The Mind of a Murderer

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Speaker 2 911, was your emergency?

Speaker 2 Can I help you?

Speaker 2 Pardon me?

Speaker 3 At my house, I've been late.

Speaker 3 Okay, what's your attitude? My mom is dead. Pardon? My mom is dead.

Speaker 2 This was not a normal crime scene. This was not a normal case.

Speaker 3 Oh, God, this is supposed to happen to me?

Speaker 2 My name is William Pierce. I'm a lieutenant in charge of criminal investigations at the Georgetown County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 3 How old are you? 15.

Speaker 2 The mother, she was savagely beaten.

Speaker 2 She was bound.

Speaker 3 I tried to move a fight. I tried.
I really did.

Speaker 2 The daughter was

Speaker 2 raped and her throat was cut twice. She was left for dead.
There was blood spatter.

Speaker 3 There's blood everywhere. Did he eat you or something? Oh, God, yes.

Speaker 2 It was the most brutal crime scene that I've been to in my 15 years.

Speaker 3 Did you see her, did it? Yeah.

Speaker 3 My lost boyfriend.

Speaker 3 What's his name? Stephen Stanko.

Speaker 5 I know that I'm not a person to hurt anybody.

Speaker 6 I never would have hurt anybody on purpose.

Speaker 5 Never.

Speaker 4 Stephen Stanko is highly intelligent. He has an IQ recently tested at 143.

Speaker 2 He looks like the guy next door. You know, he could be your next door neighbor.
He could be your college professor. He could be anything he wanted to be.

Speaker 4 He's smart. He's manipulative.
He's beguiling.

Speaker 7 He's dangerous.

Speaker 8 Stephen Stanko's brain function was highly unusual. He had areas of the brain that were not as active compared to other parts of the brain.

Speaker 9 Based on his brain structure, he operates right on the edge of insanity all of the time.

Speaker 8 We can see, particularly right here, he's less functional as compared to a normal brain.

Speaker 11 It's science.

Speaker 5 That's the one thing that I have on my side.

Speaker 4 Just because your ability to control your impulses is less than mine,

Speaker 4 that's no defense.

Speaker 2 He's a smooth talker. He's a smart man.
I mean, basically, Steven Stanko is a con artist.

Speaker 12 You are mentally ill?

Speaker 11 yes, sir.

Speaker 12 Are you insane?

Speaker 12 Oh, God, please, hurry.

Speaker 12 Help me,

Speaker 12 help me,

Speaker 12 help me.

Speaker 7 Murder on his mind: 48 hours mystery.

Speaker 4 I now call the case of the state of South Carolina versus Stephen C. Stanko.
Count one, murder. Count two, assault and battery with intent.
Count three, criminal sexual conduct.

Speaker 4 Four, first kidnapping. Count five, kidnapping.
Count six, armed robbery.

Speaker 13 It is the summer of 2006 in what is known as Low Country, South Carolina, just north of Charleston.

Speaker 13 For a change, it's not the heat everyone is talking about.

Speaker 15 There are 120 witnesses in this case. It's expected to continue for the next two weeks.

Speaker 13 It's the havoc one man wreaked on this small coastal community.

Speaker 16 I believe even crazed rabid animals have to be put down. I don't see where there's any difference in this case.

Speaker 17 A person who is convicted of or pleads guilty to murder must be punished by death or by imprisonment for life.

Speaker 13 This is the county's first death penalty case in nearly a decade.

Speaker 13 On trial is Stephen Stanko, who stands accused of committing some of the most heinous and brutal crimes in Georgetown in recent memory.

Speaker 5 I never in the world meant to hurt anybody. I mean, it is like there's two of me.

Speaker 6 I never would have hurt anybody on purpose.

Speaker 5 Never.

Speaker 4 I can say this. Stephen Stanko is a remarkable liar.

Speaker 17 Question, Mr. Solicitor.
you may proceed.

Speaker 4 Thank you, Your Honor May.

Speaker 13 Please take a look at them. County Prosecutor, Greg Hembry.

Speaker 4 He is a cold-blooded killer. He has no remorse.
He doesn't care about anybody but Steven Stanko.

Speaker 13 It's hard to believe that Hembry is talking about this same highly intelligent, seemingly polite 38-year-old.

Speaker 12 You excelled in school.

Speaker 5 Yes, sir.

Speaker 12 In the yearbook, you were described as the all-American boy.

Speaker 18 Yes, sir.

Speaker 13 You were the golden boy.

