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Wales Online
05-07-2025
- Wales Online
Easy coastal walk leads to a lighthouse with a haunting secret
Easy coastal walk leads to a lighthouse with a haunting secret You can walk to a spooky Welsh lighthouse on a Wales Coast Path circular route that starts and ends near a pub You can walk to a spooky Welsh lighthouse on a Wales Coast Path circular route (Image:) Stretching over 1,680 miles, the rugged Welsh coast is home to countless lighthouses, each with its own story. Some still shine their light for sailors, while others stand abandoned, their weathered facades adding to Wales' hauntingly beautiful maritime legacy. You can walk to a spooky Welsh lighthouse on a Wales Coast Path circular route that starts and ends near a pub (my favourite kind of walk). On this coastal trek, you'll have plenty of bird-spotting opportunities at the RSPB bird hide, estuary views, and industrial landmarks in one of Wales' oldest - the Point of Ayr Lighthouse. Known locally as Talacre Lighthouse, this reputedly haunted lighthouse appears marooned on its own island off the Flintshire coast when viewed on Google Maps. The map is deceptive, though, as the 60-foot structure is surprisingly accessible at low tide, when the waters recede, clearing a footpath to the historic tower. Built in 1776, this Grade II listed lighthouse guided ships entering the Dee estuary for over a century before its closure in 1883. When Chester was a thriving port long before Liverpool stole the spotlight, navigation relied on lights at Whitford Garn in Flintshire and Hillbre Island on the Wirral, funded by the Earl of Chester. Article continues below However, the tragic loss of two Dublin-bound vessels in 1776 sparked calls for better coastal lighting, paving the way for the construction of Point of Ayr. Talacre Lighthouse otherwise known as Point of Ayr Lighthouse on the Dee Estuary (Image: North Wales Daily Post ) Designed by Henry Turner, the lighthouse was ingeniously built on sand, supported by screw piles drilled deep below the surface. The sturdy tower featured three floors and even a coal store tucked away in its basement. Originally, the lighthouse displayed two lights. The main light, perched 63 feet high, cast its beam towards Llandudno while a lower light guided vessels navigating the River Dee. Together, they made the lighthouse a vital guardian of the craggy North Wales coast. You can walk to the lighthouse along the coast path, starting near the dog-friendly Lighthouse Inn. According to Gruff Owen, Wales Coast Path Officer, this route is a "family-friendly walk that's great for buggies and somewhere where the kids can explore and get close to nature." It's relatively easy to follow, too. At the end of Station Road, go up onto the embankment. Take the path to the right, which is clearly signed with orange way markers 'Point of Ayr Circular'. The path is straight and wide, with a gravel surface to start. It also has information panels, picnic benches, and sculptures. Continue following the markers, pass the bird hide, and enjoy the views of the estuary and the haunted lighthouse. You can complete the loop or extend your walk along the coast path, and even walk down to Point of Ayr Lighthouse to see if you can spot a spectre. From superstar gigs to cosy pubs, find out What's On in Wales by signing up to our newsletter here A haunting secret Point of Ayr Lighthouse was sold to private ownership in 1922 and is currently owned by the nearby holiday park. While long deserted by keepers, it remains a commanding figure overlooking the Irish Sea and has a haunting secret. According to Go North Wales, the historic lighthouse holds a chilling reputation as one of the most haunted places in North Wales. Visitors and locals have reported eerie sightings of a figure resembling a keeper standing atop the lighthouse. Some mediums and paranormal professionals also claim to have made contact with a lingering spirit of a man tormented by heartbreak, while others describe the presence of someone who succumbed to a fever, a fate said to have befallen the lighthouse's former keeper, Raymond. One woman who saw