Another inmate is eligible for execution in SC on the 2nd of his 2 death sentences
The above shows the execution chamber in the Department of Corrections' Columbia prisons complex, as seen from the witness room. The firing squad chair (left) was added following a 2021 state law that made death by firing squad an option. The electric chair is under the cover. (Provided by the S.C. Department of Corrections)
COLUMBIA — A sixth death row inmate who was twice sentenced to death by separate juries has run out of appeals for one of his killings and could be scheduled for execution in the coming weeks, according to the state Attorney General's Office.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied inmate Stephen Stanko's appeal of his 2009 conviction for shooting his friend four years prior. Stanko was also sentenced to death in 2006 for killing his girlfriend and raping her then-15-year-old daughter and leaving her for dead. The appeals process continues on that conviction.
But Monday's decision by the nation's high court clears the way for the state Supreme Court to issue a death warrant for the 57-year-old, an attorney for the Attorney General's Office wrote in a letter to state justices.
The court usually issues death warrants on Fridays, giving inmates exactly four weeks before their execution dates under state law. The court will be closed this coming Friday in observance of Confederate Memorial Day, a state holiday. Whether the court might still issue a death notice for Stanko that day is unclear.
Stanko would be the sixth inmate put to death in the state since executions resumed in September 2024, following an unintended 13-year hiatus.
Legislators added firing squad as an option for executions in 2021, and two inmates chose that as their method of execution earlier this year. The other three died by lethal injection, which again became an option with the help of an expanded law keeping most information about executions, including the source of the drugs, secret.
Stanko was tried for crimes in two different counties — Georgetown and Horry — and sentenced to death in both cases.
On April 7, 2005, Stanko strangled his girlfriend, Laura Ling, to death while beating and raping her daughter at their home in Murrell's Inlet. Stanko slit the daughter's throat and left her for dead, stealing jewelry and a credit card from her and her mother. He withdrew money from Ling's bank account at a nearby ATM, then drove to Conway, according to court records.
There, Stanko committed the crime for which he has exhausted his appeals.
The next morning, April 8, 2005, Stanko brought his friend Henry Turner breakfast from McDonald's. As the 74-year-old shaved in front of his bathroom mirror, Stanko shot him in the back, using a pillow as a silencer for his gun. He then hit Turner in the head and shot him again in the chest, this time fatally, according to court records.
Stanko stole Turner's truck and fled, driving from Conway to Columbia, then to Augusta, Georgia, the next day. There, he convinced a woman he was a businessman in town for the Masters golf tournament. Stanko spent several days staying in the woman's apartment and attending church with her.
After Stanko left April 12, the woman recognized Stanko's picture in the newspaper alongside a headline about Turner's death. She called the police, who captured Stanko while he was still in Augusta.
He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2006 for killing Ling and raping her daughter, then given another death sentence in 2009 for killing Turner. In both cases, Stanko's attorneys unsuccessfully claimed he was insane during the time of the killings, according to court records.
SC executes second death row inmate by firing squad
Stanko had been out of prison for nine months after serving over eight years for kidnapping and assaulting another woman, according to court records.
He was also under investigation for running several scams in and around Myrtle Beach, including representing himself as a lawyer and investigator. At the time of the crimes, people who had paid him had begun to demand their money back and were threatening to report him to the police, prosecutors wrote in court filings.
He is one of 26 inmates listed on death row in South Carolina, though one of them is held in California on a separate conviction.
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