South Carolina Department of Corrections shows the state’s death chamber in Columbia, S.C., including the electric chair, right, and a firing squad chair, left.
COLUMBIA — A Horry County man sentenced to death in 2008 for killing his estranged wife has died, state prison officials reported.
Louis Michael Winkler Jr., 66, died at 8:49 a.m. Sept. 7 in Kirkland Correctional Institution after an extended illness, according to the state’s Department of Correction.
A Horry County Circuit Court jury convicted Winkler and imposed a death sentence for the 2006, killing of his estranged wife, 50-year-old Rebekah Grainger Winkler. According to prior reporting by The Post and Courier, Winkler was free on bond after he was arrested for allegedly kidnapping, physical abusing and raping Rebekah Winkler five months earlier.
On March 6, 2006, he kicked in the front door of Rebekah Winkler’s home, knocked the couple’s 14-year-old son to the floor and pistol whipped the teen before shooting Rebekah Winkler in the face. Afterward, he hid from law enforcement for two weeks.
In 2012, a circuit judge reversed Winkler’s death sentence, ruling that his defense attorney provided ineffective assistance of counsel. But the state Supreme Court later reversed that ruling.
Winkler’s body will undergo an autopsy, according to SCDOC.
