Horry, Georgetown Co. death row inmate, Stephen Stanko, has been executed

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WMBF/AP) - Stephen Stanko, an Horry, Georgetown County death row inmate, has been executed, officials confirm.

Stanko chose to die by lethal injection.

The execution began after a 3 1/2 minute final statement where Stanko apologized to his victims and asked not to be judged by the worst day of his life. Prison officials asked for the first dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital.

Stanko appeared to be saying words, turned toward the families of the victims and then let out several quick breaths as his lips quivered.

Stanko appeared to stop breathing after a minute. A prison employee asked for a second dose of pentobarbital about 13 minutes later. He was announced dead about 28 minutes after the execution started.

Stanko was serving two death sentences for crimes he committed in April 2005 in Horry and Georgetown counties.

However, Stanko was specifically executed for the murder of 74-year-old Henry Turner in Conway because those state and federal appeals have all been exhausted.

However, he filed a federal lawsuit, alleging issues with South Carolina’s execution practices and asking for his execution to be paused for a review of those practices.

The lawsuit criticized the state’s most recent execution by firing squad, saying Stanko changed his mind about dying by bullets because of accounts about the firing squad death of Mikal Mahdi.

The most serious accusation in Stanko’s lawsuit is that in Mahdi’s execution, the autopsy report showed the bullets barely hit the bottom of his heart.

A federal judge in Charleston only heard arguments from Stanko’s lawyers Wednesday about lethal injection, since that’s what he chose.

The lawyers argued that inmates in the past three lethal injection executions died a lingering death, still conscious as they felt like they were drowning when fluid rushed into their lungs.

But state rules allow for a second dose 10 minutes after the first if any residual electrical impulses are detected in the heart, said Department of Corrections lawyer Daniel Plyler.

The judge ultimately told Stanko’s lawyers, “If all you’ve got is ‘one dose ought to be enough,’ I don’t see it,” and said he would not stop Stanko’s execution.

Stanko is the sixth person executed in South Carolina since September 2024, when the state began resuming executions after an over 10-year gap.

Also South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster refused clemency in a phone call to prison officials minutes before the execution began.

A governor has not spared a death row inmate’s life in the previous 48 executions since South Carolina reinstated the death penalty about 50 years ago.

THE CRIMES

On April 7, 2005, Stanko bound, beat and strangled his girlfriend Laura Ling to death while he beat and raped Ling’s daughter, who was a minor at the time, in their Murrells Inlet home.

Stanko also slit the daughter’s throat to try and kill her, but she survived.

Then, after Ling’s murder, Stanko drove to Conway on April 8 to the home of Turner, who considered Stanko a friend. When Stanko was there, he shot and killed Turner, stole his truck and drove away.

Authorities arrested Stanko several days later in Augusta, Ga.

He was convicted and sentenced to death in August 2006 for Ling’s death and her daughter’s rape and attempted murder in Georgetown County.

Then, in November 2009, he was convicted and sentenced to death in Horry County for murder and armed robbery in Turner’s death.

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