the ghostly figure told BBC Wales: "My husband and I were on Talacre beach a couple of years ago and saw a lighthouse keeper at the top of the lighthouse, in front of the glass dome. "He was wearing an old-fashioned dark worsted lighthouse keeper's coat and hat. The lighthouse was locked and chained." She added, "My husband and I can't see how anyone could get there unless they were dropped by helicopter and we would have heard that." Some mediums and paranormal professionals also claim to have made contact with a lingering spirit of a man tormented by heartbreak (Image: Ian Cooper/North Wales Live ) Tribute to the ghost The ghostly legend surrounding Point of Ayr Lighthouse is so strong that its owners sought permission to install a sculpture inspired by tales of a spectral figure in an old-fashioned keeper's coat, often seen near the lighthouse. Created by Talacre-based artist Angela Smith, the 7-foot sculpture The Keeper was installed on the lighthouse balcony in 2010 as a tribute to the tales of the ghostly figure seen there. Crafted from about 120 separate stainless steel pieces, the sculpture is more than just a silhouette of a man; it's a celebration of the sea. Each piece is inspired by coastal elements, including starfish, dolphins, and ripples in the sand, reflecting the lighthouse's deep connection to its maritime surroundings. The result is a stunning, shimmering figure that adds an extra layer of intrigue to this iconic landmark. Lighthouse owner James McAllister, who bought the lighthouse along with two acres of the beach in 1983, wanted the statue to honour the ghost rumoured to be haunting Point of Ayr. He said, 'There have always been sightings of a ghost on the balcony here. 'No one is sure who he is, but people say they see him wearing a sailor's cap and uniform. I wanted a sculpture to represent him.' These days, Point of Ayr Lighthouse remains a fascinating spot for a coastal walk and a bit of mystery. At low tide, you can wander right up to the old tower, take in the sweeping views of Talacre Beach, and see The Keeper sculpture standing watch on the balcony. Article continues below It's worth visiting whether you're here for the history, the eerie ghost stories, or just a chance to plod along the coast. And who knows, you might even spot the famous ghost yourself.
Scottish Sun
14-06-2025
- Scottish Sun
Double murderer Stephen Stanko executed after final meal of cherry pie and banana pudding
Stephen Stanko gave a three minute statement before his execution apologizing to the families of his victims JUST DESSERTS Double murderer Stephen Stanko executed after final meal of cherry pie and banana pudding Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) A DOUBLE murderer was executed by injection after a final meal of cherry pie and banana pudding. One of Stephen Stanko's two death sentences was for killing Henry Turner and emptying his bank account in 2005. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 1 Double murdered Stephen Stanko was executed by injection 20 years after his attacks Credit: Supplied Hours earlier he had strangled girlfriend Laura Ling in her home. Stanko, 57, also raped and slit the throat of the woman's teenage daughter, who survived. In a three-minute statement in Columbia state prison, South Carolina, he apologised to his victims and asked not to be judged. He said: 'I have lived for approximately 20,973 days but I am judged solely for one. READ MORE US NEWS BOMBER'S BRAG Cybertruck bomber sent ex chilling 'Batman' text before Trump hotel blast 'Once I am gone, I hope that Laura's family and Henry's family can all forgive me. "The execution may help them. Forgiveness will heal them.' His last meal was fried fish, shrimp, crab cakes, baked potato, carrots, okra, cherry pie, banana pudding and sweet tea. He was pronounced dead at 6.34pm local time on Friday — 28 minutes after the first jab. It was South Carolina's sixth execution in nine months. Tragic final text of Taylor Swift superfan Logan Federico, 22, before being 'executed by serial criminal' as she slept The state's two previous death-row inmates chose firing squad. A third option is electric chair.
