Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle

by Michael Benson

  “It was ironclad as to Mr. Stanko’s guilt. Their theory was rejected,” Hembree said. Simple as that.

  Hembree didn’t want to talk about the speed of the jury’s deliberations, however. He wanted the public to know, instead, about the relief Turner’s family felt over the guilty verdict. That was the whole reason they were there, why this trial happened, why it wasn’t redundant—the way some critics had said. This trial happened to give the family of Henry Lee Turner closure, and that had happened. Mission accomplished.

  “You could see relief in their faces,” Hembree said. “They want Stephen Stanko held accountable for the killing of their dad and family member.”

  Turner’s sons, who witnessed the entire trial, gave reporters “the hand.” There was still important business ahead and they would reserve comment.

  Tuesday was a day off for the jury, the twenty-four-hour cooling-off period between the guilt and penalty phases of the trial.

  Even though Stephen Stanko had chosen not to testify during the guilt phase, he still could—if he chose—testify during the penalty phase. He couldn’t really plead for his life, because there was already a cell reserved for him on death row, but, in theory, the jury didn’t know that.

  WEDNESDAY

  For the penalty phase of the trial, proceedings started a few minutes late that Wednesday because William Diggs was late in arrival.

  Judge Steven John asked Diggs’s co-counsel Brana Williams, “Didn’t he understand that court started at eight-thirty?”

  “According to my paralegal, he left the office at eight o’clock,” Williams replied.

  It was after nine o’clock before Diggs came in, apologizing profusely. But Judge John was not in a forgiving mood: “Why were you late?”

  “Traffic, Your Honor.”

  Judge John said he would deal with his tardiness when the trial was over. He needed everyone there at eight-thirty so motions could be discussed before the jury was brought in.

  Unfortunately for Diggs, he was already in the judge’s doghouse by the time he made his first motion: all evidence regarding Laura Ling’s murder be excluded from the prosecution’s case.

  “Denied.”

  The murder of Laura Ling wasn’t relevant when it came to deciding whether or not Stephen Stanko was guilty of Henry Lee Turner’s murder. But when it came to life in prison or the death penalty, the events in Murrells Inlet were very relevant indeed.

  The jury entered, and Judge John told them it was as if the trial was starting over. Both sides would give opening statements, each side would call witnesses, and both would give closing arguments.

  The jury was to determine only one thing: should the convicted killer and rapist be executed. A unanimous vote was necessary, just as it had been during the guilt phase of the trial. If it wasn’t unanimous, the verdict must be for life in prison without a chance of parole.

  Fran Humphries delivered the prosecution’s opening statement, apologizing to the jury up front for some of the things they were going to have to hear. “In this phase, we will be presenting evidence of the defendant’s previous bad acts,” Humphries said. Those acts, he warned, were offensive to a civilized mind. Stephen Stanko was not just a guy who exploded and committed all of his major crimes on the same day. His behavior had been potentially deadly for many years.

  The jury was there to examine the “conduct and character of Stephen Stanko.” The things jurors had already heard “didn’t touch” the things they were about to hear. “It will be difficult and trying,” Humphries said. “You will want to close your eyes and close your ears.”

  Brana Williams gave the defense’s opening statement. She said that for once she agreed with the prosecution.

  The jury was indeed going to hear things that would bring “tears to their eyes.” They would hear things that “indeed, were shocking. I also think you are going to hear things that will make you say, ‘I just don’t understand. It just doesn’t make sense.’” She reminded them, however, that there might be a big voice inside, or maybe even a small voice, saying that this man should not be put to death. She beseeched the twelve men and women to listen to that voice.

  The prosecution’s first witness was Elizabeth McLendon Buckner, whose job it was to tell the story of Stephen Stanko and the chemical-soaked cloth, one more time. She’d testified at the first trial, had an awful experience, and was back again—feeling sad. When she learned they wanted her to testify again, her first thought was “Uhoh, not again.” There was still a part of her that wanted Stephen to be saved. She wanted him to snap out of the evil trance he was in and become a nice guy again. But it wasn’t going to happen. He could not be saved. She remembered how emotionally exhausting the first trial had been. But then she thought about the Turner family. They deserved justice. They had been so supportive of Liz during the first trial, and they needed closure and a process just as much as Laura Ling’s loved ones had. The Turners had been so comforting when she needed it most, and she could not let them down. So she took a deep breath and did it.

  Questioned by Fran Humphries, Liz testified for about a half hour, and several times had to wipe the tears away as she spoke. During the first trial, Liz had been somewhat rudely cross-examined by Diggs’s second chair. This time, the cross was conducted by William Diggs himself.

  The questioning was less ambitious than it had been at the Ling trial, and Diggs couldn’t have been nicer, recognizing that Liz’s victim status made her a sympathetic character to the jury.

  Liz found the second trial to be a smaller, quicker, quieter version of the first. Although many of the witnesses were the same, their time on the stand was shorter. There were fewer spectators, and there was far less media. The first trial was just larger in general, covered exhaustively by a major TV network. There had been a murder, a rape, and a list of fraud charges that had to be proven. The second trial had one shooting, a stolen truck, flight—and that was about it.

