He pulled into the driveway of Henry Lee Turner, his old buddy from the library, on Kimberly Drive in Conway. Turner lived in a white “single-wide” mobile home on a cul-de-sac in the Coastal Village Mobile Home Park. The mobile home had bluish green shutters and wooden stairs at the side and back doors.
Stanko had been there several times before, once with Laura when Henry was having computer woes. It was about six-thirty in the morning. Turner was asleep, but he got up to answer the door.
Stanko said, “My dad just died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Steve,” Turner said.
“I just—I just need someone to talk to.”
“Well, come right on in.”
Turner attempted to console him. Stanko agreed to get them breakfast and borrowed Turner’s keys so he could drive Turner’s truck to McDonald’s and purchase food.
Not everyone on the Coastal Village street was asleep. John Marvin Cooper, who lived next door on Kimberly Drive, was up and having his coffee when he heard a car pull into Henry Turner’s driveway. He looked out the window and saw a red Mustang, and a guy with glasses getting out. He didn’t think much of it. He’d seen the man with the glasses visiting Henry before.
It was sometime between seven forty-five and eight o’clock when the man, who he could now see was wearing a baseball cap and a shirt with some sort of purple logo on the front, exited Turner’s house, got into Turner’s 1996 black Mazda pickup, and left. Cooper thought that was odd. Cooper left for work at eight-fifteen; as he did, he waved at Turner. He wasn’t curious enough to ask why the bespectacled visitor was driving Turner’s truck. Didn’t seem like any of his business.
It would turn out to be important that while Stephen Stanko was out getting breakfast, Turner called his son Roger on the phone. Turner told his son that Stanko was upset about his father’s death and was going to be staying with him for a while.
Minutes after Cooper left for work, Stanko returned in Turner’s truck, carrying a bag of McDonald’s.
After eating, and while Turner was in the bathroom shaving in front of the medicine cabinet’s mirror, Stanko pulled out a gun and, using a pillow as a silencer, shot Turner dead, once each in the chest and back.
The pillow had kept the shots quiet, so Stanko went about his next task deliberately, thoroughly. He searched Turner’s home for things that might have value to him on his trek toward freedom, or his trek toward oblivion. Whatever it turned out to be, there’d be a trail of death.
Stanko stole another gun and some more money. Now armed, and even more financially flush, he left Laura Ling’s car in the cul-de-sac outside Turner’s house and drove away in Turner’s 1996 Mazda B2300 two-wheel-drive extended-cab pickup truck. To make the truck easy to identify, it had a Shriners tag on the front and two Shriners decals on the back.
At nine-thirty Friday morning, Stephen Stanko called the Socastee library and talked to John Gaumer, Laura Ling’s boss. He identified himself. He was, after all, in that library all the time and was known there.
“Laura’s probably not going to make it into work today. She’s not feeling very well this morning,” Stanko said.
“What are her symptoms?” Gaumer asked.
“Copious vomit,” Stanko said. “We’re thinking it’s something she ate.”
Gaumer said he was sorry to hear that and hoped she felt better. Stanko thanked him and hung up.
FIRST RESPONDERS
At nine o’clock Friday night, Henry Lee Turner’s neighbor John Marvin Cooper finished his shift and came home. He and his family did their normal thing. He did notice that the red Mustang was still in Turner’s driveway, and the truck was gone.
“I just assumed he (Turner) was out,” Cooper later said.
The Coopers went to bed at about eleven-thirty, but didn’t have a restful night.
At 11:05 P.M., Myrtle Beach police officer Robert Kelly Todd Jr. was home on Temperance Drive and had just started watching the news when there was an urgent pounding on his door. Todd answered it, and standing there was a nervous and upset Roger Turner.
Turner said that he’d been watching the news, too, and they flashed a “Fugitive Alert” for Stephen Stanko. On TV, they said the guy had already killed two people. (Either the newscast incorrectly reported that Penny Ling had died or Roger misheard.) Roger said that was the same guy who was staying with his dad.
To further amp up Turner’s anxiety, his dad was supposed to have come to a cookout earlier that evening and he never showed up. He’d tried to call his father’s landline and his cell, but no answer, and both answering machines were full.
Turner said he didn’t know what to do and asked Todd for help. Todd said he would call the Horry County police to see what he could find out, and after that, they’d drive over to Henry Turner’s home to see what was up.
Turner told Todd where his dad lived, and Todd suggested they meet up at the McDonald’s near there and then go to the house together. Roger Turner said okay and left, heading for McDonald’s.
Todd placed the call. At first, he tried to talk to guys from the Horry County police with whom he’d worked. Frustratingly, none of his friends were on duty, so he asked to be put in touch with the road supervisor, who turned out to be Sergeant Jimmy Edwards.
Todd explained that he was a Myrtle Beach cop and asked the dispatcher to have Edwards give him a call. Edwards called back, and Todd told him about Roger Turner’s worries. Todd said he would do a drive-by to see if it looked like anyone was home. Todd drove to the McDonald’s, picked up the waiting Roger Turner, and cruised slowly past Henry Lee Turner’s home.
“Look in the driveway. There’s the Mustang Stanko stole,” Turner said.
Todd turned his car around and parked so that they could see if someone was leaving the house. He called Sergeant Edwards and said he believed he’d found the stolen Mustang.
“Can you read the plates?” Edwards asked.
“Yes,” Todd replied, and read off the numbers.
Edwards quickly verified that this was indeed Laura Ling’s automobile. The verification was made at 12:25 A.M., Saturday, April 9. “I’ll be right there,” Edwards said, and soon joined Todd and Turner outside.
They approached the house and looked behind it. A look of horror crossed Roger Turner’s face. “My father’s pickup truck is gone,” he said.
Edwards told Todd to get the man’s son out of the area, so Todd drove Turner back to the McDonald’s. There they were joined by a lieutenant. The three sat in the restaurant until word came.
The first responder to the interior crime scene was Officer Thomas McMillan, of the Horry County Police Department’s (HCPD’s) Special Emergency Response Team (SERT).
All McMillan knew as he stood outside the mobile home was that Turner’s son had called in, saying his dad was missing, that he’d missed a family meal, and something was wrong. That, plus the stolen car out front, was enough to give him a solid notion of what he would find inside.
Through Roger Turner, the anxious son, keys were located. McMillan entered the mobile home from the left side door. He called out and got an eerie silence in return. The officer could feel the heaviness to the silence—the utter stillness that so often surrounded death.
He began his search at the Kimberly Drive end. Standing with his back to the street, he was in a narrow hallway,