The Sun
14-06-2025
- The Sun
Double murderer Stephen Stanko executed after final meal of cherry pie and banana pudding
A DOUBLE murderer was executed by injection after a final meal of cherry pie and banana pudding. One of Stephen Stanko's two death sentences was for killing Henry Turner and emptying his bank account in 2005. 1 Hours earlier he had strangled girlfriend Laura Ling in her home. Stanko, 57, also raped and slit the throat of the woman's teenage daughter, who survived. In a three-minute statement in Columbia state prison, South Carolina, he apologised to his victims and asked not to be judged. He said: 'I have lived for approximately 20,973 days but I am judged solely for one. 'Once I am gone, I hope that Laura's family and Henry's family can all forgive me. "The execution may help them. Forgiveness will heal them.' His last meal was fried fish, shrimp, crab cakes, baked potato, carrots, okra, cherry pie, banana pudding and sweet tea. He was pronounced dead at 6.34pm local time on Friday — 28 minutes after the first jab. It was South Carolina's sixth execution in nine months. The state's two previous death-row inmates chose firing squad. A third option is electric chair.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Yahoo
SC killer who strangled mom in front of daughter, dies by lethal injection
Shortly after 6 p.m. on Friday, double-murderer Stephen Stanko was executed by lethal injection inside of the state death chamber at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, South Carolina. His execution took place amid renewed scrutiny on the procedures for South Carolina's lethal injection and firing squad. Attorneys allege that only two of three bullets hit Mikal Mahdi, the last man to be executed, not fully destroying his heart. While state officials deny this was the case, Stanko said he was forced to choose lethal injection. Prison officials only this week revealed that it is performed with two doses of the sedative pentobarbital. Stanko received a rare double death sentence in two separate trials in Georgetown and Horry counties. The first for the murder of his girlfriend, librarian Laura Ling, who he strangled to death in front of her 15-year-old daughter and another for the murder of his friend, Henry Turner. In attendance at the execution were two members of Turner's family, a member of the Ling family, an agent of South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, a representative of the 15th Circuit Solicitor's office, one of Stanko's attorneys, Lindsey Vann, the corrections department communications director Chrysti Shain and three media witnesses. The family members appeared stoic as Vann read Stanko's three and a half minute long final statement where he apologized to the victims and his family. Stanko described many of the things he had accomplished before his life turned to crime: being an honor student and an athlete, leading school clubs, excelling at math, volunteering at an orphanage and saving a child from drowning in Augusta, Georgia. 'None of this is meant to brag. It is only meant to show that I am not only what people see me as now — in this moment,' Vann read on Stanko's behalf. 'We execute people in this country for moments in their lives ... I have lived approximately twenty thousand nine hundred and seventy-three days but I am judged solely for one.' Stanko, already a convicted felon, committed the two murders during a 24-hour crime spree, which prosecutors say came as a series of cons he was running were on the verge of being exposed. He was also convicted of the rape of Ling's daughter, who he made watch him strangle Ling, as well as armed robbery for the thefts of Ling and Turner's cars and bank cards. After his statement was read, tears appeared to fall down Stanko's cheeks and he appeared to mouth 'thank you,' at Vann, said Tommy Cardinal with My Horry News, one of the media witnesses. The execution began at 6:06 p.m. after all final appeals were rejected and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a supporter of the death penalty, denied Stanko's clemency petition. As a female voice announced over loudspeaker that the first dose of pentobarbital was being injected, Stanko, who was wearing glasses, appeared to glance at the his family members, and those of his victims. Almost immediately, color seemed to drain from Stanko's face and hands, reported Loren Korn of television station WMBF, one of the media witnesses. His mouth appeared to move but it was impossible to make out the words, said Jeffrey Collins, a reporter with the Associated Press who was witnessing his 13th execution. Stanko took a few deep breaths and then his lips fluttered with several small puffing breaths. His breathing appeared to stop after a minute, the media witnesses reported. At 6:20, the female voice announced that a second dose of pentobarbital was being administered. It is first time that the department of corrections has made such an announcement, which Shain said was in an attempt to be 'as transparent as possible.' He was pronounced dead at 6:34 p.m., the witnesses said. Stanko's final meal was fried fish, fried shrimp, crab cakes, a baked potato, carrots, okra, cherry pie, banana pudding and sweet tea. 