Speaker 5 Something like that. Yes, sir.

Speaker 5 There wasn't too much I couldn't do.

Speaker 13 Friends say it was that quiet confidence and intelligence that first attracted 43-year-old Laura Ling to Stephen Stanko when they met in the fall of 2004.

Speaker 19 I hadn't seen her that happy in years, and it felt good to see her happy.

Speaker 13 Victoria Loy is Laura Ling's sister.

Speaker 19 And he seemed just so pleasant and solicitous and just attentive to her and just so normal.

Speaker 13 They knew each other just two months before Stanko moved in with Laura and her teenage daughter. And from all accounts, everyone got along.

Speaker 5 My life with Laura was unconditional. I loved her.
She loved me. We never judged each other.

Speaker 13 But then came the early morning hours of April 8th, 2005. He went everywhere.
I think he cut me down my neck. When Stephen Stanko simply snapped.
Did you ever think he would do something like that?

Speaker 13 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 This is just not something that decent people do.

Speaker 13 As the lead investigator on the scene, Lieutenant Bill Pierce arrived at the Ling home and learned the grisly details.

Speaker 2 Sometime after midnight, there was an altercation between Laura Ling, her living-in boyfriend, Stephen Stanko.

Speaker 5 She slapped at me and I had a cigarette. And the cigarette lodged in between my glasses and burned me.
And that was the last thing I remember.

Speaker 2 Steven Stanko at some point bound Laura Ling's hands behind her back and beat her. And I'm assuming after Stanko incapacitated Laura Ling, he turned his focus on the daughter.

Speaker 2 She was asleep in her bed.

Speaker 13 Laura's daughter was the prosecution's key witness. We have agreed not to name her or show what she looks like today.

Speaker 23 I was so confused.

Speaker 24 I didn't know what he was doing, if this was like a drill or what was he doing in my room.

Speaker 13 Although the teenager kept her composure, no one was quite prepared for her testimony, especially her father, Chris Slang.

Speaker 26 She's an incredible young lady. I mean, she's my hero.

Speaker 23 He told me, scream, and I will kill you both. I wanted to get my mom and tell her that we need to get out of here.

Speaker 25 When I first looked into my mom's room, I saw her lying on the floor and I heard her moaning and kicking.

Speaker 24 She was incoherent. It was like she was trying trying to say something or do something, but she couldn't.

Speaker 24 And the next thing I know, I think I was hit over the head with something and I blacked out.

Speaker 13 When she regained consciousness, Stanko was on top of her.

Speaker 25 And I fought him.

Speaker 3 I kicked. I kicked.

Speaker 24 He was so strong.

Speaker 25 He was so strong.

Speaker 24 He then proceeded to rape me.

Speaker 24 And this entire time, my mom was still alive.

Speaker 25 I mean, I could tell because she was moaning. There was nothing I could do.

Speaker 4 At some point, he turns her over on her stomach, puts his left knee on her back, reaches over, and chokes Laura Ling to death.

Speaker 27 The next thing I remember is he was behind me, and he held my head up while he slit my throat.

Speaker 3 Twice.

Speaker 13 After the attacks, Stanko took a shower, where he claims he regained his memory.

Speaker 5 I was in the shower.

Speaker 3 Some blood on my hand.

Speaker 12 And when you looked in the bedroom, what did you say?

Speaker 5 When I came to, I put a...

Speaker 3 I put a towel on and

Speaker 5 I walked in our bedroom and felt for a pulse on both of them.

Speaker 5 And there was no pulse.

Speaker 5 what did you do i ended up packing and leaving

Speaker 13 i really wanted to kill myself that's stanko's story now but at the time he stole laura's car went to the atm machine and emptied her bank account

Speaker 13 he then drove to nearby conway south carolina where his friend and business associate 74-year-old Henry Turner lived.

Speaker 4 Wakes Henry Turner up and tells him that his father's dying. You know, he just wants wants to come in and just wants to talk.

Speaker 13 Turner consoles Stanko and gave him something to eat.

Speaker 12 And what happened after they ate breakfast?

Speaker 4 It's our belief that Stanko came up behind him and fired one shot into the back of Henry Turner. Turner then spun around and Stanko fired another shot into the chest of Henry Turner.

Speaker 13 By this time, a nationwide manhunt was underway.

Speaker 2 We wanted Steven Stanko captured in the worst way.

Speaker 3 They were talking about canceling school.

Speaker 22 People were scared.

Speaker 4 We were asking people to just kind of heighten their threat level and be aware that this individual is out there. He's on the loose.
Keep your doors locked.

