Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle

by Michael Benson

  As was true of all of the women Stanko was attracted to, Putnam had brains. She worked at the Southeastern Natural Sciences Academy—an environmentalist working to save the Earth a little bit at a time through education, research, and general consciousness-raising.

  As had been the case in Columbia, the party was mobile. They moved from Rhinehart’s to Surrey Tavern, located at the Surrey Center, a fifty-two-store shopping mall on the north side of Highland Avenue at Wheeler Road in Augusta. Again, Stanko bought a lot of drinks.

  As Dana later recalled, “He pulled out a roll of money and asked me to dance.”

  Stanko dropped his “came to see the golf” ploy. He told Putnam that he was a restaurateur visiting her lovely city on business.

  “What sort of restaurants?” Dana asked.

  “Chain restaurant franchises,” he replied. “Hooters and Checkers.”

  “Where do you live?”

  He said he lived in Myrtle Beach but was planning a move to Georgia.

  “Oh, whereabouts?”

  “Here, in Augusta. I love it here. I’ve even taken out a post office box until I find a place to stay.”

  They had a long talk, during which he told more lies. He said that he gave “shag lessons” (referring to the dance, but perhaps aware of the double entendre) and in the summertime worked as a lifeguard. And he kept spending money, buying round after round of drinks. Putnam thought Stanko was blotto drunk, and told him he was too drunk to drive.

  “What’ll I do?” he asked.

  “I’ll drive you home. You can sleep on my couch,” she said trustfully, and that was what happened. Putnam wasn’t completely trusting, however. When she went to bed, she locked her bedroom door.

  SUNDAY

  Dana Putnam woke up on Sunday morning, and her new friend was gone. She thought perhaps that was that. But he called. He had walked to get his truck, which he’d abandoned near the previous night’s last bar.

  Relieved that she herself had not been abandoned, Dana invited Stephen Christopher to accompany her, along with her parents, to services at the First Baptist Church of Augusta.

  As it so happened, the First Baptist Church accommodated shut-ins by broadcasting their Sunday services on local cable television. A recording of that Sunday’s telecast verified Putnam’s story. There they were—he, in a suit, and she, with her distinctive hairdo, in the very back pew on the right.

  Dana’s father, Charles Putnam, quizzed the man who’d suddenly appeared in his daughter’s life. Stanko repeated his stories about Hooters. Now he added that he had a collection of upscale automobiles.

  “Where did you go to school?” Charles Putnam asked.

  “The Citadel,” Stanko said. “I have an engineering degree.”

  Dana told her grandmother, Pauline Putnam Hicks, that this Stephen Christopher fellow was one of the nicest guys she ever met. Despite the fact that he was practically a stranger, Dana never considered that he might be other than he seemed.

  In fact, she was sweet on him, and his manner toward her became increasingly romantic. After church, he took her to a fancy restaurant, where he gave her a gold bracelet—the very bracelet he’d pulled off Laura Ling’s lifeless wrist.

  “I could fall for you. I could fall in love with you,” he said, looking deep into her eyes.

  The local Sunday newspaper ran Henry Lee Turner’s obituary, with a drawing of an American flag beneath his bold-type name, signifying that he was a veteran of the armed forces.

  Without the slightest hint of violence, the obituary copy said that Turner had passed away unexpectedly at home on April 8. It said he was born in Hyman, South Carolina, a son of the late Asbury Jackson Turner and Letha Alma Turner.

  In addition to his parents, he was predeceased by his brother, A. J. “Junior” Turner. He had retired as a master sergeant from the U.S. Air Force after twenty years of service. He was a Mason, a member of the Omar Shrine Temple and the Jester Court #113.

  Turner was survived by his three children, Debbie Turner Gallogly, of Roswell, Georgia; Rodney D. Turner and his wife, Allison, of Lilburn, Georgia; Roger A. Turner and his wife, Juanita, of Myrtle Beach; six grandchildren, as well as his sister, Betty Dempsey, and her husband, Jack, of Bonneau, South Carolina.