'If my execution helps with closure and/or the grieving process, may they all move forward with that being completed,' Stanko's final message read. His teachers in Goose Creek remembered him as a bright child and good student. But brain injuries were a fact of his life, the first occurring during his birth. He sustained multiple head injuries playing sports and one while defending a classmate from a brutal physical attack. Multiple experts at his first trail testified that Stanko was a 'genius,' according to court filings. But the injuries left him with serious damage to his left frontal lobe, part of the brain that regulates emotions. As a result, he had a psychopathic disregard for morality. He could seem calm and collected one moment before suddenly snapping, flying into a violent rage the next, experts testified at the sentencing phase of his murder trials. He was previously sentenced to prison for kidnapping after he assaulted and tied up a girlfriend, gagging her with a bleach soaked rag in 1996. While serving that sentence, Stanko appeared to do well with the structure of prison. He wrote measured letters to The State newspaper arguing for sentencing reform, and he co-authored a book, 'Living in Prison: A History of the Correctional System,' with two professors. After serving eight years of a ten-year sentence, Stanko was released and moved to the Grand Strand. He met Ling, 41, and later the 74-year-old Turner, who attended a computer class that Ling taught. But Stanko struggled to find his footing. He moved in with Ling in Murrells Inlet and wanted to write another book about his prison experience. But he struggled to hold down a job and allegedly ran a number of scams around the Myrtle Beach area from the libarby where Ling worked. He would claim to be a paralegal, lawyer or investigator who could help people get access to money, according to court filings. On the night of April 8, 2005, he attacked Ling and then raped her 15-year-old daughter. Dragging the teen into the room with an injured Ling, he held her down while he strangled her mother with a free hand. He then slashed the teen's throat twice, almost severing one ear. When Stanko fled with Ling's car and a debit card, the teen managed to crawl to a phone to call 911. Stanko fled to Turner's home, selling Turner a sob story that his father had just died. The next morning, he killed Turner, shooting him through a pillow pressed up against his back as the older man stood in front of a mirror. Prosecutors say that Stanko then stole Turner's truck and money, leading police on a multi-day manhunt through the Southeast. After stopping at the Blue Marlin restaurant in Columbia, Stanko was ultimately arrested at an Augusta mall following a tip from a woman who recognized him at a bar. His attorneys said that he was 'insane' at the time of the killings. That argument did not move jurors, who sentenced him to death for the murder of Ling in 2006 and again for Turner's murder in 2009. In the weeks before his death, Stanko and his attorneys launched the most comprehensive constitutional challenge yet to the state's death penalty laws. Stanko's attorneys say that he was forced to chose lethal injection in order to save himself from an excruciating death on the electric chair, South Carolina's default method of execution. Stanko would have chosen to be executed by firing squad, his attorneys say, but he feared extreme pain and suffering following the execution of Mikal Mahdi. Mahdi was shot by a firing squad April 11, but he appeared to continue breathing for 80 seconds after he was shot. An autopsy found only two bullet entry wounds in Mahdi's body even though the firing squad had three gunmen. Attorneys for the state and the Department of Corrections maintain that all three guns were fired and that two bullets must have entered at the same spot on Mahdi's skin and traveled along the same path. Left only with lethal injection, Stanko's attorneys raised concerns that there were problems with this execution method because autopsies had indicated that two other condemned men were given a total of 10 grams each of pentobarbital. In public statements and in court filings, the corrections department had indicated that their policy was to administer just one five gram dose. Autopsies have also indicated that the men suffer from a pulmonary edema, a condition where the lungs fill with fluid leading to a painful death where the condemned feel like they're drowing. But during an emergency federal court hearing on Wednesday, June 11, lawyers for the corrections department stated, for the first time, that the department's policy is to inject a second 5 gram dose of pentobarbital if any electrical activity is still detected in the heart after ten minutes. The department's execution protocols remain hotly contested. South Carolina law prohibits the disclosure of almost any information about the execution process. As a result, lawyers for men on death row say they do not have enough information to evaluate whether the state's executions are cruel and unusual. Outside the prison gates, protesters held a vigil opposing Stanko's execution. Andrew Voyles drove to Columbia from Charlotte, North Carolina, to attend his first protest against the death penalty. He previously supported the practice. 'The death penalty is something that I used to be in favor of, but as I've come more into my faith as a Christian, as I lean more into my identity as a conservative, I've realized that those two parts of myself that I hold very important are diametrically opposed to the death penalty,' Voyles said. Additional reporting contributed by Colin Elam.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Yahoo
