Man Who Killed Girlfriend’s Mother Killed In Utah’s First Execution Since 2010

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – A Utah man who killed his girlfriend’s mother by slitting her throat was put to death by lethal injection early Thursday in the state’s first execution since 2010.

Taberon Dave Honie, 48, was convicted of aggravated murder in the July 1998 death of Claudia Benn.

Honie was 22 when he broke into Benn’s Cedar City home after a day of heavy drinking and drug use and repeatedly slashed her throat and stabbed her elsewhere. Benn’s grandchildren, including daughter Honie, then 2, were in the home at the time.

The judge who sentenced him to death found that Honie had sexually abused one of the children, one of the aggravating factors used to make that decision.

Honie’s last meal before his execution was a cheeseburger, fries and a milkshake, the Utah Department of Corrections said. Honie spent the evening with his family before the execution.

After decades of failed appeals, Honie’s execution warrant was signed in June, despite defense objections to the planned lethal drug combination. In July, the state changed its execution protocol to using only a high dose of pentobarbital — the nervous system suppressant used to euthanize pets.

The Utah Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Honie’s petition to commute his sentence to life in prison after a two-day hearing in July, during which Honie’s attorneys said he grew up on the Hopi Indian Reservation in Arizona with parents who abused alcohol and neglected him.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, also denied a final request by Honie to delay the execution.

Honie told the parole board that he would not have killed Benn if he was in his “right mind.” He asked the council to allow him to “exist” so he could be a support to his daughter.

Tressa Honie told the board she has a complicated relationship with her mother and said she would lose her most supportive parental figure if her father was executed.

However, other family members argued that Taberon Honie did not deserve mercy.

They described Benn as a pillar in their family and community in southwest Utah — a Paiute tribal member, substance abuse counselor and caregiver to her children and grandchildren.

Sarah China Azule, Benn’s niece, said she was pleased with the board’s decision to move forward with Honie’s execution.

“It’s worth an eye for an eye,” she said.

Honie was one of six people facing execution in Utah.

The death sentence of a seventh person, Douglas Lovell, who killed a woman to prevent her from testifying against him in a rape case, was recently overturned by the Utah Supreme Court. He will be convicted.

A man described by his lawyers as intellectually disabled was executed hours earlier in Texas for strangling and attempting to rape a woman who jogged near her Houston home more than 27 years ago. Arthur Lee Burton was sentenced to death for the July 1997 slaying of Nancy Adleman, a 48-year-old mother of three, whom police found beaten and strangled with her own shoelace in an area wooded from a jogging track along a bayou.

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