Utah set for first execution in 14 years; how did we get here?

SALT LAKE CITY — Taberon Dave Honie was 23 years old when he was sentenced to die in 1999.

Now 48, Honie has spent more than half of his life on death row. Just after midnight on Thursday morning, he is scheduled to become the eighth person executed by the state of Utah since 1977 after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty the year before.

It will be the first execution at the new Utah State Correctional Facility that officially opened in July 2022 and the first in the state since 2010.

The crime

Late on the evening of July 9, 1998, Honie, 22, broke into the Cedar City home of his ex-girlfriend’s mother, 49-year-old Claudia Marie Benn, by smashing a rock into a glass door. Benn tried to protect herself and her three young granddaughters with a butcher knife. Honie turned the knife on her, cut Benn’s throat and sexually assaulted her with the knife. He also beat her severely on her face and head. The children had blood on them when police found them.

Honie, who was extremely intoxicated, claims he went to the home to fall asleep under the porch. But he got into an argument with Benn before brutally killing her.

Read the full story and more from Pat Reavy on ksl.com.

Keep reading

• Commutation hearing for Taberon Honie focuses on generational trauma
• Utah debates whether or not death penalty should remain
• Honie’s attorneys: The whole process was shrouded in secrecy