Speaker 13 Stanko was now armed with a gun and more money, both of which he stole from Henry Turner. To further elude authorities, he ditched Laura's car and took Henry's truck.

Speaker 13 Most fugitives at this point would hide out, go underground.

Speaker 12 But Steven Stanko was not your average fugitive.

Speaker 4 He heads to Columbia, South Carolina, where he has happy hour.

Speaker 3 Happy hour. Happy hour.

Speaker 28 He's stating that he was the vice president of some company. He had loads of money.

Speaker 13 Ryan Coleman is a bartender at the Blue Marlin Restaurant in Columbia.

Speaker 28 We knew that, you know, there was

Speaker 4 something not right about this guy's story.

Speaker 5 For 20 years now, I've been running

Speaker 5 this race to try and be something I'm not and lying to people and everything else.

Speaker 4 The next day, he ends up in Augusta, Georgia, and it happened to be the weekend of the Masters.

Speaker 13 That Saturday night, Stanko once again hit the bars. This time, he was mixing and celebrating with the crowds that had gathered for the golf tournament.

Speaker 4 And meets a girl.

Speaker 30 My name is Dana Laurie Putnam. I had noticed him and we had made eye contact.
He asked me to dance.

Speaker 13 Charmed, Dana Putnam would testify that she spent the entire evening with Stanko, even bringing him home.

Speaker 30 Then he went to sleep on my couch.

Speaker 13 That Sunday morning, the two of them went to church together, seen here on the church's weekly broadcast.

Speaker 13 And over the next couple of days, an unsuspecting Dana Putnam found herself being courted by a cold-blooded killer.

Speaker 30 He would mumble, I could fall for you, I could fall in love with you.

Speaker 13 Putnam was at work when she got a call from a friend.

Speaker 30 She said to, I think the person that you've been seeing is in the newspaper and you need to turn to page 5B and what'd you see? A picture of Stephen.

Speaker 13 Putnam immediately went to the sheriff's department where authorities tapped her cell phone and monitored Stanko's calls. Hey, gorgeous.

Speaker 13 I need to do something. How in the world do I get you off my mind?

Speaker 13 Just five days after killing Henry Turner, Laura Ling, and raping her teenage daughter, unbelievably, Steven Stanko had romance on his mind.

Speaker 12 I miss you. It's almost a physical missing you, to where my stomach is in knots.

Speaker 13 Within hours of this phone call, it was finally over for Stephen Stanko. as U.S.
Marshals, SWAT teams, and local authorities surrounded him in a parking lot in Augusta, Georgia.

Speaker 13 Suddenly, being love sick was the least of his problems.

Speaker 4 Why would this happen?

Speaker 29 How could another person do this to someone

Speaker 8 that they loved?

Speaker 29 Someone that they needed,

Speaker 14 someone they depended on.

Speaker 13 These are the questions on everyone's mind as Stephen Stanko is on trial for his life.

Speaker 10 How does someone in their right mind do those things?

Speaker 13 But the man asking them is Stanko's own defense attorney.

Speaker 3 My heavens,

Speaker 14 look at the facts of this case.

Speaker 9 Laura Ling was one of maybe two people in the world who were willing to help him at this point. It makes absolutely no sense that he would just kill her for no reason.
What's the motivation here?

Speaker 13 William Diggs has to try and defend his client against damning evidence.

Speaker 5 I think about Laura every day.

Speaker 5 I wish I could remember the things that happened.

Speaker 3 But I don't.

Speaker 19 He writes, I have never felt as strong and as close to you as I do now. You have weathered with me through the hard times.
Because of you, I have started on a new trail. I love you, Stephen.

Speaker 13 As it turns out, Laura Ling was not the first woman to suffer at the hands of Stephen Stanko.

Speaker 19 He can be very pleasant when he wants to be. He can be very charming when he wants to be.

Speaker 13 Elizabeth McClendon first met Stanko 14 years ago.

Speaker 19 And he can be very manipulative when it suits him.

Speaker 13 Soon after moving in together, McClendon realized Stanko was not the man she thought he was.

Speaker 19 My entire world changed after I met Stephen Stanko.

Speaker 4 The mistake calls Elizabeth button.

Speaker 13 Now, prosecutors want the jury to hear her story.

Speaker 19 I was becoming very upset with Stephen because I felt like I wasn't getting the whole truth. that some things were beginning to take place that I did not like.

