Despite his apology to his victim’s family, Stephen Stanko will die for killing Henry Lee Turner in his Conway home on April 8, 2005.

That was the decision handed down Thursday by a jury of six men and six women in an Horry County courtroom, three days after the same panel convicted him of the crimes.

The jury deliberated for about 65 minutes before reaching the decision.

On Monday, the same panel convicted Stanko of shooting 74-year-old Turner to death in his Conway home. He then stole his pickup truck and drove to Columbia then Augusta.

Stanko showed no emotion when the sentence was announced. Everyone else in the courtroom had been warned by Judge Stephen John they could be arrested if there was an outburst upon the reading of the verdict.

“This has been a long time coming,” said one of Henry Turner’s sons, Roger Turner, after the sentence. “It’s definitely closure for me even though I don’t have my father anymore.”

Stanko has been on death row since 2006 when he was convicted of murdering his girlfriend, Laura Ling then raping and nearly killing her daughter, Christina, in their Murrells Inlet home before he drove to Conway and killed Turner so he would have a better getaway vehicle.

Stanko speaks

Stanko chose to address the jury before they began their deliberations, something he did not do during his trial for the Ling murder in 2006.

He started by apologizing to the Turner family.

“I don’t know if it will do any good. I am sorry. I hope someday they will accept it,” Stanko said nervously as he fidgeted with the podium.

He said he and Henry Turner were friends “and much more.”

He said they would ride motorcycles and played pool quite often.

He, without emotion, then attacked the state’s case. He had told the jury he would not “inflect” his voice as Solicitor Greg Hembree had done during his closing argument.

“Mr. Hembree talked about the experts. I know we were honest about my brain. If you are going to try to kill a man, be honest. Do it fairly,” he said.

Stanko’s long, rambling remarks had him talking about the evolution of cell phones, the movie Minority Report and his family.

There had been testimony about no one from Stanko’s family in the courtroom for support.

“I did not want my family here,” he said, adding he also did not want the Turner’s family in the courtroom. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

He tried to plead with the jury to put more weight in the brain defect evidence presented.

“My life is not worth anything but what happened in this instance is worth a lot,” he said, referring to the new technology that was presented during the trial.

He also went into an accusatory rant about Assistant Solicitor Fran Humphries.

“Mr. Humphries has a four-and-a-half inch knife right now. Talk about breaking the rules. And h has walked by me 25 or 30 times,” he said.

Stanko, as he concluded his remarks, apologized again.

“I hope the hate and anger they have can be cured with the memory of Henry. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t. I am sorry.”

Roger Turner said he was not surprised at the tactic used by Stanko.

“If I was in his shoes, I probably would have did it differently. As far as the apology goes, I accepted it. It doesn’t account for his actions but I am glad he did it,” Turner said.

Stanko, as he was talking, showed the jury a brace he has been wearing under his shirt throughout the trial.

The brace can be triggered by a remote control to shock Stanko if he were to try to escape or cause other problems.

“Pure evil”

In his closing argument, Hembree said Stanko is the perfect candidate for the death penalty.

“When a person’s conduct is so evil and brutal....that person gives up the right to remain among us. This is that conduct.”

He also reminded the jury they swore under oath they could impose the death penalty given the right evidence and under the right circumstances.

“This is that evidence and these are those circumstances,” Hembree said.

Hembree attacked the defense claims that a problem with the frontal lobe in Stanko’s brain caused him to commit his crimes.

“They say because I do bad things, I have a personality disorder and I am crazy. And if I am crazy, I don’t have to suffer the consequences for the things I do,” Hembree said to the jury. “Under that logic, no one should ever be held accountable. That’s a great strategy for someone charged with murder.”

Hembree had another explanation for Stanko’s actions.

“He is just plain evil. He has something inside that makes him evil,” Hembree said. “He likes it and is very very very good at hiding it.”

The 911 call

Even though this case was about Turner, the state played the tape of the 911 call made by Christina Ling as she laid in a pool of her own blood next to her mother’s dying body.

Her father, Chris Ling, had been in the courtroom but walked out as the tape began to play.

“I just can’t listen again,” he said. He heard the call in its entirety in the 2006 trial.

Several times during the call Christina Ling cried out “I want my mommy. Please help my mommy.”

The dispatchers worked hard to keep the girl talking while help was rushing to the scene.

“What’s taking them so long?” she painfully asked the dispatcher.

“They will be right there, honey,” was the response during one of the times.

Despite the horrifying events she had suffered, Ling was able to maintain her composure enough to answer all of the questions.

At one point the dispatcher said they could not understand what she was saying when she said Stanko’s last name, so, even though she was in the middle of a pool of her own blood, she was able to spell it for them.

“He has a (criminal) record,” she added.

Brown eyed girl

The state called Henry Turner’s girlfriend, Cecilia Kotsipias, to talk about the man who affectionately called her his “brown eyed lady.”

She said she met Turner at Myrtle Beach and they hit it off immediately.

“We danced and danced and danced,” she said of their first date.

Even though Kotsipias lived in Charlotte, they continued their relationship for years until Turner’s death.

She said they would go fishing as often as they could.

“Anytime we would go out where there was a DJ, Henry would always get him to play Brown Eyed Girl for me,” she recalled.

Turner, a military veteran, had a pair of red, white and blue pants that he would wear all the time.

She also said Turner never liked decorating Christmas trees until he decorated hers the first time.

Turner called Kotsipias at about 4 a.m. on the morning he died and told her Stanko was at his house.

“He told me Stephen’s father had just died and said he was going to take him in,” she recalled. “The last words I ever heard him say was ‘I love you brown eyes.’”

Kotsipias said she and Turner would talk at least three or four times each day.

“He wanted to marry me but I did not want to get married. We had a great life. Stephen Stanko ruined our lives. We should still be fishing and singing,” she said.

On the day Turner was killed, Kotsipias received a visit from police in Charlotte. They told her Turner had been murdered.

“The first words out of my mouth were Stephen Stanko,” she testified.