  As per his wishes, his funeral would be held privately at sea, with arrangements made by Grand Strand Funeral Home and Crematory, of Myrtle Beach.

  Turner’s daughter, Debbie, told a reporter that her father was a very trusting person. “He loved inviting people into his home for meals,” she said.

  By Sunday, students living at Coastal Carolina University (CCU) were very nervous. The school was in Conway. Henry Lee Turner was murdered less than a mile south of campus, and just down the street from the school’s off-campus apartments.

  Just turn on any radio, on any local station, and the message was practically immediate. There was a killer on the road. He raped, murdered, and then murdered again.

  Last known location: Conway.

  Police were asking the public not to panic, but rather to “heighten their threat level.” Folks were to be on the lookout for anyone suspicious. They were to keep their doors locked. Obviously, picking up hitchhikers—a dangerous activity on a normal day—was particularly foolish now.

  Female students in particular were frightened and worried that this serial “sex killer on the loose” might take advantage of their convenient college campus.

  Ted Bundy and “the Gainesville Ripper” loved to kill Southeastern coeds. Maybe this deadly pervert planned to dine from that same malevolent menu.

  It bordered on overkill when authorities posted flyers around the campus and school housing “notifying” students of the already infamous rape and murders.

  “A bunch of us are really worried,” said one wide-eyed Coastal student. “I live off campus at University Place, sort of right here where it happened, but I feel safe because we have our security force here.”

  And the school’s security force, working hand in hand with all of the region’s law enforcement agencies, was on the ball. Every time a student looked around campus, police were there, keeping an eye on things.

  Rumors were flying like dandelion seeds. Some were true; some were sort of true; some were bogus. Stephen Stanko was an ex-con who went nuts after losing his job, raped a fifteen-year-old girl, and went on a berserk killing spree. Rumor had it, two more bodies had been discovered, one on Highway 90, another on 22—and that the killer murdered someone in Wampee. He was last seen in Little River.

  As it turned out, there was a new double murder, but the radio said it stemmed from an unrelated home invasion. Folks were skeptical about that—police were just trying to avoid a panic.

  In home after home, the shotgun was loaded and set against the wall near the front door. Neighbors bragged to neighbors about how armed and ready they were—then laughed about how great it was to live in the South. God help the traveling salesman who transported his wares from town to town in a black truck. His best bet was to pull off at a roadhouse and drink. There was talk of closing all schools.

  The Horry County police were trying to sew up locations where Stanko might have left incriminating evidence. They entered the library where Ling worked, spoke briefly to the man in charge, and then sealed off Ling’s office. Crime scene technicians were called to go over Ling’s workspace. On the cops’ way out, they confiscated the library’s copy of Stanko’s book, Living in Prison.

  They’d rarely had such a busy day. In addition to processing their murder scene and searching for a killer on the run, they had to deal with protection for those who feared they might be next. An officer was sent to stay with Turner’s girlfriend, Cecilia Kotsipias, who lived in Charlotte, North Carolina.

  A lot of info was coming in by phone, and all of it had to be sifted for credibility and usefulness.

  Some potentially interesting info came from Jeff Kendall, Stanko’s boss at Stucco Supply. He’d fired Stanko a week before and had to call him on
Tuesday to order him to stop telling people he still worked there.

  Kendall was still patting himself on the back for hiring Stanko. Not everyone would take on an ex-con. Kendall was the one who had given him a chance. Didn’t work out—but at least he’d tried. He recalled Stanko as a “smooth talker”—wording that found its way onto Stanko’s wanted poster next to “dangerous” and “con man”—as a guy who’d shown no hesitation or shame when talking aloud about prison. If he didn’t talk about prison, he couldn’t brag about his book, and that was where Stanko’s monologues frequently led.

  Sunday was the day that Tiger Woods made one of the great shots in golf history. In the morning, Tiger finished his third round three strokes ahead of DiMarco. During the afternoon, the fourth, and final, round was a head-to-head matchup between the two.

