South Carolina executes a murderer sent to death row twice

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man sent to death row twice for separate murders was put to death Friday by lethal injection in the state’s sixth execution in nine months.

Stephen Stanko, 57, was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m.

He was executed for shooting a friend and then cleaning out his bank account in Horry County in 2005.

Stanko also was serving a death sentence for killing his live-in girlfriend in her Georgetown County home hours earlier, strangling her as he raped her teenage daughter. Stanko slit the teen’s throat, but she survived.

The execution began after a 3½-minute final statement in which 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 pentobarbital, which was different from previous executions.

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

He 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. Stanko was pronounced 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 considering dying by South Carolina’s new firing squad, as two inmates before him were executed. But after autopsy results from the last inmate killed by that method showed the bullets from the three volunteers nearly missed his heart, Stanko chose lethal injection.

Stanko was the last of four executions scheduled around the country this week. Florida and Alabama each put an inmate to death Tuesday. On Wednesday, Oklahoma executed a man transferred from federal to state custody to allow his death.

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.

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.

Stanko is the sixth inmate executed in South Carolina in nine months after the state went 13 years without putting an inmate to death because it could not obtain lethal injection drugs. The South Carolina General Assembly approved a firing squad and passed a shield law bill, which allowed the suppliers of the drugs to stay secret.

In his final statement, Stanko talked about how he was an honor student, athlete and a volunteer and asked several times not to be judged by the night he killed two people.

“I have lived 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 do so before their execution day. He ate fried fish, fried shrimp, crab cakes, baked potato, carrots, fried okra, cherry pie, banana pudding and sweet tea.

Collins writes for the Associated Press.