Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle (8 page)

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Authors: Michael Benson

BOOK: Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle
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THE MASTERS
Viewing the world through the windshield of a pickup truck, Stephen Stanko carried out his game plan. The sign said:
WELCOME TO AUGUSTA
, GEORGIA:
HOME OF THE MASTERS
. He visited a series of local bars, drinking and mingling with golf fans.
At the first bar, he expressed an interest in going to the tournament and watching Tiger smack it around. Forget about it, he was told. There was no point in going anywhere near the golf course because the event was sold out, and sneaking on was about as easy as robbing Fort Knox.
One of the bars Stanko visited was Rhinehart’s Oyster Bar on Washington Road. A seafood restaurant, there was nothing fancy about it. Rhinehart’s ambience was “beyond casual.” The restaurant’s logo/spokesman, “Buford Pickens,” wore overalls.
Maybe Stanko pretended to drink more than he did, to maintain a maximum manipulative advantage over his newfound drinking buddies. Or, perhaps because of his adrenaline level, he was partially immune to the effects of alcohol.
It was at Rhinehart’s that Stanko met a woman named Dana Laurie Putnam. She thought she noticed him first, but soon they made fervent eye contact and . . .
sparks!
Her hair was black, like Laura Ling’s. But this woman’s hair was curly and had been shaped in an upswept fashion at the beauty parlor. This, accompanied by a kind, pleasant face, and a gracefully long neck, made her look both elegant and cute as the dickens at the same time.
Pleased to meetchu
. She explained her name was pronounced Dan-uh, not Day-nuh, as was sometimes the case. She fell in at his side and remained there for the rest of the night. He said his name was Stephen with a
P-H
. Stephen Christopher—like the medal. They became fast friends. She said she was just a few days past her thirtieth birthday, and she and her friends were celebrating.
Stanko said he wasn’t out looking for bimbos. He’d been there, done that. He was looking for a woman he could
respect
—respect and
admire
. Truth was, everyone who knew Putnam respected and admired her; but coming from this guy, it sounded special.
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.

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