Dustin Honken

Dustin Honken was a community college chemistry whiz who began manufacturing methamphetamines with his brother and a childhood friend in 1992. He sold several pounds of the deadly stimulant to two Iowa men, Terry DeGues and Greg Nicholson.

His drug dealing career didn’t last very long and Honken was arrested by federal authorities in March 1993. Over the spring and summer of that year, Honken and his attorney negotiated with the feds and Honken learned that Nicholson was cooperating with the government. Honken agreed to plead guilty to federal drug charges in July 1993.

However, the week before Honken was scheduled to appear in court for his plea, Nicholson disappeared along with his 32-year-old girlfriend Lori Duncan and her two daughters, Kandi, 10, and Amber, 6. Honken subsequently backed out of his guilty plea and with little evidence, the government was forced to drop its case.

In November 1993, DeGues also dropped off the face of the earth.

Although that case against Honken collapsed, he was nabbed again in 1996 and a year later pleaded guilty to meth dealing and got a 27-year prison sentence.

If he had been able to keep his mouth shut, Dustin Honken would have gotten away with murder. But behind bars, face is everything and Honken, a wussy little doormat of a con, had to talk tough to stay alive.

His first mistake was telling enough of the truth to other cons who immediately put it to their own use. Honken’s second screw-up was involving Angela Johnson in the killings.

Armed with Honken’s jailhouse confessions, authorities arrested Johnson on conspiracy and murder charges and put her in the Benton County, Iowa jail where she met Robert McNeese.

McNeese was on his way to prison to serve a life sentence for heroin delivery when Johnson began confiding in him that she was connected to multiple homicides. She wanted to kill one friend who had implicated her in the murders of the Duncans, DeGues and Nicholson, and was afraid that Dustin Honken was looking to eliminate her, as well.

On the stand at Johnson’s trial, McNeese admitted that he saw an opportunity to help himself by making believe he could help Johnson find someone else to take the fall for the crime.

“I told her I had been in prison a long time,” he said. “I knew a lot of people. I told her she would have to describe how the crimes were committed, what the people were wearing when they were killed and where the bodies were located.”

Johnson bit and provided all of the information McNeese wanted, including a map which led police to recover the bodies of Honken’s five victims.

When she learned she had been double-crossed, Johnson attempted suicide.

Eventually, Honken and Johnson would be put on trial and the truth about how their victims died would come out.

“I killed my rats,” Honken told federal prisoner Fred Tokars, who is serving life for murdering his wife.

Honken used Johnson to get to the victims. On July 25, 1993, she showed up at Duncan’s home posing as a cosmetics saleswoman who was lost. She let Johnson into her home and Honken followed, brandishing a handgun.

Tokars testified at Honken’s trial in 2004 that Johnson herded the Duncans into a bedroom while Honken forced Nicholson, who had worn a wire as a cooperating witness, to videotape a statement exonerating him.

The group was then tortured, bound, gagged and shot in the back of the head. Tokars testified that Honken told him in 1998 that Kandi and Amber Duncan saw their mother and Nicholson murdered. They were rats being raised by rats, Honken said.

A tape played at Honken’s trial, recorded by a cooperating inmate witness, reveals Honken enjoyed killing. “It’s like getting high,” he said.

The corpses were driven to a field southwest of Mason City and dumped in shallow graves.

Months later, Angela Johnson lured DeGeus to his death. Johnson called her former lover and asked him to meet her on Nov. 4, 1993, the last time he was seen. He was beaten to death with a baseball bat and shot several times.

During the penalty phase of Johnson’s trial, Lori Duncan’s brother recalled that his father blamed himself for his granddaughters’ deaths. The girls had wanted to stay overnight with him on July 25, 1993, but it was inconvenient for him at the time.

The man is haunted by the belief that “if he had watched the girls that night, they’d still be with us now,” his son said.

Two inmates provided the first allegations of how and why Duncan's children died.

Both men, who are serving life terms and who identified themselves as prison attorneys, said Honken told them about the murders while seeking legal advice during 1998 at a federal penitentiary in Florence, Colo.

Fred Tokars, serving a life sentence for murdering his wife in Georgia, testified that Honken told him the girls were present when Nicholson and Lori Duncan were strangled and that "they could have been witnesses."

Ron McIntosh, also with an extensive criminal record, testified that the children were strangled "because they wouldn't be quiet or wouldn't shut up."

Honken, with the aid of his girlfriend, Angela Johnson, beat and tortured Nicholson and killed him the day before he was scheduled to testify about Honken's drug-related activities. Duncan and her daughters disappeared the same day.

Four months later, DeGeus, 32, another informant, disappeared. The five bodies were found during 2000, buried in fields southwest of Mason City.

Tokars said Honken told him that he and Angela Johnson parked their car a couple of blocks away from Duncan's house and carried a rope and gun in a canvas bag to the house where Nicholson, Duncan and her daughters were living.

Tokars said Honken told him that Angela Johnson took Duncan and the children into another room while Honken videotaped Nicholson making a statement he hoped would exonerate him.

"Dustin said that when he was done taping, he hit Nicholson over the head with a pistol and strangled him," said Tokars.

Honken and Johnson then knocked Lori Duncan out, according to Tokars, hitting her with the pistol, and were strangling her when the children started screaming. Tokars said Honken told him the children were killed because of what they had seen in the house.

Tokars testified that Honken told him the bodies were loaded into the trunk of a car and driven to a construction area, where they were buried.

He said Honken once said a rope was used to strangle the victims but on another occasion said a cord was used.

Tokars also testified that Honken told him Johnson later arranged to meet DeGeus by telling him that she and Honken had broken up and that she wanted to talk about getting back together with DeGeus.

When DeGeus showed up at a remote location, Honken was with Johnson and they shot him to death, Tokars testified.

"He didn't say who shot him, just that he kept coming at them and wouldn't die, so they shot him multiple times," Tokars said.

McIntosh said Honken came to him for advice on several legal issues. One was about paying child support to two girlfriends, Kathy Rick, mother of Honken's son, and Angela Johnson, mother of his daughter.

While researching the child support issues, McIntosh said he learned that Honken had killed children. Only after McIntosh asked, Honken told him about the murders.

"I strangled the rat and his girlfriend," McIntosh said Honken told him. "Kate strangled the children because they wouldn't shut up."

Confused by the name "Kate," McIntosh said he asked Honken, "You mean the mother of your son suffocated the children?"

Honken replied, "No, the one that is the mother of my daughter," referring to Johnson, McIntosh testified.

McIntosh said he didn't want to know any more about the murders.

Tokars also testified that Honken asked him to contact someone from "The Dixie Mafia" to kill someone in the fall of 1998.

Tokars said Honken was "relentless and determined" to kill his former best friend Timothy Cutkomp, who cooperated with police in a 1996 drug case, which led to Honken's current 27-year prison sentence.