Speaker 5 The problem was I was screwing it up a little bit. That's when I was running

Speaker 5 confidence schemes.

Speaker 12 What were some of the things that he was doing behind your back?

Speaker 19 Pawning things from around the house. He would just cheat people.
He would take people's money on false pretenses.

Speaker 12 Did he steal checks from you?

Speaker 16 Yes, he did.

Speaker 12 Did he sell some of your personal effects?

Speaker 11 Yes, he did.

Speaker 19 Paintings,

Speaker 19 jewelry.

Speaker 13 By February 1996, Elizabeth McClendon finally had enough of the lies lies and cons and told Stanko it was time for him to move out.

Speaker 19 And the next morning is when everything came crashing down. He stood at the foot of my bed and he had a horrible look on his face and he said, I'm getting ready to leave.

Speaker 19 And I said, what is that that I smell? Are you cleaning the house?

Speaker 19 And at that moment, he jumped over me with the cloth that was drenched in Clorox and 409 mixture and He proceeded to try to suffocate me

Speaker 19 and He flipped me on my stomach and he put the pillow over my head and was holding me down and he did say I don't know why this isn't working. It worked in the movie

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 19 I thought, well, he's gonna kill me. I am going to die.

Speaker 13 McClendon did everything she could to fight him off.

Speaker 31 He was trying to tie me up and I was fighting for him to stay away from me and I was praying for him to leave me alone and if he just left I would never say anything.

Speaker 13 Bound and gagged, Stanko dragged her into the bathroom.

Speaker 19 He made me sit on the toilet while he was in the shower.

Speaker 30 Just humming.

Speaker 13 He was just humming.

Speaker 3 Humming like the beginning of another day. It was a normal day.

Speaker 19 Everything was normal.

Speaker 8 While you're sitting there tied up.

Speaker 13 Stanko says he has little memory of the events from that morning, just like the blackout he claims to have experienced during the Ling attacks.

Speaker 12 You don't remember doing that?

Speaker 3 No, sir.

Speaker 12 You restrained her, though.

Speaker 21 I did.

Speaker 12 You didn't try to kill her that day. No, sir.

Speaker 30 He took my life away.

Speaker 16 I was a trusting person until I met Steven.

Speaker 19 Not the same person.

Speaker 13 Stephen Stenko was arrested three days after the attack on Elizabeth McClendon.

Speaker 13 He pled guilty to charges of kidnapping and aggravated assault and was sentenced to a 10-year prison term, but was released after just eight and a half years.

Speaker 13 Two months later, he met Laura Ling, a librarian and a divorced mother of three.

Speaker 13 You were pretty forthright, though.

Speaker 12 Whenever you met someone new,

Speaker 12 you would tell people that you had served time in prison.

Speaker 5 Yes, sir.

Speaker 12 You were a little fuzzy with the details.

Speaker 13 Laura Ling was never given the full story from Stenko about the McClinton attack when she asked him to move in with her and her teenage daughter.

Speaker 12 Tell me about that conversation when your mother came to you and told you that Stephen had served time in prison.

Speaker 27 I made fun of her.

Speaker 3 You made fun of her?

Speaker 27 I kind of said, old G-Mom, thanks for bringing home an ex-convict.

Speaker 23 But

Speaker 23 she really liked helping people.

Speaker 27 And

Speaker 23 Stephen seemed like this great guy that didn't have a great past and wanted to start over and start a new beginning. And I think she looked at that as an opportunity.

Speaker 23 You know, she wanted to help him do that.

Speaker 13 From all accounts, Laura was happy, seemingly unaware that Stenko was back to running cons.

Speaker 12 You've been described as a habitual liar.

Speaker 5 Yes, sir.

Speaker 11 He would tell me, checks in the mail, FedEx, coming, be here soon.

Speaker 3 Nothing ever happened.

Speaker 12 You've told people that you held a degree in engineering.

Speaker 3 Yes, sir.

Speaker 16 He informed me that he was a corporate attorney.

Speaker 12 You told people you were a paralegal.

Speaker 3 Yes. Said he had a jaguar, but every time I see him, he was driving Laura's car.

Speaker 12 You owned several successful restaurants.

Speaker 5 Let's go on.

Speaker 3 Lies, lies on top of lies.

Speaker 12 Were you practicing law without a license?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I was doing things that I should not have been doing without a license.

Speaker 3 I finally figured out he was a pathological liar.

Speaker 13 Greg Hembry speculates Laura Ling may have learned what was going on and confronted Stanko. And that's what led to his rampage.

