Daughter of Utah death row inmate navigates complicated dance of grief and healing before execution

SALT LAKE CITY — Tressa Honie is torn between anger and grief in the run-up to Utah’s first execution since 2010. That’s because her father was the one killed by lethal injection, and her maternal grandmother was the one he brutally murdered in 1998.

The horrific intra-family crime has strained her relationships for more than two decades, as she maintains contact with her father in prison while her mother’s family… fought tirelessly that he would be put to death.

In her last 48 hours of visiting Taberon Dave Honie Before his execution, scheduled for shortly after midnight on Thursday, Tressa struggles with how to fulfill his final wish: that she move on with her life and heal.

“My mother’s side, they can heal together,” she said in an interview. “I’m glad you’re getting this closure, this justice, but where does that leave me? I feel like I have to heal on my own.”

Tressa walked out of Utah State Prison Tuesday night in a daze as she realized she would have only one more day with her father, whom she considers her most supportive parent after drug use drove a wedge between her and her mother. As the 27-year-old prepares to mourn her father, she’s also mourning the life she might have had if his crimes hadn’t trapped her family in a cycle of self-destruction and left them grieving for the matriarch she believes could have kept them all in line.

Honey, one of six condemned to death in Utah, was convicted of aggravated murder for the July 1998 death of his girlfriend’s mother, Claudia Benn. He was 22 when he broke into Benn’s home in Cedar City, the tribal headquarters of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, after a day of heavy 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 home along with a then 2-year-old Tressa at the time of the killing.

Honie, now 48, told Tressa that he has accepted his fate, she said.

The father and daughter spent their last days talking about everything but his crimes, sharing memories of their early childhoods and laughing about the fact that neither has a favorite color. After years of resentment, she’s ready to replace some of the anger she felt toward her father with memories of his humanity.

But their encounters weren’t always so cordial. Tressa grew up knowing her father was behind bars, but she didn’t know why until she approached him at 14, seeking answers. Honie struggled to look at her as he explained some of what he had done and told her where to find court records, she recalled.

“When I found out why he was in prison or on death row, I thought, ‘Well, maybe this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been born,'” Tressa said. “I blamed myself a little bit. I didn’t know how to deal with it.”

Years of substance abuse followed, causing Tressa to distance herself from family members who tried to offer support as they grieved for Benn, whom they described as a pillar of 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 mourns the loss of a strong role model as a mother.

“If I had heard what kind of woman my grandmother was, I would have loved it,” Tressa said.

Honie also began using drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine at a young age. His attorneys testified about his own childhood trauma from alcohol-abusing parents. They and others on the Hopi Indian Reservation where he grew up were placed in government boarding schools who were often violent and robbed native children of their culture as part of their assimilation efforts.

Tressa is determined to break the cycle of generational trauma.

She is in recovery, raising her own child and has developed some empathy for her father after her own struggle with addiction. Honie has said that he was not in his “sane” when he killed Benn and can’t remember much of the murder.

Trevia Wall, Benn’s niece, said she has had an “on-and-off” relationship with Tressa for years, but that she has offered her extra support in the lead-up to her father’s death. Wall was among those who testified in favor of Honie’s execution — an outcome she felt was necessary to get justice for her aunt. The two cousins ​​hugged and cried together after the final 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’m grieving for my cousin, his 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 in its bid to execute Honie, said he knows it will close a painful chapter in his life, but open a new one for Tressa. He said he and other family members will be waiting with open arms for when she is ready.

Although Tressa had urged the parole board to commute her father’s death sentence, she plans to attend 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 him.”