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.
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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)
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)
WASHINGTON (AP) — As they filed into the front pews at Washington National Cathedral, wearing dark suits and mostly solemn faces, five current and former presidents came together for Jimmy Carter's funeral. During a service that stretched more than an hour, the feuding, grievances and enmity that had marked their rival campaigns and divergent politics gave way to a reverential moment for one of their own.
Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the first two of the group to take their seats Thursday, shook hands and chatted at length. Trump, the former president who will retake the Oval Office in 11 days, leaned in and listened intently to his predecessor, notwithstanding the political chasm between them. At times, the two flashed smiles.
Trump later returned to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida Thursday night to meet with Republican governors and refused to say what he and Obama discussed, but joked, “It did look very friendly, I must say.”
“I didn’t realize how friendly it looked. I said, 'Boy they look like two people who like each other and we probably do," he said. "We have little different philosophies, right, but we probably do."
The president-elect added, “I don’t know. We just got along. But I got along with just about everybody.”
Obama, who attended Carter's funeral without his wife, Michelle, shared a second-row pew with former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with their spouses. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived last and sat in the pew just in front of them.
Members of the exclusive presidents' club were on their best behavior. Bonded by the presidency, they rarely criticize one another or the White House’s current occupant — though Trump has flouted those rules frequently. He has both praised and criticized Carter in recent days, and he complained that flags will still be at half-staff to honor the deceased president during his inauguration.
In one seemingly chilly moment, Trump looked up when Vice President Kamala Harris — whom he defeated in November's hard-fought election — entered the cathedral, but he didn't move to greet her as she and husband Doug Emhoff took seats directly in front of him and Melania Trump. Nor did Harris acknowledge him.
After the service, Emhoff made a point to turn around and shake hands with Trump.
Obama, with Trump on his left, also turned to his right to chat with Bush. Clinton, with wife Hillary, was the last of the ex-presidents to take a seat and got in some chatter with Bush as well.
The White House said the former presidents also met privately before taking their seats. There was no word on what was said then, though Trump said later of its participants, "We all got along very well.”
Funerals are among the few events that bring members of the presidents' club together. In a way, former President Gerald Ford was there, too: Ford's son Steven read a eulogy for Carter that Ford had written before he died in 2006.
Busy with personal pursuits, charitable endeavors and sometimes lucrative speaking gigs, the former leaders don’t mingle often. They all know the protocol of state funerals well — each has been involved in planning his own.
During the 2018 funeral for George H.W. Bush, then-President Trump sat with his predecessors and their spouses, including the Carters, and the interactions were stiff and sometimes awkward.
This time, Trump also didn't appear to interact with Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated in the 2016 election.
Trump was seated in the pew in front of his former vice president, Mike Pence — one of the few times they have coincided at events since Pence refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election after Trump lost to Biden. The two shook hands but didn't speak much beyond that. Pence's wife, Karen, appeared to avoid engaging with the president-elect.
Trump, who largely avoided contact with the former presidents during his first term — and pointedly did not seek their advice — has been critical of Republican former presidents, particularly the Bush family, which made him an uneasy member of the former presidents' club. Carter himself didn't particularly relish being a member of the club, at times criticizing its staid traditions.
Many past presidents have built relationships with their predecessors, including Bill Clinton, who reached out to Richard Nixon for advice on Russian policy, and Harry S. Truman, who sought counsel from Herbert Hoover.
One of the first calls Obama made after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 was to George W. Bush to spread the word that the mission had been accomplished, said Kate Andersen Brower, author of “Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump.”
“It's the loneliest job in the world, so usually they reach out and rely on each other," said Andersen Brower. "But Trump didn't have that the first term, so this will just be another four years where he doesn't depend on anyone who came before him."
She noted that Carter spent years as a proud Washington outsider and skipped the unveiling of his own portrait to avoid being in the same room with the man who beat him in 1980, President Ronald Reagan.
“Carter and Trump, even though they have the least in common about everything else, are similar," Andersen Brower said, "in just how they approach telling what they actually think.”
Weissert reported from Palm Beach, Florida.
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla., as Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry listen (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with former Vice President Mike Pence as Melania Trump watches before the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President-elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump arrive before the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President-elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump watch as former President Barack Obama arrives before the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Former President Barack Obama shakes hands with former Vice President Mike Pence before the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, as President-elect Donald Trump sits with Melania Trump at right. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden watch as the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter begins at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, former President Bill Clinton, former first lady Hillary Clinton, former President George W.Bush, former first lady Laura Bush, former President Barack Obama, former President and President-elect Donald Trump, former first lady Melania Trump, former Vice President Al Gore, former Vice President Mike Pence and others, attend the State Funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
Front row, from left, President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff and second row from left, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President George W. Bush, Laura Bush, former President Barack Obama, President-elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump, stand during the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
