On a summer day in Mason City, Iowa, the life of 10-year-old Kandace Duncan, a Caucasian female, was tragically cut short. On July 24, 1993, she, along with her 6-year-old sister Amber, her mother Lori Ann Duncan, and her mother's boyfriend, Gregory Nicholson, were victims of a horrific crime orchestrated to silence a witness. The events of that day were set in motion by Dustin Lee Honken, a methamphetamine manufacturer, who feared Nicholson's testimony against him in an upcoming drug trial.
The chilling plan was executed with the help of Honken's girlfriend, Angela Jane Johnson. Johnson gained entry to Nicholson's home by pretending to be a lost saleswoman. Once inside, she and Honken bound and gagged Nicholson and Lori Duncan. The two young girls, Kandace and Amber, were lured from their home with the promise of a surprise trip, their innocence betrayed by the sinister intentions of their captors. The entire family was then forced into a car at gunpoint and driven to a remote wooded area.
In the seclusion of the woods, Honken carried out the executions. He first murdered the adults and then the two children, all in front of shallow graves that had been prepared beforehand. For seven years, the fate of the Duncan family and Gregory Nicholson remained a painful mystery. It wasn't until 2000 that a breakthrough came when Johnson, who was incarcerated, provided a map to an informant, revealing the location of the bodies.
The discovery of the remains led to charges against both Honken and Johnson. They were tried separately and convicted of the murders. Dustin Lee Honken was sentenced to death and was executed on July 17, 2020. Angela Jane Johnson was also initially sentenced to death, but her sentence was later commuted to life in prison. The motive for these brutal killings was determined to be witness elimination, a desperate act by Honken to protect his drug enterprise that ultimately led to the loss of five innocent lives.
