SALT LAKE CITY – Tressa Honie is caught between anger and sadness ahead of Utah’s first execution since 2010. That’s because her father is the person who will die by lethal injection, and her maternal grandmother is the person he brutally murdered in 1998.
The heinous intra-family crime put strain on her relationships for more than two decades, as she remained in contact with her father in prison while her mother’s family fought tirelessly so that he would be sentenced to death.
In the last 48 hours of visit Taberon Dave Honie Before her execution, scheduled for Thursday just after midnight, Tressa is struggling to fulfill her dying wish: that she move on and heal.
“On my mother’s side, they can heal together,” she said in an interview. “I’m glad you’re going to get this closure, this justice, but where does that leave me? ”
Tressa left Utah State Prison in a daze on Tuesday night when she realized she had just one more day with her father, whom she considers her most supportive father after his drug use drove a wedge between her and her mother. mother. As the 27-year-old prepares to mourn her father, she also mourns the life she could have had if his crimes hadn’t trapped her family in a cycle of self-destruction and left them mourning the matriarch she believes could have kept them. everything aligned.
Honie, one of six inmates on death row in Utah, was convicted of aggravated murder in the death of his girlfriend’s mother, Claudia Benn, in July 1998. He was 22 years old when he broke into Benn’s home in Cedar City, the tribal headquarters of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, after a day of drinking and drug use. He repeatedly slit Benn’s throat and stabbed other parts of her body. The judge who sentenced him to death also found that Honie had sexually abused one of Benn’s grandchildren who was in the house along with Tressa, then 2, at the time of the murder.
Honie, now 48, told Tressa he accepted his fate, she said.
The father and daughter have spent the last few days talking about everything but their crimes, sharing early childhood memories and laughing about how neither of them has a favorite color. After years of resentment, she is ready to replace some of the anger she feels toward her father with reminders of his humanity.
But their meetings were not always so cordial. Tressa grew up knowing her father was behind bars, but didn’t know why until she approached him at age 14 looking for answers. Honie struggled to look at her as he explained some of the things he had done and told her where she could find the court records, she recalled.
“When I fully found out why he was in prison or on death row, I thought, ‘Well, maybe if I hadn’t been born, this wouldn’t have happened,’” Tressa said. “I kind of blamed myself. I didn’t know how to deal.”
Years of drug abuse followed, distancing Tressa from family members who tried to extend support as they grieved with Benn, who they described as a pillar in their family and community. Benn was a member of the tribal council, a substance abuse counselor, and a caregiver for her children and grandchildren.
Tressa has few memories of her grandmother, but she found herself lamenting the absence of a strong maternal role model.
“Hearing the type of woman my grandmother was, I would have loved that,” Tressa said.
Honie also began using drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine at a young age. Her lawyers testified about her own childhood trauma caused by parents who abused alcohol. They and others on the Hopi Indian Reservation, where he grew up, were placed in government boarding schools who were often abusive and stripped Indigenous children of their culture as part of assimilation efforts.
Now, Tressa is determined to break this cycle of generational trauma.
She is in recovery, raising her own son, and has developed some empathy for her father after her own struggle with addiction. Honie said He was not in his “sound mind” when he killed Benn and doesn’t remember much about the murder.
Trevia Wall, Benn’s niece, said she had an “on and off” relationship with Tressa over the years but tried to offer her extra support before her father’s death. Wall was among those who testified in favor of Honie’s execution – an outcome she felt was necessary to obtain justice for her aunt. The two cousins hugged and cried together after the last hearing.
“It’s bittersweet,” Wall said in an interview. “Now we can finally move on, we can finally heal, but it’s bitter because I grieved for my cousin, your daughter. He put her in the middle, and she was torn between her father and her grandmother.”
Randall Benn, another cousin who supported the family’s effort to execute Honie, said he knows it will close a painful chapter in her life but open a new one for Tressa. He said he and other family members will be waiting with open arms whenever she is ready.
Although Tressa has urged the parole board to commute her father’s death sentence, she plans to witness his execution. About a dozen family members are expected to attend.
“I just want to be there until the end,” she said, “for me and for him.”
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