  Kelly Crolley then testified how she had been taken for $125 by Stephen Stanko, who claimed to be collecting for a children’s cancer charity. Crolley later said testifying was no fun, but it was her duty. She wasn’t completely sure how she felt about the death penalty, but she certainly had no problem in telling the truth.

  There was a series of witnesses—all women—who each testified briefly to more or less the same thing: They met Stanko; he had told them he was a lawyer and offered various legal services for a fee. They’d paid the fee, the services were never rendered, and Stanko disappeared. If you put all of these witnesses together, they testified to Stanko scamming thousands of dollars.

  The solicitor might have wanted Penny Ling to appear on the stand at the second trial, but it wasn’t going to happen. Penny was done. She’d already told the story of losing her mother and being raped—once in court—and that was enough. It was horrific and she no longer cared to revisit it. She didn’t want to be the victim anymore. She wanted to get on with the rest of her life. So Penny’s dad, Chris Ling, provided the jury with the information the jury needed regarding what the defendant had done to his daughter.

  The tough part for the jury came next. The prosecution played a recording of the 911 call Penny Ling had made after the Murrells Inlet attack.

  As the tape began, Chris Ling, Penny’s dad, got up and moved toward the exit.

  “I just can’t listen to it again,” he said, as if an explanation were necessary.

  And so the jury heard the little girl telling the dispatcher that she’d been raped and her mother was dead.

  It was four-thirty on Wednesday afternoon when the prosecution called their final witness of the day, Henry Lee Turner’s girlfriend, Cecilia Kotsipias. She told the jury that Turner called her his “brown-eyed lady.” Whenever they were someplace where there was a deejay, Henry would get him to play “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison for Cecilia.

  “How did you meet?”

  They met in Myrtle Beach, and on their first date, they “danced and danced and da
nced.” Theirs was a long-distance relationship. She lived in Charlotte, but they saw each other as often as they could, and the relationship had been going on for years. They liked to go fishing together. He was a military veteran, she testified, and he had a couple of pairs of red, white, and blue pants he liked to wear. She said that when she met him, he was like the Grinch and had never enjoyed decorating a Christmas tree. After he helped her decorate hers one year, he learned to love it. They talked on the phone all the time. Three or four times a day. He wanted to get married, but she didn’t.

  Then came that day. It started at four o’clock in the morning when Turner called her and told her that he had Stanko in his house. “He told me Stephen’s father had just died and he said he was going to take him in.”

  Turner ended that phone conversation by saying, “I love you, Brown Eyes.” Those were the last words she ever heard him say. “We had a great life. Stephen Stanko ruined our lives. We should still be fishing and singing.” When Charlotte police came to her door and told her Turner had been found murdered, the first words out of her mouth had been “Stephen Stanko.”

  At five minutes past five in the afternoon, the prosecution rested its case. Judge Steven John adjourned court for the day.

  THURSDAY

  On Thursday morning, November 19, 2009, Brana Williams presented nine pro-life witnesses, the first of which was Dr. James Thrasher. His testimony was concise. He’d examined Stephen Stanko in 2006 and found that he lacked the requisite capacity “as to moral right and wrong.” He characterized Stanko’s mental capacity at the time of his violent spree as “impaired.”

  One of Stanko’s middle-school teachers, Barbara Boland, testified both about the Stanko she knew as a student, and, in her current capacity as Christian counselor, about the kind and gentle Stanko she spoke to in prison. She’d visited him in prison several times, most recently in 2008. Since his spree of violence, she felt, he’d experienced a spiritual reawakening, a rebirth.

  “I can assure you that he is very remorseful for what he did,” Boland said. “I believe he has turned his life around.”

  She added that she didn’t think he had “jailhouse religion.” She felt that he was legitimate, that he had actually “been saved.”

  From the witness stand, Frank Shealy identified himself as a chaplain at Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville. Shealy was asked about Stephen Stanko’s social behavior while incarcerated. The chaplain testified that Stanko always had a positive effect on the prison community he was in: “He is an exceptional inmate in the death row population. He steps into issues. When trouble starts brewing, he calms it down. He works as a peacemaker.” Stanko could be a buffer between inmates and the prison administration. He was an intelligent negotiator who had a calming effect. “He is the leader on death row,” Shealy said. Any prison population would be worse off without him.

  Clarice Wenz, Wanda Brooks, and John H. Fulmer, from Goose Creek High, repeated their testimony that Stanko—once upon a time, a long time ago—was a “most likely to succeed” prospect.

  At about quarter past eleven on Thursday morning, the defense called its final penalty phase witness: Dr. Evelyn Califf, a Myrtle Beach counselor, who at the request of the defense had done a study of Stephen Stanko’s life by examining all of the family photos she could locate and by interviewing all of Stephen’s relatives who were willing to cooperate.

  “Did you base your report on any other sources?” Brana Williams asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Califf replied, “I also used conversations I had with Mr. Stanko, doctors’ reports I read, newspaper articles that had been written about him, and e-mails he’d received from one of his sisters.”

