South Carolina man Stephen Stanko died by lethal injection3. Stanko was convicted of killing his friend and girlfriend in April 2005, and also sexually assaulted his girlfriend's daughter.

A South Carolina man convicted of the brutal kidnapping and rape of a teenage girl nearly 20 years ago was put to death by lethal injection on Friday after a judge refused to halt the execution. Stephen Stanko,

A federal judge refused to halt the execution of Stephen Stanko, set for Friday, saying his lawyers provided no evidence that South Carolina’s lethal injection process causes unconstitutional pain.

After he killed his 43-year-old girlfriend, Stanko then drove 25 miles north the Conway home of one of her friends, a 74-year-old man named Henry Lee Turner, a retired Air Force master sergeant and a father of three. He fatally shot Turner, whose body was found about 24 hours later, and stole his truck.