South Carolina executes Stephen Stanko

South Carolina executes a man serving death sentences in 2 separate murders

Washington (AFP) – A South Carolina man convicted of a 2005 double murder was put to death by lethal injection on Friday, the fourth execution in the United States this week.

Stephen Stanko, 57, was pronounced dead at 6:34 pm (2234 GMT) at the state prison in Columbia, the South Carolina Department of Corrections said in a statement.

Stanko had a choice between his method of execution -- firing squad, electric chair or lethal injection.

He chose 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.

Witnesses could hear prison officials asking for the first dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital which was different from previous executions.

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. His ruddy complexion quickly disappeared and the color drained from his face and hands. 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.

Three family members of his victims stared at Stanko and didn’t look away until well after he stopped breathing. Stanko’s brother and his lawyer also watched. Attorney Lindsey Vann, who watched her second inmate client die in seven months rubbed rosary beads in her hands.

Stanko was convicted of the 2005 murders of his girlfriend, Laura Ling, 43, and Henry Turner, a 74-year-old friend.

He also raped Ling's teenage daughter and slit her throat but she survived and testified against him at trial.

In a final statement read by his attorney, Stanko said he was "truly sorry for the pain and loss that I caused.

"Sorry is never enough but that does not mean it should not be said."

Stanko talked about how he was an honor student and athlete and a volunteers and asked several times not to be judged by the night he killed two people.

“I have lived for approximately 20,973 days, but I am judged solely for one,” Stanko said in his final statement read by his lawyer.

Stanko apologized several times to his victims and their families.

“Once I am gone, I hope that Christina, Laura’s family and Henry’s family can all forgive me. The execution may help them. Forgiveness will heal them.”

Stanko ate his last meal on Wednesday as prison officials give inmates a chance to enjoy their special food before their execution day. He ate fried fish, fried shrimp, crab cakes, a baked potato, carrots, fried okra, cherry pie, banana pudding and sweet tea.

Stanko was the fourth Death Row inmate executed in the United States this week.

There have been 23 executions in the United States this year: 18 by lethal injection, two by firing squad and three by nitrogen hypoxia.

The federal courts rejected Stanko’s last-ditch effort to spare his life as his lawyers argued the state isn’t carrying out lethal injection properly after autopsy results found fluid in the lungs of other inmates killed that way.

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.

President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and called on his first day in office for an expansion of its use "for the vilest crimes."

John Hanson, 61, was executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on Thursday for carjacking and kidnapping Mary Bowles, 77, from a mall in the city of Tulsa and then shooting her to death along with a witness, Jerald Thurman.

Hanson had been serving a life sentence for bank robbery in a federal prison in the state of Louisiana but the Trump administration approved his transfer to Oklahoma so he could face the death penalty.

Anthony Wainwright, 54, convicted of the 1994 murder of Carmen Gayheart, 23, a nursing student and mother of two young children, was put to death by lethal injection in Florida on Tuesday.

Gregory Hunt, 65, convicted of the 1988 rape and murder of his girlfriend, Karen Lane, 32, was executed by nitrogen gas in Alabama that same day.

There have been 23 executions in the United States this year: 18 by lethal injection, two by firing squad and three by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.

The use of nitrogen gas as an execution method has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others -- California, Oregon and Pennsylvania -- have moratoriums in place.

Source: Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press, Staff, June 14, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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