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