  Surprisingly, DiMarco didn’t fold and remained in the chase, even regaining the lead. On the sixteenth hole, however, Tiger hit “the Shot,” pitching from the rough to the top of a hill on the green. Gravity took over and the ball changed directions ninety degrees, taking a sharp right-hand turn, and rolled downhill toward the hole. The ball paused dramatically at the lip of the cup. To the delight of the golf ball’s manufacturer, the Nike swoosh was clearly visible on the TV close-up, just before the ball plopped into the hole.

  Verne Lundquist, who was calling the action for CBS-TV, said, “Here it comes. . . . Oh, my goodness! Oh wow! In your life, have you seen anything like that?” TV audiences saw Tiger victoriously punching the air.

  After seventy-two holes, Woods and DiMarco were tied, and Woods won with a birdie on the first hole of a sudden-death play-off. Like most of America, Stephen Stanko watched the action on TV.

  That day, Horry County police received a call from a very tiny voice that said she had known the wanted man, and she thought maybe her story would help somehow.

  So responding officers went to visit Harriet Cunningham (pseudonym), who turned out to be an elderly widow living in an assisted-living apartment complex.

  “You know Stephen Stanko?” one responding officer asked.

  “Oh yes, I am his client,” Cunningham said.

  “When did you last see him?”

  “I had him over for dinner, the night before the murders.”

  “Client? What was your relationship, Mrs. Cunningham?”

  “Steve was helping me to get the check the Veterans Administration owed me, a check for more than two hundred thousand dollars,” she explained.

  It was a service for which she’d paid a $1,300 fee. The big check, she said, was owed her because she was the widow of a war vet. She knew her rights. It had been “on its way” for three weeks. The big ol’ check had been scheduled to arrive via FedEx on April 10, but it hadn’t arrived. When she heard about the horrible murders on TV, she became fearful that Stephen had stolen the check and was using the money to go on the lam. She called her sister in Georgia and then called 911. She feared that maybe he would come back and make her endorse the check over to him. She needed protection. The responding officers tried to reassure her. They were fairly certain that there was no check, and Mrs. Cunningham had been the victim of a simple con.

  Following the interview with Mrs. Cunningham, a press release from the HCPD, released on April 11, said: As a result of our initial investigation, we believe that Stanko has targeted senior citizens in the past in an effort to scam them out of money.

  MONDAY

  On Monday morning, April 11, Dana Putnam went to work on Telfair Street in Augusta. Stephen Stanko visited her there, and brought her a single yellow rose. He told her he was leaving the Augusta area on Tuesday morning, but that he would be back, and he would call her frequently while he was away.

  He said he wanted to be with her for a very long time, and this startled her. It wasn’t that she doubted his sincerity. She just thought it too fast.

  She met him less than forty-eight hours before and he was getting serious.

  Still, she didn’t discourage him, and they parted with stars twinkling in their eyes. After he was gone, Dana called her mother, Janice Putnam, and told her all about it.

  That same morning, Erin Hardwick—the woman Stephen Stanko had befriended at the Blue Marlin restaurant and bar in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday night, the first night of his flight—followed her morning routine and turned on the Today show. At first, it was just Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, then—

  Holy . . . !

  Hardwick stared at the TV screen with unblinking eyes. Her heart leapt and she could feel a swirl of butterflies in her stomach. They were showing a photo of Steve. It was him.

  She couldn’t wait to tell somebody. When she got to work that morning, she was full of the news. The guy she met Friday night was wanted for rape and murder!

  Hardwick reported her encounter to the police; she told them that he talked to everyone in the bar and was making friends left and right. Another piece of the Stanko puzzle fell into place. The pieces were assembling, all right. Trouble was, the picture wasn’t clarifying.

  Stanko was a curious one, a criminologist’s fascination. He was social yet deadly. It was like the Southeast had been revisited by Ted Bundy. The killer’s combination of social skills and depraved behavior was very rare.

