessed the details of the killings to fellow inmate and federal informant Robert McNeese, giving him a map of the burial sites. This led to the recovery of the victims’ bodies in October 2000.

Honken was charged with five counts of murder and convicted in 2004. He was sentenced to death in 2005. Angela Johnson was tried separately and received a federal death sentence in 2005, becoming the first woman sentenced to death federally since the 1950s. Her sentence was overturned in 2012 due to ineffective counsel, and she was resentenced to life without parole in 2014.

Honken was executed by lethal injection at USP Terre Haute on July 17, 2020. His final words were a poetic recitation followed by a Hail Mary. His execution marked the first for an Iowa federal defendant since 1963.