South Carolina executes man who was serving death sentences in two murders

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Stephen Stanko, 57, was executed by lethal injection in South Carolina, marking the state’s sixth execution in nine months. He was sentenced to death for the 2005 murder of a friend and was also convicted of killing his live-in girlfriend, with the execution proceeding despite his lawyers’ last-minute appeals and a refusal of clemency by Governor Henry McMaster.

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