Speaker 4 It may have been that he was just closing up shop and he's not going back to prison and he's not going to leave any witnesses around. So here's what I've got to do.
I've got to get money in car.

Speaker 4 I've got to take, I've got to take care of these people that are going to be

Speaker 4 coming after me.

Speaker 13 The physical evidence against Stephen Stanko is overwhelming. But the defense believes it has uncovered new evidence, medical evidence, that just might sway a jury.

Speaker 8 We're seeing that the brain's not working right, and we're seeing physically what is the matter with the brain.

Speaker 13 It's the first time in South Carolina history where a defense team says they can show a jury an actual picture of what insanity looks like.

Speaker 9 We don't kill people who have birth defects.

Speaker 5 I enjoyed school.

Speaker 5 I enjoyed sports.

Speaker 5 I really didn't have too many problems.

Speaker 13 Steven Stanko, once a gifted teenager brimming with promise.

Speaker 5 I was a top athlete, top student, loved by everyone.

Speaker 13 Is now, 20 years later, a man facing the death penalty.

Speaker 12 What happens to him?

Speaker 5 That's a good question.

Speaker 13 Growing up in Goose Creek, South Carolina, Stephen Stanko, along with his four siblings, was raised under his parents' close supervision.

Speaker 12 Your father was a strict disciplinarian?

Speaker 5 My father was a master chief in the Navy.

Speaker 22 And he was very strict.

Speaker 12 He had high expectations for you?

Speaker 5 Yes, he did.

Speaker 13 Stanko had high expectations as well.

Speaker 13 His dream was to attend the United States Air Force Academy.

Speaker 5 I had wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. I had wanted to design jets.

Speaker 13 But during his senior year in high school, everything changed.

Speaker 5 And that's when a lot of things happened. That's when I went from honor student, 11th in the class, and

Speaker 3 athlete and

Speaker 5 everything else. I turned down some scholarships because I thought I had the Air Force Academy in the bag and then I didn't get that.

Speaker 13 It was a setback that Stanko says he never recovered from.

Speaker 5 My dreams kind of went by the wayside at that point. I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do.

Speaker 13 After finishing high school, Stanko spent a short time in community college, but he lost interest and turned to a life of petty crime. small hustles, small lies, and small cons.

Speaker 5 You know, to be considered a genius, but do such stupid things. There were times when I would look at it and say,

Speaker 3 you know, what the heck were you doing?

Speaker 13 But small-time cons pale in comparison to the violent crimes Stanko is on trial for now.

Speaker 14 Look at the facts of this case.

Speaker 33 Would a normal person do that?

Speaker 33 A healthy person?

Speaker 3 Steve looks normal.

Speaker 14 He looks healthy, but he's not healthy.

Speaker 13 Although Stanko has been treated in the past for personality disorders, Attorney William Diggs believes his client is suffering from a far more serious condition.

Speaker 9 I wanted to really look into his brain and try to find out some explanation for what had happened.

Speaker 13 To do that, Diggs hired a team of medical experts from around the country.

Speaker 13 Using cutting-edge PET scan imaging technology, they put Stanko under the microscope, analyzing the structure of his brain and, more importantly, how it functions. What they found surprised them all.

Speaker 9 Stephen didn't have the function in the brain that a healthy brain would have.

Speaker 8 Mr. Stanko's brain showed decreased function in the medial orbital frontal lobes of his brain.

Speaker 13 Dr.

Speaker 35 Thomas Saatchi, neuropsychiatrist and founder of Georgia Pain and Behavioral Medicine, evaluated Stanko's test results for the defense.

Speaker 8 Areas Areas of red on these images are indicative of high levels of brain function. But we can see particularly right here that Mr.

Speaker 8 Stanko, in this area of the brain, he's very cold or cool or less functional as compared to a normal brain.

Speaker 12 So why is that significant?

Speaker 8 Well, it's very significant because it is this area of the brain that essentially makes us human.

Speaker 8 People with damage to that area of the brain become antisocial, they are more likely to be impulsive, they're more likely to be aggressive and violent.

Speaker 12 What was your reaction when you saw the PET scan images of your brain?

Speaker 5 It was like it was good news and bad news. The bad news is you got a brain defect.
The good news is you got a brain defect.

Speaker 12 Explained a lot of things to you.

Speaker 5 An immense number of things.

Speaker 14 The defendant would call Dr.

Speaker 10 Bernard Albiniac.

Speaker 13 For almost three days, the court heard from a team of medical experts.