South Carolina inmate loses bid to delay execution over firing squad, injection concerns
The Brief A federal judge declined to stop Stephen Stanko's execution, scheduled for Friday evening. The judge limited arguments to lethal injection, the method Stanko chose over firing squad. Stanko's lawyers argue South Carolina's process causes excessive suffering, but the judge said no evidence supports that claim. A federal judge in South Carolina has denied a request to halt the execution of Stephen Stanko, clearing the way for the state to carry out its sixth execution in nine months. Stanko, 57, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Friday for the 2005 murder of 74-year-old Henry Turner, one of two killings for which Stanko has received death sentences. His lawyers had argued that South Carolina's method of execution could cause unnecessary suffering, but U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel ruled Wednesday that there was insufficient evidence to support their claims. Judge Gergel restricted the scope of the hearing to the state's lethal injection protocol — the method Stanko had selected — and ruled that concerns raised about South Carolina's firing squad were irrelevant in this case. Stanko had initially opted for the firing squad but later changed his mind after reading reports about the execution of Mikal Mahdi, where autopsy findings suggested the shooters may have nearly missed Mahdi's heart. His lawyers claimed that incident showed the firing squad might cause prolonged suffering, but Gergel barred that line of argument. In his ruling, the judge said South Carolina's current injection protocol, which includes two doses of the sedative pentobarbital, complies with legal standards and that claims of cruelty were based on isolated incidents from other states. What they're saying Attorneys for Stanko alleged that in three recent executions, South Carolina used double doses of pentobarbital even though its protocol requires just one. They claimed this indicated a flawed or painful procedure, possibly leaving inmates conscious long enough to experience sensations like drowning as the drug filled their lungs. But Department of Corrections officials said state rules allow for a second dose if any residual electrical activity is detected in the heart. Witnesses to those executions reportedly observed inmates lose consciousness within minutes, suggesting the protocol worked as intended. "Just because we don't have someone lurching up from the gurney doesn't mean it is done properly," said Stanko's attorney, Joe Perkovich, during the hearing. The judge remained unconvinced: "If all you've got is 'one dose ought to be enough,' I don't see it," Gergel told the defense. The backstory Stanko was convicted in two separate murder cases. In one, he killed Henry Turner, a retired librarian who had offered him a place to stay. Stanko had reportedly lied about the death of his father to gain sympathy and access to Turner's home. Just hours earlier, Stanko had brutally assaulted his girlfriend, strangling her, and raped and slashed her teenage daughter, who survived and later testified against him. He received death sentences in both cases. Big picture view Stanko's execution would mark South Carolina's sixth in nine months, part of a wider uptick in capital punishment enforcement across the country. On Tuesday, Florida and Alabama each executed inmates. An Oklahoma appeals court on Wednesday cleared the way for a fourth execution this week after lifting a stay. The renewed activity comes as legal challenges continue to raise questions about execution protocols — especially as some states face increased scrutiny over botched or prolonged deaths. Stanko's team cited autopsy concerns from the Mahdi execution, where bullet placement raised fears that the heart was not effectively destroyed. Dr. Jonathan Groner, a surgeon and expert on capital punishment, suggested it may have taken Mahdi longer to die than intended, raising ethical and procedural alarms. "I am concerned that some element of those responsible for carrying out Mr. Mahdi's execution intended not to hit his target and to cause great pain before his death," Groner wrote. The state's Corrections Department denied wrongdoing, saying all shots were properly fired and no evidence suggests any intentional mishandling of the process. The Source This report is based on reporting by the Associated Press, including statements from federal court records, South Carolina Department of Corrections officials, and legal filings by attorneys representing Stephen Stanko. Additional context was provided by AP journalists covering the national rise in executions.
