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

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Tressa Honie is caught between anger and grief in the lead-up to Utah’s first execution since 2010. That’s because her father is the person set to die by lethal injection, and her maternal grandmother is the person he brutally murdered in 1998.

The heinous intrafamilial crime has placed a strain on her relationships for more than two decades as she’s kept in touch with her father in prison while her mother's family has fought relentlessly for him to be put to death.

In her final 48 hours visiting Taberon Dave Honie before his execution, set for Thursday shortly after midnight, Tressa is grappling with how to carry out his dying wish: for her to move on and heal.

“My mom's side, they can heal together," she said in an interview. “I'm happy you guys are going to get this closure, this justice, but where does that leave me? I feel like I have to heal alone.”

Tressa left the Utah state prison in a daze Tuesday evening as it hit her that she would only have one more day with her father, who she credits as her most supportive parent after drug use drove a wedge between her and her mother. As the 27-year-old prepares to grieve her father, she's also grieving 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 all in line.

Honie, one of six death row inmates 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 house in Cedar City, the tribal headquarters of the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, after a day of heavy drinking and drug use. He repeatedly slashed 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 with a then 2-year-old Tressa at the time of the murder.

Utah’s execution is scheduled to occur a few hours after one in Texas, where a man described by his lawyers as intellectually disabled was executed for strangling and trying to rape a woman who went jogging near her Houston home more than 27 years ago.

Honie, now 48, told Tressa he has come to terms with his fate, she said.

The father and daughter spent their final days talking about anything but his crimes, sharing early childhood memories and laughing about how neither has a favorite color. After years of resentment, she's ready to replace some of the anger she's held for her father with reminders of his humanity.

But their meetings haven't always been so cordial. Tressa grew up knowing her father was behind bars but didn't know why until she approached him at 14, looking for answers. Honie struggled to look at her as he explained some of what he had done and told her where she could find the court records, she recalled.

“When I did find out fully why he was in prison or on death row, I thought, ‘Well, maybe if I wasn’t born, this wouldn't have happened,'” Tressa said. “I did kind of blame myself. I didn't know how to cope.”

Years of drug abuse followed, distancing Tressa from family members who tried to extend support while grieving Benn, who they described as a pillar in their family and community. Benn was a tribal council member, substance abuse counselor and caregiver for her children and grandchildren.

Tressa has few memories of her grandmother, but she's found herself grieving the absence of a strong maternal role model.

“Hearing the type of woman my grandmother was, I would've loved that,” she said.

Her father also started using drugs such as cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine at a young age. Honie's attorneys testified about his own childhood trauma from parents who abused alcohol. They and others on the Hopi Indian Reservation where he grew up had been placed in government boarding schools that were often abusive and stripped Indigenous children of their culture as part of assimilation efforts.

Now, Tressa is determined to break that cycle of generational trauma.

She is in recovery, raising a child of her own and has developed some empathy for her father after her own addiction struggle. Honie has said he wasn’t in his “right mind” when he killed Benn and doesn’t remember much about the murder.

Trevia Wall, Benn’s niece, said she's had an “on-and-off” relationship with Tressa over the years but has tried to offer her extra support leading up to her father’s death. Wall was among those who testified in favor of Honie’s execution — an outcome she deemed necessary to get justice for her aunt. The two cousins embraced and cried together after the last hearing.

“It’s bittersweet,” Wall said in an interview. “Now we can finally move forward, we can finally heal, but it’s bitter because I hurt 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's push to execute Honie, said he knows it will close a painful chapter in his life but will open a new one for Tressa. He said he and other family members will be waiting with open arms whenever she’s ready.

Even though Tressa had 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 to the end," she said, "for me and him.”

FILE-Death row inmate Taberon Honie is cuffed during the Utah Board of Pardons commutation hearing on July 23, 2024, at the Utah State Correctional Facility, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)

The Utah State Correctional Facility is shown Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

FILE - Death row inmate Taberon Honie leaves the Utah Board of Pardons commutation hearing on July 22, 2024, at the Utah State Correctional Facility, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)

FILE-Death row inmate Taberon Honie looks on during the Utah Board of Pardons commutation hearing on July 22, 2024, at the Utah State Correctional Facility, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, Pool, File)

Tressa Honie, daughter of death row inmate Taberon Honie, looks on during an interview Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, near the Utah State Correctional Facility, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Tressa Honie, daughter of death row inmate Taberon Honie, looks on during an interview Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, near the Utah State Correctional Facility, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Tropical Storm Francine was strengthening in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, drenching coastal Mexico and Texas on its way to hit Louisiana as a hurricane on Wednesday night.

