On a hot summer day in Mason City, Iowa, the life of 6-year-old Amber Duncan, a Caucasian female, was tragically cut short on July 24, 1993. Amber, her 10-year-old sister Kandace, their mother Lori Ann Duncan, and Lori's boyfriend, Greg Nicholson, were all murdered in a brutal act of witness elimination.
The perpetrators of this horrific crime were Dustin Lee Honken, a significant methamphetamine producer, and his girlfriend, Angela Jane Johnson.
Honken was facing federal drug trafficking charges, and Greg Nicholson, one of his dealers, had agreed to become an informant and testify against him. To prevent this testimony, Honken and Johnson orchestrated a plan to silence Nicholson and anyone who might be a potential witness.
On that fateful day, Johnson went to Nicholson's home under the guise of a lost saleswoman to gain entry. Once inside, she and Honken bound and gagged Nicholson and Lori Duncan. The two young girls, Amber and Kandace, were told they were going on a surprise trip. The entire family was then forced into a vehicle at gunpoint and driven to a remote wooded area outside of Mason City.
In the secluded woods, Honken carried out the executions in front of pre-dug shallow graves. He first murdered the adults and then the two young children. Amber and her sister Kandace were still in their swimsuits when they were shot execution-style in the back of the head. For seven years, the whereabouts of the victims remained a mystery. It wasn't until 2000 that their bodies were discovered buried in a field southwest of Mason City after Johnson, in a jailhouse confession, provided a map to their location.
Dustin Lee Honken was eventually convicted for the five murders and sentenced to death. He was executed by the federal government on July 17, 2020. Angela Jane Johnson was also convicted for her role in the murders and received a death sentence. However, her sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Four months after the initial murders, Honken also killed another informant, Terry DeGeus.