  “There were family members who did not cooperate?” Williams asked.

  “Yes, his father and his sister Cynthia,” the witness replied.

  Dr. Califf shared with the jury some of the photos from Stanko’s life. She pointed out how often the camera found him smiling when he was a young boy.

  “But, by the time he was in high school, the smile disappeared,” she commented. “By that time, his home life offered no safe haven. It was a home in which he could never feel safe.”

  THE PERFORMANCE

  Judge Steven John asked Stephen Stanko if he planned to make a statement to the jury.

  “I do, Your Honor,” Stanko said.

  “In that case, I must remind you that you must stick to subjects that have been covered during this portion of the trial. You were given a chance to testify during the guilt phase of the trial, and you turned it down. You may not say things now that you wished you had said then, because now the prosecution will not have an opportunity to cross-examine you. Is that understood?”

  Stanko said he understood.

  The judge called for the closing arguments. Gregory Hembree reminded the jury that they swore under oath that they could impose the death penalty, given the right evidence and the correct circumstances.

  “This is the evidence, and these are the circumstances,” Hembree said. The defense theory, he opined, could easily be shrunk down to a nutshell. “They say because I do bad things, I have a personality disorder and I am crazy, therefore I don’t have to suffer the consequences for the things I do. Under that logic, no one should ever be held accountable. That’s a great strategy for someone accused of murder,” Hembree said. “I have another way of looking at Stanko’s actions—He is just plain evil. He has something inside that makes him evil. Helikes it and is very, very, very good at hiding it. When a person’s conduct is so evil and brutal that person gives up the right to remain among us. This is that conduct.”

  Hembree warned the jury that they would be hearing from Stanko himself very soon, and he was a very good actor. “This will be the performance of his long, horrible career,” Hembree said.

  Stephen Stanko delivered that great performance. Nervously fidgeting behind the podium, voice soft yet tremulous, he began by apologizing to the Turner family.

  “I don’t know if it will do any good,” he said. “I am sorry. I am. I hope someday they will accept it. I had to say that I did it, and I’m sorry you got put through it. I’m sorry to Rodney and Roger and Cecilia for what I put you through.”

  Stanko snuck a peek at the jury, to see how he was doing. Unfortunately, as far as he was concerned, the panel looked very much as they had before convicting him of murder.

  There may have been a twenty-four-hour cooling-off period, but they were not cool.

  Eyes again lowered, Stanko spoke of his victim. “Henry and I were friends. We were friends, and much more. We used to ride motorcycles together, and we played pool quite often. At a time when my dad and I were at terrible odds, he was there. He treated me like a son.”

  The speech started well, but it lost focus and eventually rambled. He tried to pick apart Gregory Hembree’s case, but his points were sometimes dulled by his asides and rhetorical tangents. He skipped from a long discussion about the evolution of cell phones to his own family to the movie Minority Report, a Tom Cruise sci-fi picture, based on a Philip K. Dick short story, which depicted a world in which murders are prevented through the effects of a trio of mutants who can see the future.

  Some might have noticed that his family was absent and that was okay by him. He didn’t want his family there, or Turner’s family there. He didn’t want to hurt anyone else.

  Then he got to the crux.

  “To kill me would be to cheat science out of an opportunity,” he said. Scientists were on his side. Why spoil an opportunity to study his brain and perhaps learn how to treat future people with frontal-lobe problem/difficulties?

  Stanko figured his best defense was a good offense; so he matter-of-factly cast wild aspersions in the solicitor’s direction. “Hembree has a four-and-a-half-inch knife right now. Talk about breaking the rules. And he has walked by me twenty-five or thirty times,” Stanko said. Referring to the guilty verdict, he added, “You made a decision already and I think that is great. But yo
u can’t put me in an aggravating circumstance and say he is a lying, deceiving son of a gun and do the same thing.”

  He reminded them that his life was on the line, a statement that might’ve irritated some jurors. Did he think they were idiots? He begged the jury to give credence to the testimony of defense experts talking about his brain and his faulty frontal lobes and whatnot. They were sincere. “They were being honest about it,” Stanko emphasized.

  There was more fuzzy “insulting to the intelligence” logic. Two wrongs don’t make a right, he argued. If they sentenced him to death, weren’t they doing the same thing they thought he did?

  He’d heard it said—so he knew the jury was aware—that he already had a cell on death row, ready and waiting for him. That was a bad, bad hotel. Room service sucked. You could check in, but . . .

  It wasn’t funny.

  “You have an opportunity to change that,” he said. It wasn’t like he was asking to be set free. He knew that he would never walk among them again. “I am not going to get out of prison,” Stanko reminded them. “My best-case scenario is life in prison.”

  He admitted that he had been criticized for pleading not guilty at this trial, that he was wasting everyone’s time by again seeking justice for himself. He claimed to have done so with good reason.

  “I didn’t accept a plea because there would have been no opportunity to show the evidence again,” he said. “There would be no opportunity to let twelve people look and change the world.”