  That’s why he was attracting so much attention from the press. Stanko was likely a psychopath who could maintain a rapidly fluctuating social life, attracting men and women into his circle of cash and alcohol (and sometimes romance), even when fleeing for what he must have known was his life.

  Michael Polakowski, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Arizona, looked at the pattern of facts emerging regarding Stanko and said, “This guy is unique, especially given the timeline. To develop all these relationships is pretty extraordinary.”

  In the meantime, also Monday morning, Horry County judge Brad D. Mayers signed an arrest warrant stating there were reasonable grounds to believe Stephen Christopher Stanko had murdered Henry Lee Turner.

  While that was going on, Melanie Huggins, Clerk of Court for Horry County, was signing three subpoenae, all requested by Investigator Scott Bogart.

  The first was to be served on the Internet service known as America Online, and required AOL to provide “any and all” information for the account named oneknight68.

  That info was to include all e-mails, e-mail addresses, location, or IP addresses. The IP stood for Internet Protocol, a unique number assigned to every device connected to the Internet.

  The subpoena explained that the e-mail address belonged to Stephen Stanko, who was a fugitive from justice, and that the info was only being sought to facilitate in Stanko’s apprehension.

  If, during their search, AOL discovered that Stanko had other e-mail accounts, they were obliged to turn over all info regarding those as well.

  The second subpoena was addressed to Horry Telephone Cooperative, ordering pretty much the same scope of info, only this time regarding the e-mail account called scstanko@sccoast.net.

  And the third was to Google Mail (Gmail) in Mountain View, California, regarding the e-mail account known as sc.stanko@gmail.com.

  In another courtroom, a similar process was under way granting a search warrant to Detective Chuck Powell, allowing him to seize and search Henry Lee Turner’s cell phone, in particular info identifying incoming and outgoing calls on that phone between April 5 and April 11. The info should also include the dates and times local phone towers were accessed by the phone between those same dates.

  Georgetown County sheriff’s deputies revisited the Socastee library on the afternoon of April 11. Library employees Tracy Carey and John Gaumer each signed a “Voluntary Consent to Search” form, which allowed Georgetown County sheriff’s deputies to search the library thoroughly without a warrant.

  Investigator Tracy M. Lewis seized Laura Ling’s Gateway computer—screen, keyboard, mouse, and printer—in hopes there would be information in there, a hint as to where Stephen Stanko was headed
.

  Library employees expressed anxiety that Stanko was going to come back. After all, the library was like a second home to him. A deputy was assigned to guard the library door.

  Seizure of the computers at the Ling crime scene required a search warrant, and this was granted that same day by Chief Magistrate Isaac L. Pyatt Sr. to Georgetown County investigator Tom Digsby.

  To justify the warrant, the affidavit said: During the search of the home it was discovered that the suspect was a published author and that he did research and corresponded with others on computers.

  Several computers were located in the home, the affidavit said, some in the room that appeared to be the suspect’s “office.” The computer found in the home’s community area also had Stanko as one of the listed profiles:

  The victim of the sexual assault advised investigators that the CompuDirect computer was the suspect’s primary computer but he did use all of them at times. It is common for those who use computers to store information on them and to use them to correspond with others via e-mail or in chat rooms.

  Therefore, it was reasonable to expect that the hard drive would contain information that would be helpful to the murder/sexual assault investigation, and might be helpful in locating the suspect.

  On the afternoon of April 11, columnist Steve Huff, formerly of the Court TV website, and now with his own blog, was among the first to make a connection between the newsworthy manhunt under way in the Southeast and the published book that listed Stephen Stanko as a coauthor.

  Living in Prison, Huff noted, was written by two college profs and an inmate. Stanko provided the experience, while Gillespie and Crews offered historical and systemic context.

  Different chapters in the book were written by different authors, and who wrote what was clearly marked. Huff had no problem determining what Stanko had and hadn’t written.