Speaker 11 The PET scan shows abnormal function of the cells in the orbital frontal lobe.

Speaker 4 His left frontal lobe was in the smallest 2 or 3% of the population.

Speaker 7 There's this decrease in the base of the right frontal lobe here.

Speaker 13 This mountain of complicated scientific theory eventually boils down to one very simple idea.

Speaker 8 I've come to the conclusion that he was insane at the time.

Speaker 12 Is someone with this kind of brain defect a psychopath?

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 14 Can we say that he chooses to be that way?

Speaker 8 No. Mr.
Stanko nor the other psychopaths that we know of have not made a conscious decision to be psychopathic.

Speaker 8 They have a brain abnormality that has been forced upon them by bad luck or God or genes or what have you.

Speaker 12 How did Stephen Stanko suffer this brain defect?

Speaker 10 Stephen Stanko's medical records were crystal clear.

Speaker 8 There was no question that he was born with some form of neurological dysfunction.

Speaker 13 According to the expert defense witnesses, Stanko suffered medical complications shortly after birth, including jaundice and a blockage in his airway that may have deprived his brain of oxygen.

Speaker 8 I suspect that at that time the damage was done and his brain, though he appeared to develop normally, this particular area of the brain did not.

Speaker 14 You're looking as close as we can come

Speaker 14 to showing you what insanity can look like.

Speaker 13 Diggs is convinced the evidence presented amounts to a persuasive insanity defense.

Speaker 9 I believe in theory, and I believe in the experts who tell me that we're right.

Speaker 5 They've showed what's wrong in my frontal lobes.

Speaker 5 And you can't deny it.

Speaker 14 He was insane, and that is the only verdict that's justified by the evidence in this case.

Speaker 13 But there are some in the courtroom who don't see it quite the same way.

Speaker 22 He's a coward.

Speaker 26 That's the bottom line. And we can put all the kind of psychoses into the mix, but that's essentially what he is, a coward and a murderer.

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Speaker 4 Please bring in the jury.

Speaker 4 Now we know that Defendant Stanko, she does bad stuff and he doesn't feel too bad about it. There was no bizarre behavior.
There was no madness going on here.

Speaker 13 Prosecutor Greg Hembry dismisses Steven Stanko's defense with just two words.

Speaker 4 It's junk science. Junk science.
Junk science.

Speaker 14 Would you say this could be a birth defect, then?

Speaker 8 Definitely.

Speaker 12 What he's saying is that I was born this way. He's saying that I cannot control my violent impulses and you can't hold it against me.

Speaker 4 So we send him home? And I just disagree.

Speaker 4 I don't buy it.

Speaker 8 Upon getting these images of his brain, my diagnosis is that Mr. Stenko is a psychopath and I'm 100% certain of that and I believe we've proved it.

Speaker 4 I've seen the images and I'm not persuaded. But I'm not persuaded not because of what I can see, but because of what other experts look at and tell me.

Speaker 37 His brain scan is perfectly normal and by all objective criteria, it's a perfectly normal functioning brain.

Speaker 4 Did you find in this defendant any mental disease?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 4 Did you find any mental defect? No.

Speaker 13 Henry now tries to score points by cross-examining defense witnesses.

Speaker 4 You're testifying that this defendant has a birth defect.

Speaker 13 To prove that his complications at birth had nothing to do with his crime spree all these years later.

Speaker 34 Neurological okay.

Speaker 10 Okay, neurological okay.

Speaker 4 Yes. Isn't that good news?

Speaker 10 That's great. That's great news.
Yes.

Speaker 4 And the baby was released from the hospital two days later, wasn't he? Yes.

Speaker 38 Can you solemnly square off?

Speaker 13 For two days, prosecution witnesses testify that although Stephen Stanko had some serious problems, insanity wasn't one of them.

Speaker 16 My opinion is that he has a personality disorder with narcissistic and antisocial features. He has the grandiose sense of self-importance.
He exaggerates achievements and his talents.

Speaker 16 He requires excessive admiration. And he lacks empathy.

Speaker 4 This defendant has no mental illness, in your opinion.

Speaker 16 In my opinion, he does not. He has a personality disorder.

Speaker 26 I think he's of sound mind, and he knows, you know, right from wrong.

Speaker 13 Roger Turner is the son of Henry Turner, Stanko's last murder victim. He believes the insanity defense is simply Stanko's final con.

Speaker 7 He has planned this, okay? I think it's so outlandish, it's so preposterous, that it's fabricated.