“We’re going to have a very dangerous situation developing by the time we get into Wednesday for portions of the north-central Gulf Coast, primarily along the coast of Louisiana, where we’re going to see the potential for life-threatening storm surge inundation and hurricane-force winds,” said Michael Brennan, director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Heavy rain was already falling in northeastern Mexico and deep South Texas, where some places could get up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) into Monday night, Brennan said. By early Monday afternoon, the hurricane center said the storm was becoming stronger and better organized.

Francine is taking aim at a stretch of coastline that has yet to fully recover since hurricanes Laura and Delta decimated Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 2020, followed a year later by Hurricane Ida. Over the weekend, a 22-story building in Lake Charles that had become a symbol of the destruction was imploded after sitting vacant for nearly four years, its windows shattered and covered in shredded tarps.

The storm surge pushed by Francine could reach as much as 10 feet (3 meters) along a stretch of Louisiana coastline from Cameron to Port Fourchon and into Vermilion Bay, forecasters said. And if the current track holds, the storm could blow northward up the Mississippi River, into the Illinois area by Saturday.

“Francine is expected to bring multiple days of heavy rainfall, considerable flash flooding risk,” Brennan said.

Louisiana officials urged residents to immediately prepare for the storm while “conditions still allow” for it, Mike Steele, spokesperson for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, told The Associated Press.

Storms like Francine can rapidly intensify, and people don't have the luxury of days to prepare, Steele said.

“We always talk about how anytime something gets into the Gulf, things can change quickly, and this is a perfect example of that,” Steele said.

Residents of Baton Rouge, Louisiana's riverfront capital, began forming long lines as people filled up their gas tanks and stocked up on groceries. Others went to fill sandbags at city-operated locations to try to keep floodwaters from entering their homes.

“It’s crucial that all of us take this storm very seriously and begin our preparations immediately,” Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said during a news conference Monday morning.

She urged residents to prepare a disaster supply kit, complete with enough food, water and essential supplies for three days.

A mandatory evacuation was ordered for seven remote coastal communities by the Cameron Parish Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness. They include Holly Beach, a laid-back stretch dubbed Louisiana’s “Cajun Riviera,” where many homes sit on stilts. The storm-battered town has been a low-cost paradise for oil industry workers, families and retirees, rebuilt multiple times after being struck by hurricanes.

And in Grand Isle, Louisiana’s last inhabited barrier island, Mayor David Camardelle recommended residents evacuate and ordered a mandatory evacuation for those in recreational vehicles. Hurricane Ida decimated the city three years ago, damaging almost all of its 2,500 structures and destroying 700 homes.

Officials warn that flooding in the area is likely to begin Tuesday afternoon and persist through Thursday. There are also threats of high winds, downed trees and power outages.

The hurricane center said early Monday afternoon that Francine was located about 180 miles (285 kilometers) south-southeast of the mouth of the Rio Grande, and about 450 miles (720 kilometers ) south-southwest of Cameron, Louisiana, sustaining top winds of about 60 miles per hour (95 kilometers per hour). It was moving north-northwest at 5 mph (7 kph).

Flooding in northern Mexico forced schools to close Monday and Tuesday in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Marco Antonio Hernandez Acosta, manager of the Matamoros Water and Drainage Board, said they were waiting for Mexico's federal government to provide pumps to drain the affected areas.

The storm is expected to be centered just offshore through Tuesday, and then intensify significantly from Tuesday night into Wednesday as it nears the upper Texas coast and Louisiana, according to the hurricane center.

A storm surge watch is in effect from the Texas coast near Houston across the entire coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi, while a hurricane watch has been issued for much of the Louisiana coast, from Cameron to Grand Isle.

Stengle contributed to this story from Dallas and Alfredo Peña contributed to this report from Ciudad Victoria, Mexico.

Weather begins to form from Tropical Storm Francine on the Harrison County Beaches in Pass Christian, Miss. Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (Hunter Dawkins/The Gazebo Gazette via AP)

Tuff Gary, left, and Morgan LeBlanc with their children Hudson, Tuff, Jr., and Zander, of Jenning, La., watch the implosion of the Hertz Tower, that was heavily damaged after Hurricanes Laura and Delta in 2020 in Lake Charles, La., Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

The Hertz Tower, which was heavily damaged after Hurricanes Laura and Delta in 2020, is imploded in Lake Charles, La., Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Weather begins to form from Tropical Storm Francine on the Harrison County Beaches in Pass Christian, Miss. Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (Hunter Dawkins/The Gazebo Gazette via AP)

Weather begins to form from Tropical Storm Francine on the Harrison County Beaches in Pass Christian, Miss. Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (Hunter Dawkins/The Gazebo Gazette via AP)

Tropical Storm Francine forms off Mexico, aiming for the Louisiana coast

Tropical Storm Francine forms off Mexico, aiming for the Louisiana coast

This Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024 satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows a tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico expected to bring significant rainfall to parts of Texas and Louisiana this week, possibly developing into a stronger storm, including a hurricane, according to the National Weather Service. (NOAA via AP)