COLUMBIA, S.C. – A South Carolina man sent to death row twice for separate murders, including one with an Augusta connection, is scheduled to die Friday by lethal injection in the state’s sixth execution in nine months.
Stephen Stanko, 57, is being killed for shooting a friend and then cleaning out his bank account in Horry County in 2005. Hours earlier, Stanko killed his live-in girlfriend, strangling her as he raped her teenage daughter in the woman’s home in neighboring Georgetown County. He slit the teen’s throat but she survived. Stanko also ended up on death row for that crime.
Stanko spent the next few days in Augusta, where he told people in town for the Masters that he owned several Hooters restaurants. He stayed with a woman who took him to church. She called police once after seeing his photo and learning that he was wanted, police said…