Speaker 13 Henry Turner and Stanko spent a lot of time together.

Speaker 5 Henry became kind of a friend and

Speaker 5 quasi-father for me for a while.

Speaker 18 He was good people.

Speaker 13 Which leaves Roger with even more questions about his father's murder following the attacks at the Linghouse.

Speaker 29 Why, dad?

Speaker 7 You know, I mean, dagum, he's 74 years old, eight days before his 75th birthday.

Speaker 34 I mean, come on.

Speaker 7 I mean, he befriended him.

Speaker 13 Stanko refused to discuss the details surrounding the Henry Turner shooting, since he has yet to be tried for that murder.

Speaker 3 You went to Henry's. Right.

Speaker 5 And that's where I'm going to stop talking.

Speaker 12 So what does it take for you to go into one of these episodes where you act out violently?

Speaker 5 Usually it's when I'm confronted with violence.

Speaker 5 I mean, the only times that it's ever happened is when I was confronted with violence.

Speaker 13 Stanko maintains that both Elizabeth McClinton and Laura Ling provoked him before there are attacks.

Speaker 12 The flick of a cigarette or someone tossing keys at you.

Speaker 5 Or a slap.

Speaker 5 Or a slap that causes a cigarette to go into my eye.

Speaker 12 And that's what Laura Ling did.

Speaker 5 Yes, sir.

Speaker 13 But Laura's ex-husband, Chris Ling, has his own theory that Stanko is simply just a bully.

Speaker 26 Stephen Stanko's insane when he knows that he's dealing with young women,

Speaker 26 women, and old men.

Speaker 13 To back that up, Chris Ling points to Stanko's prison record.

Speaker 26 During his incarceration, he was considered somewhat of a model prisoner, never gotten many fights. And the reason for this is because he's a coward.

Speaker 12 The people that you've attacked

Speaker 12 are either young or weak.

Speaker 16 The necktie is wrapped tightly around each wrist.

Speaker 12 These are the people who you seem to prey on.

Speaker 5 Pray on?

Speaker 12 I don't know what words do you want me to use.

Speaker 6 You can use whatever word you want.

Speaker 5 I mean, I have thought about this. I have thought about why I didn't kill somebody in prison.

Speaker 5 The one thing I never did in prison was fight somebody when nobody else was around.

Speaker 13 Styco told us he had 39 fights during his time in prison, but when we checked, there was no record of any such violent behavior.

Speaker 26 He knows he did it. I know he did it.
I know there was no mental...

Speaker 12 deficiency there.

Speaker 26 He knows that.

Speaker 32 And he started choking her, and I immediately thought, oh, God, he's going to kill her.

Speaker 26 Let's just get it done.

Speaker 13 This trial has never been about who committed these heinous crimes, but rather, should Stephen Stanko be held responsible for them? And as they make their final arguments...

Speaker 4 It's always somebody else's fault.

Speaker 29 Always somebody else's fault.

Speaker 13 The state and the defense have very different opinions of who this man is.

Speaker 4 His brain made him do it. It's on its own.
He just goes and does things. And while I'm over here, my brain's out running around murdering and raping people.

Speaker 14 That's where the brain defect, the mental defect is.

Speaker 14 That's where the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, that's where that function lies in the brain. And he doesn't have it.

Speaker 36 Now.

Speaker 13 12 jurors will decide if Stanko was of sound mind when he killed Laura Ling and raped her teenage daughter. And if he was,

Speaker 13 should he die for it?

Speaker 13 As we accompany Steven Stanko on one of his final rides to the courthouse, he seems almost resigned to his fate.

Speaker 18 You know, no matter what happens today, if there's one thing I do believe that somehow, some way, my brain and the things that have gone on with it have got to be useful to science.

Speaker 13 Which picture of Stephen Stanko will the jury believe? The killer who knew exactly what he was doing?

Speaker 13 Or the insane man who was a victim of his own anatomy?

Speaker 13 Please bring in the jury. Just two hours later, the jury has an answer.

Speaker 38 State of South Carolina versus Stephen Christopher Stanko. As to Count 1 murder, we the jury, by unanimous consent, find the defendant guilty.

Speaker 13 They hold him responsible for the death of Laura Lang and the rape of her teenage daughter.

Speaker 12 He never apologized to you in court.

Speaker 25 Not to me.

Speaker 12 Do you need to hear an apology? No.

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 27 No,

Speaker 23 I'm beyond an apology.

Speaker 13 Just one week after finding Stanko guilty,

Speaker 14 Ready for it to be open.

