South Carolina man convicted of murdering 2 people gets a June execution date
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man who was twice sentenced to die for killing two people nearly two decades ago was scheduled Friday to be executed on June 13.
The state Supreme Court issued the death warrant against Stephen Stanko for the Horry County shooting death of a friend. Stanko is also on death row for killing a woman he was living with in Georgetown County and raping her teenage daughter.
Stanko is the first person whose death has been scheduled in South Carolina since Mikal Mahdi was executed by firing squad on April 11. Mahdi’s lawyers released autopsy results that show the shots that killed him barely hit his heart and suggested he was in agonizing pain for three or four times longer than experts say he would have been if his heart had been hit directly.
Stanko will get to decide if he dies by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair. The deadline for his decision is May 30.
Inmate wants more information about how he may die
Hours after the date for his death was set, Stanko’s lawyers asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to require prison officials to release more information about the firing squad and lethal injection, saying he was leaning toward the firing squad until the possible problems with Mahdi’s execution surfaced.
They want any reports the prison agency produces to review executions after they are conducted, with the names of employees blacked out. They want a description of the training the firing squad conducts and the steps taken when an X-ray is done before the shooting to locate the heart.
Stanko’s lawyers also want to know if there were different members of the firing squad and target placement team for Mahdi than had those roles in another firing squad execution that appeared to go as planned. They want to know if the workers responsible for Mahdi’s death would be on Stanko’s execution team if he chooses the firing squad.
The attorneys also want prison officials to spell out why two doses of pentobarbital were used in the three lethal injection deaths this year and whether that is the new procedure or is the extra dose 10 minutes after the first is needed because the inmate continues to live.
The attorneys said they have advised Stanko to avoid the electric chair because there is evidence inmates don’t lose consciousness immediately and can suffer intense pain and agony.
The crimes
Stanko, 57, is being executed for killing his 74-year-old friend Henry Turner. Stanko went to Turner’s home in April 2006 after lying about his father dying and then shot Turner twice while using a pillow as a silencer, authorities said.
Stanko stole Turner’s truck, cleaned out his bank account and then spent the next few days in Augusta, Georgia, where he told people in town for the Masters golf tournament that he owned several Hooters restaurants. He stayed with a woman who took him to church. She then called police once she saw his photo and that he was wanted, police said.
Hours before killing Turner, Stanko beat and strangled his girlfriend in her home and raped her daughter before slashing the teen’s throat. The daughter survived and testified against him at one of his trials.
His own lawyer called him a ‘psychopath’
Stanko admitted to the killings. His defense said he had problems with the frontal lobe of his brain that left him aggressive, unable to control his impulses and without empathy. They argued that he was either not guilty by reason of insanity or that he at least shouldn’t get the death penalty because of his mental illness.
In his appeals, Stanko said his trial attorney ruined his chance at a fair trial and lost any sympathy with jurors by calling him a “psychopath.”
Firing squad problems
Mahdi’s lawyers raised several issues after his firing squad death — just the second ever in South Carolina.
The only photo of Mahdi taken at his autopsy shows two apparent chest wounds. Officials said all three bullets fired by the three volunteer prison employees hit Mahdi, with two going through the same hole.
During the state’s first firing squad death, the autopsy found that Brad Sigmon’s heart had been destroyed. Just one of the four chambers of Mahdi’s heart was perforated, which likely meant he didn’t die in the 15 seconds experts predicted he would have if the squad’s aim was true, according to his lawyers.
Witnesses said Mahdi, who had a hood over his head, groaned 45 seconds after he was shot.
South Carolina’s busy death chamber
Stanko will be the sixth inmate killed in South Carolina since an unintended 13-year pause on executions ended in September 2024.
The state struggled for years to get the drugs needed for lethal injections until it passed a shield law that allowed the execution procedures, and the names of the drug supplier and execution team members, to remain secret.
Three South Carolina inmates have died by lethal injection over the past eight months, while two have chosen the firing squad.
Across the U.S., 16 executions have taken place in 2025, with at least six more scheduled before Stanko is set to die.
By JEFFREY COLLINS
Associated Press
