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From conman to 'psychopath': Stephen Stanko's murderous path brings him to death chamber
By all accounts, Stephen Stanko is a smooth talker.
At 6 feet, 3 inches tall, with a shock of dark hair, Stanko was a striking man in his mid-30s. He would brag about being rich, buy drinks for everyone in the bar and hand his phone number out to women.
But those who saw through Stanko knew he was no Prince Charming, but a smalltime con artist.
Stanko's various lies included, according to archived news accounts: that he was a millionaire, he owned multiple hamburger restaurants, he had an engineering degree from a prestigious university, and he made bigtime deals in oil and real estate.
"He has a need for grandiosity," one forensic psychologist observed on the witness stand, according to a 2006 report in the Myrtle Beach Sun-News. Another one simply said: "Mr. Stanko is a psychopath."
On April 8, 2005, Stanko became something even worse: a rapist and a double murderer.
Now 20 years later, Stanko is set to be executed by lethal injection in South Carolina on Friday, June 13, in what will be the nation's 23rd execution of the year and the fourth this week alone.
Here's what you need to know about the rape and two murders that Stanko was convicted of and more about him and his victims.
When is Stephen Stanko's execution?
Stanko is set to be executed at 6 p.m. ET at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. If it moves forward, it will be the third execution in South Carolina this year.
What did Stephen Stanko do?
In the middle of the night on April 8, 2005, Stanko attacked his girlfriend's 15-year-old daughter as she slept in her bed at home in Murrells Inlet, an unincorporated seaside community just south of Myrtle Beach.
The girl later sobbed and clutched a white teddy bear as she testified about the hours-long attack, according to coverage by the Sun-News. At some point, worried about her mother, the girl broke free and found her lying on the floor in another room.
The girl testified that Stanko then hit her over the head and she blacked out. When she woke, he raped her again and then pinned her body to the bed with his knee while he strangled her mother in front of her.
"I said, 'Please God, take me and not her,'" the girl testified as people in the courtroom cried, the Sun-News reported. "I fought hard but she stopped making noises, and that was it."
After he killed his 43-year-old girlfriend, Stanko then drove 25 miles north the Conway home of one of her friends, a 74-year-old man named Henry Lee Turner, a retired Air Force master sergeant and a father of three. He fatally shot Turner, whose body was found about 24 hours later, and stole his truck.
Stanko fled the scene, setting off a nationwide manhunt that made national headlines. Four days after the murders, federal authorities tracked Stanko down about 200 miles west to Augusta, where he was hobnobbing with Masters golf fans, introducing himself as "Stephen Christopher" and lying about his wealth. Stanko had also already wooed a woman, moved in with her and had even gone to church with her on the Sunday before he was captured, authorities said at the time.
"She said he was the nicest, most courteous young man," the woman's grandmother told Knight Ridder at the time. "You would never know he was a fraud."
Stanko's trial attorneys argued that he was insane at the time of the murders, and his current lawyers say his life should be spared because the execution methods in South Carolina amount to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution, an argument refuted by state officials and rejected by courts.
USA TODAY has reached out to Stanko's current attorneys for comment for this story.
Some saw through Stephen Stanko before murders
Although Stanko was adept at charming some, others didn't buy his act.
"He was smooth and he was slick," John Gaumer, a colleague of Stanko's girlfriend, told the Sun-News. "It's a puzzle to everyone I know what it was that he had − that he was able to exercise so much control over her was a mystery.'
Her ex-husband told the paper that he met Stanko at her home.
"I didn't like him. He knew that I knew what he was,' he said. 'When we looked at each other, I just could sense that there wasn't something right here. But at the same time, you are being told that he is OK, and you want to believe that."
He said that Stanko had admitted to having a criminal past, likely as part of a plan to gain her trust.
"The snowing ... obviously it drew her in,' he said. 'It was all part of the barrage, the seduction."
The father of the woman Stanko wooed the weekend he spent as a fugitive told Knight Ridder that Stanko 'presented himself as a well-to-do businessman' who was 'well dressed and well-mannered.'
He added: 'He was a quite well-read, smooth-operating individual.'
As a local county sheriff put it, according to the Sun-News: "He's just a mean guy and a con artist."
Stephen Stanko had criminal past, helped write a book from prison
It's unclear just how much of his criminal past Stanko shared with his girlfriend. He had served more than eight years in prison for kidnapping and trying to kill another girlfriend in 1996.
He had been living with the woman in Goose Creek for six months when they got into an argument about his involvement in theft and fraud, and she told him he had to move out, according to police reports obtained by Knight Ridder in 2005.
The next morning, they fought again, and Stanko soaked a washcloth with bleach, put it over her mouth, and tied up her wrists and ankles before he left. The woman, who told police that Stanko had tried to suffocate her, was able to break free and get help, Knight Ridder reported.
Stanko pleaded guilty to charges of assault and battery with intent to kill and kidnapping, and was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, according to online court records reviewed by USA TODAY.
During Stanko's time in prison, he became an author and co-wrote a book called "Living in Prison: A History of the Correctional System with an Insider's View." On Amazon, the book is described as "a rigorous exploration of our correctional system" from Stanko's perspective "on the harsh realities of prison life."
Who were Stephen Stanko's victims?
USA TODAY was unable to reach family members of either of Stanko's murder victims for this story.
Archived news reports about who they were are limited, but both Stanko's girlfriend and Henry Lee Turner were described as trusting and caring people.
Her ex-husband told the Sun-News that the mother of three had a great sense of humor. "She was a vivacious, intelligent, compassionate woman who was a very good mother," he told the newspaper.
Turner's daughter, Debbie Turner Gallogly, told the Sun-News that her dad he met Stanko when he and his girlfriend went to his house to help him with computer problems.
"He's a very trusting person, a very welcoming person," she said. "He loved inviting people into his home for meals."
She told the outlet that she had learned a lot of life lessons from her father.
"Fortunately I have those to treasure," she said. "He was very much a man who was himself ... He was just what you saw."
