Grand Strand, Pee Dee men await executions on death row

By Jody Barr
WBTW News 13 Reporter
Published: June 24, 2008

Seven men from Horry, Georgetown, and Florence Counties make up part of the 55 total death row inmates in the state.

It was only four months ago that a Horry County jury sent the latest addition to South Carolina’s death row off to Columbia to die.

Louis “Mick” Winkler broke into his estranged wife’s home in 2006, then shot her to death.

In February, that same jury decided Winkler should die for his crimes.

Solicitor Greg Hembree said several aggravating circumstances go into a decision to seek a death sentence; in Winkler’s case it was the careful planning he did before he broke into his estranged wife’s home, then shot her once in the face, “In any given year we could be seeking death on 7, 8, 10 murder cases. I don’t do it that way. I’m very, very careful in trying to pick the worst of the worst,“ Hembree told News13.

Hembree said Horry and Georgetown Counties, which make up the state’s 15th Judicial Circuit, average around 20 murders every year; in half he says he could seek death convictions.

In South Carolina, for prosecutors to seek the death penalty the crime must be murder, some other conditions include killing a child under age 11, a murder involving rape, and killing a police officer, among several other criteria.

“There’s a part of it that you’re getting him out of society, but there’s a part of it that is the appropriate punishment for the act that he committed, I mean, what does justice look like? And the jury in this case found that justice was the death penalty,” Hembree explained about the Winkler case back in February.

Hembree added that the fact that Winkler’s estranged wife, Rebecca Grainger, was a witness in a criminal case against him, was another factor Hembree considered when making the determination to seek the death sentence.

Hembree said the average wait for a death row inmate is eight years.

Right now, five men from Horry County await executions on death row; the longest wait out of these counties is Horry County’s Titus Huggins who was convicted of murder, then sentenced to die in 1996.

Horry County juries sentenced these men to die: James N. Bryant, III in June of 2001, Angel Joe Vasquez was sentenced to die in October 2003, Luzenski Cottrell was convicted of killing a Myrtle Beach police officer in April 2005, and Louis “Mick” Winkler was sentenced to die in February of 2008.

The state Supreme Court overturned the death conviction against Cottrell in early 2008 and Hembree plans to try Cottrell once again and seek a death conviction for killing Myrtle Beach police officer, Joe McGarry.

Florence County’s Robert Nance has awaited execution since he was convicted of murder, then sentenced to die in June of 2003.

In 2006, a Georgetown County jury convicted Stephen Stanko of rape and murder, then ordered him executed by the state department of corrections.

Stanko will stand trial for killing a Horry County man in 2006; Hembree filed his intent to seek the death penalty against Stanko last year.

Hembree has three cases he plans to win death sentences on: Stanko, Cottrell, and a third man charged with raping, murdering, then burning a Litchfield Beach woman’s body last October.

The third man, Shane Earl Lawshe, remains jailed in Georgetown County awaiting trial on the charges.

Often times, for many awaiting executions it takes decades for the appeals process to run its course.

In South Carolina, all convicted defendants have the right to post-trial conviction relief where the state Supreme Court determines if the trial was fair and the accused received proper representation in the trial.

In death penalty cases, the condemned receive an automatic appeal, which backs up execution dates for years, sometimes decades, “I think there’s room for reform. I think there are ways you can speed up the process-some, but when you get right down to it because of the finality of it, it requires that level of scrutiny from the appellate side,“ Hembree said.

Hembree said a decision to seek the death penalty is tough, but he says when he does decide to seek it; it’s punishment he feels the guilty deserve.