First execution in Utah since 2010 carried out on man by lethal injection
SALT LAKE CITY — An individual from Utah who ended the life of his girlfriend’s mother by slashing her throat was executed by lethal injection early Thursday in the state’s first execution since 2010.
Taberon Dave Honie, 48, was found guilty of aggravated murder in the July 1998 passing of Claudia Benn.
Honie was 22 when he entered Benn’s residence in Cedar City after a day of excessive drinking and substance use and consistently sliced her throat and stabbed her in other regions of her body. Benn’s grandchildren, including Honie’s then 2-year-old daughter, were present in the residence at that time.
The judge who handed down the death penalty determined that Honie had sexually mistreated one of the children, one of the aggravating elements used to come to that conclusion.
Honie’s final meal before his execution consisted of a cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake, Utah Department of Corrections disclosed. Honie spent the evening with his family prior to the execution.
Beyond the penitentiary, a group of individuals protesting against the death penalty displayed signs stating, “All life is valuable” and prayed and sang “Amazing Grace.”
After numerous unsuccessful appeals, Honie’s execution warrant was authorized in June despite defense objections to the intended lethal substance. In July, the state revised its execution procedure to utilize solely a high dosage of pentobarbital — the nervous system depressant employed to euthanize animals.
The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole rejected Honie’s request to commute his sentence to life imprisonment following a two-day hearing in July where Honie’s lawyers asserted that he grew up on the Hopi Indian Reservation in Arizona with parents who misused alcohol and neglected him.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, also dismissed a final plea by Honie to postpone the execution.
Honie informed the parole board that he would not have killed Benn if he had been in his “right mind.” He implored the board to permit him “to persist” so he could provide support for his daughter.
Tressa Honie conveyed to the board that she has a complex connection with her mother and would lose her most supportive parental figure if her father were to be executed.
However, other relatives argued that Taberon Honie deserved no mercy.
They depicted Benn as a cornerstone in their family and southwestern Utah community — a Paiute tribal member, substance abuse counselor, and caregiver for her children and grandchildren.
Sarah China Azule, Benn’s niece, expressed satisfaction with the board’s choice to proceed with Honie’s execution.
“He deserves an eye for an eye,” she stated.
Honie was one of six individuals facing execution in Utah.
The capital punishment for a seventh individual, Douglas Lovell, who eliminated a woman to prevent her from testifying against him in a rape case, was recently annulled by the Utah Supreme Court. He will be resentenced.
An individual described by his legal representatives as intellectually impaired was executed a few hours earlier in Texas for strangling and attempting to assault a woman who was jogging near her Houston residence over 27 years ago. Arthur Lee Burton had been given the death sentence for the July 1997 killing of Nancy Adleman, a 48-year-old mother of three who law enforcement discovered beaten and strangled with her own shoelace in a wooded area off a jogging trail along a bayou.