Dustin Honken

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In 2005, Dustin Honken became the first person sentenced to death by Iowa jurors in 41 years. He was sentenced to die by a federal jury for his role in the murders of five people, including a 10-year-old girl and her 6-year-old sister.

Honken was a community college chemistry whiz who began manufacturing methamphetamine with his brother and a childhood friend in 1992. He sold several pounds of the deadly stimulant to two Iowa men, Terry DeGues and Greg Nicholson.

But his drug dealing career didn't last very long and Honken was arrested by federal authorities in March 1993. Over the spring and summer of that year, Honken and his attorney negotiated with the federal government and Honken learned that Nicholson was cooperating with the government. Honken agreed to plead guilty to federal drug charges in July 1993.

However, the week before Honken was scheduled to appear in court for his plea, Nicholson disappeared along with his 32-year-old girlfriend Lori Duncan and her two daughters, Kandi, 10, and Amber, 6. Honken subsequently backed out of his guilty plea and with little evidence, the government was forced to drop its case.

In November 1993, DeGues also vanished.

Although that case against Honken collapsed, he was nabbed again in 1996 and a year later pleaded guilty to meth dealing and got a 27-year prison sentence.

If he had not talked to other federal prisoners, Honken would have gotten away with murder. However, he did talk and the other prisoners promptly informed federal officials who wired the prisoners with recording devices.

Honken's admissions were caught on tape, including one session where he admitted killing the young girls because "they were rats being raised by rats."

His accomplice, Angela Johnson, who participated in the murders, was arrested and subsequently confessed to another prisoner who convinced her that he could get someone else to admit the killings if she provided sufficient evidence to allow for a believable confession. When she did so, he turned the information over to federal prosecutors and it was used against both Honken and Johnson.