Speaker 10 Overcast.

Speaker 13 It'll be good then.

Speaker 13 The same jury must now rule on whether he lives or dies.

Speaker 33 That justice is the last thing defendant Stanko wants.

Speaker 7 Because justice in this case is a sentence of death.

Speaker 9 The ultimate punishment should be reserved for people.

Speaker 14 who have a healthy brain.

Speaker 17 Should you choose to recommend life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, your decision must be a unanimous one.

Speaker 12 What's the best that you can hope for?

Speaker 3 You know, I don't know.

Speaker 13 I want to live.

Speaker 10 I didn't at first.

Speaker 6 I really didn't.

Speaker 12 When the jury comes back, what do you expect to hear?

Speaker 22 Well, we have already won.

Speaker 4 I mean, Stephen Stanko is never going to be a free man. He'll never be, you know, he may victimize someone in the prison system, but he'll never victimize another free citizen walking about.

Speaker 13 Once again, the jury just takes two hours to make their decision.

Speaker 17 If the defendant would stand for the publication of the jury's verdict,

Speaker 38 state of South Carolina, Georgetown County versus Stephen Christopher Stanko, recommendation of sentence,

Speaker 38 death penalty.

Speaker 34 The process works.

Speaker 26 We'll be putting down someone who victimizes young children, old men, and little girls.

Speaker 34 I've got the world's greatest daughter in the world,

Speaker 34 and I love her. Thank you.

Speaker 38 Thank you.

Speaker 13 Although the defense failed to prove their theory, their lead expert, Dr. Satchi, still believes in the science.

Speaker 8 Mr. Stanko had a defense that was at the cutting edge of of science and far beyond where the laws of this country are right now.

Speaker 12 You see long-term value in this science.

Speaker 8 This will be the standard of forensic investigation in this field in the future.

Speaker 12 Were all of you at peace with the decision you reached?

Speaker 10 You all were.

Speaker 12 Yes. Stephen Stanko should die for these questions.

Speaker 12 Absolutely.

Speaker 22 No doubt about it.

Speaker 13 We brought some of the jurors together to see what they thought of the scientific defense.

Speaker 29 Well, I'll be honest with you. When we went in deliberation with that PET scan and all that computerized stuff they did,

Speaker 29 I said I felt like I've been dazzled with brilliance and baffled with BS.

Speaker 12 Could a sane person, someone who possesses all of their mental faculties, carry out these heinous crimes?

Speaker 16 I think it is possible to commit this sort of crime and not be insane.

Speaker 13 He's a monster.

Speaker 29 He's He's worse than a monster.

Speaker 10 He had everybody kind.

Speaker 12 The defense argued that Steven Stanko was born with a brain defect. Couldn't that explain his behavior?

Speaker 21 I don't believe in

Speaker 22 us felt is that he was temporarily insane when he wanted to be temporarily insane.

Speaker 13 In the end, what the jury found most compelling was the evidence from two of Stenko's victims.

Speaker 31 If you're going to die, do it, saving your mom. And I tried.
I fought harder than I ever had the entire night.

Speaker 26 Laura's daughter's testimony herself was just something that I'll never forget.

Speaker 26 Talking and crying about what happened to her and how brutal and

Speaker 26 vile and disgusting it was.

Speaker 21 I know I cried when I listened to that tape.

Speaker 21 I had tears.

Speaker 3 I couldn't hold back.

Speaker 13 And while she was not there herself, the jurors felt like they had her for Laura Ling.

Speaker 39 The forensic doctor who performed the autopsy had outlined every single injury that she had to her body.

Speaker 16 Also, once you look in her mouth, you see some more trauma.

Speaker 39 And I thought, Laura Ling's not here to speak for herself, but she has spoken.

Speaker 23 She was

Speaker 3 beautiful.

Speaker 13 These days, Laura Ling's daughter clings to the good memories of her mother.

Speaker 23 She was smart and

Speaker 23 she was funny.

Speaker 23 She was the kind of girl you wanted to be friends with, you know, she was just warm and inviting.

Speaker 13 While trying to erase from her own mind the damage left there by Stephen Stanko.

Speaker 23 I don't know if I'll ever forgive him for what he did to my mom, but I can honestly say that I do forgive him for what he did to me.

Speaker 23 And I I refuse to sit here and hate him and never be able to move on and never be able to move past this. I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 36 Steven Stanko received two death sentences for the murders of Laura Ling and Henry Turner.

Speaker 13 This is the story of the one.

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