Stephen Stanko is a convicted

Conviction

In law, a conviction is the verdict that results when a court of law finds a defendant guilty of a crime.The opposite of a conviction is an acquittal . In Scotland and in the Netherlands, there can also be a verdict of "not proven", which counts as an acquittal...

 murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

er, who killed two people and rape

Rape

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

d a teenage girl in Murrels Inlet, a small town near Georgetown County, South Carolina, in 2005.

Prior to the murders

Prior to his murder conviction, Stanko had been incarcerated for Assault & kidnapping

Kidnapping

In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...

 in 1996. Stanko was released from prison in 2004 after serving 8 years of the 10-year sentence. While in prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

, he co-authored a book titled "Living in Prison: A History of the Correctional System With an Insider's View".

Stephen Stanko has been described as "a highly intelligent, polished ex-convict who didn't mind talking about his life in prison or the book he'd written about it." The book is about prison life and Stanko's fear of being labeled "a convicted felon" after his release. Stanko wrote: "What I fear most now is that I may carry some of this total institution

Total institution

A total institution is place of work and residence where a great number of similarly situated people, cut off from the wider community for a considerable time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life...

 back into society with me."

The murders

About one year after being released from prison, Stephen began doing library research, supposedly for a second book. While doing this research he befriended Laura Ling, and eventually moved in with her as her boyfriend. He also had developed a seemingly friendly relationship with library patron, Henry Turner.

Shortly thereafter, however, something went terribly wrong with both of these relationships. Stanko was convicted, after a failed insanity

Insanity

Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...

 defense

Defense (legal)

In civil proceedings and criminal prosecutions under the common law, a defendant may raise a defense in an attempt to avoid criminal or civil liability...

, of strangling Laura Ling, 43, the librarian

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

 who lived with him outside Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Myrtle Beach is a coastal city on the east coast of the United States in Horry County, South Carolina. It is situated on the center of a large and continuous stretch of beach known as the Grand Strand in northeastern South Carolina. It is considered to be a major tourist destination in the...

, shooting Henry Lee Turner, 74, and sexually assaulting and stabbing Ling's teenage daughter, who survived and made the 911 call for help. Following the conviction, he was sentenced to death

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

.

Articles on Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender. Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1987 and 1991. His murders involved rape, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism...

, Green River killer Gary Ridgway

Gary Ridgway

Gary Leon Ridgway is an American serial killer known as the Green River Killer. He murdered numerous women in Washington during the 1980s and 1990s, earning his nickname when the first five victims were found in the Green River. He strangled them, usually with his arm but sometimes using ligatures...

 and other serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

s were found in Stanko's home. According to a police spokesperson: "He either was just interested in serial killers or he was becoming a serial killer."

After a nationwide manhunt

Manhunt (law enforcement)

In law enforcement, a manhunt is a search for a dangerous fugitive involving the use of all available police units and technology and sometimes help from the public....

, based on tips received after the posting of a $10,000 reward for information leading to his capture, Stanko was arrest

Arrest

An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...

ed without incident by the U.S. Marshals Service in Augusta, Georgia

Augusta, Georgia

Augusta is a consolidated city in the U.S. state of Georgia, located along the Savannah River. As of the 2010 census, the Augusta–Richmond County population was 195,844 not counting the unconsolidated cities of Hephzibah and Blythe.Augusta is the principal city of the Augusta-Richmond County...

 on April 12, 2005.

Awaiting execution

Stephen Stanko is currently on Death row

Death row

Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...

 at Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, South Carolina

Ridgeville, South Carolina

Ridgeville is a town in Dorchester County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 1,690 at the 2000 census. As defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and used by the U.S...

. A date of execution had been set for October, 2007, but is currently stayed for appeals. If the execution does take place, he will have a choice of the Electric chair

Electric chair

Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...

 or Lethal injection

Lethal injection

Lethal injection is the practice of injecting a person with a fatal dose of drugs for the express purpose of causing the immediate death of the subject. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but the term may also be applied in a broad sense to euthanasia and suicide...

. He is the first person to be sentenced to death in Georgetown County in nearly 11 years.

The first phase of Stanko's appeals process began on 23 September 2007, when he appeared before the S.C. Supreme Court in a bid to overturn his death penalty conviction. His attorney said that errors in the original trial resulted in his conviction, in that the trial judge did not allow the defense to ask potential jurors how they felt about the insanity defense and did not allow the defense to present Stanko's age/mentality as aggravating or "mitigating" factors.

Court officials said that Stanko will not be put to death on his set execution date Oct. 17, 2007, because the appeals process takes years to complete. Stanko faces another trial for the murder of 74-year-old Henry Turner, which is set to begin in the week of November 9, 2009.

Stephen Stanko is charged with forgery and obtaining goods through false pretense,
in the case of Connie Price.
Stanko was pretending to be Ms. Price's attorney.
Ms. Price testified at Stanko's first murder trial.