He never heard back. An ex-con who wanted to work with kids! How many red flags did that raise?
Ling learned about, but was untroubled by, the terms of Stanko’s probation. He’d been released a year and a half early with the caveat that he leave his residence only for work or for church. Any other outing had to be approved in advance by his probation officer.
Laura eagerly introduced Stanko to her family, confident of the impression he would make. And she was right. They thought him fine. Victoria Loy, Laura’s sister, remembered him as “pleasant and solicitous.” She recalled an attentive man who focused on Laura and made her feel special. And he couldn’t have seemed more normal. If there was anything off-putting about the new boyfriend, Victoria didn’t pick up on it. She didn’t know what he was like before prison, but he seemed like a real nice guy after it. And Victoria remembered how happy Laura was, and how warm and good it felt to see her that way. She had a new handsome boyfriend, with smarts and charm, a published author who looked good either in a suit or a golf shirt! Whew. Laura was happier than she had been in a long time—and that made her friends and relatives happy.
Laura’s home was close to the corner of Murrells Inlet Road and Mary Lou Avenue, about three hundred yards, the length of a short par 4, from the water’s edge. She brought Stanko home to meet her daughter during October 2004, on what happened to be pretty Penny’s fifteenth birthday.
Penny remembered well the occasion of Stanko’s first visit. She could tell he wanted the evening to go well. He was on his very best behavior—not that he wasn’t always. But on this occasion, he was almost nervous, because his hopes were so high.
And, more important, as far as the teenager was concerned, her mother was so happy. She was beaming with joy, radiating happiness, when Stanko was at her side.
That made Penny happy—and she approved of Stanko, too. He knew stuff, could make her laugh, and seemed like the “all-around great boyfriend.”
Penny remembered saying some things that became really, really ironic, when she looked back on it. After Stanko’s visit on her birthday, she had lightheartedly needled her mother.
“Gee, Mom, thanks for bringing home an ex-con,” Penny had said. But she was just kidding. She thought Stephen seemed like “a great guy, without a great past.”
The teenager heard Stephen talk about his future in such hopeful terms. He wanted a new start on life, a new beginning. Her mom, who normally enjoyed helping people, looked at that as “an opportunity.” She wanted to help him begin anew.
After knowing her for two months, Stanko told Laura that he was being evicted from his apartment. Was it okay if he moved in with her? Laura said she’d have to get the approval of Penny.
Stanko said, “Of course,” and the matter was presented to the teenager. Penny, finding joy in her mother’s happiness, responded, “Sure, why not?”
Penny and Stanko even spent some quality alone time. He helped her build a birdhouse. Taught her how to drive a car with a stick shift. Everything was moving along nicely, Stanko thought.
The Lings lived in an oil-painting-worthy village of Murrells Inlet, another picture postcard from South Carolina’s Lowcountry. Best known for its fishing, the village was a sensual delight. Scenic, for sure, but it also felt, smelled, and sounded good. In the mornings, there was the glorious cacophony of the feeding gulls in the inlet. You could watch them, diving into the water, poking their sharp little beaks into the pluff mud, the dark soft mud in the marshes—in search of tasty morsels. Murrells Inlet tasted good also. Its restaurants, thirty of them, were seafood places mostly, of course, but some ethnic entries as well to offer variety, and they were considered the best around. There was also a seafood market for do-it-yourself chefs. Visitors who wanted to go to sea and catch their meal could easily charter a boat from an appropriately briny captain—or rent a canoe or kayak and piddlepaddle at a leisurely pace in the inlet. Plus, there were potentially romantic strolls through Brookgreen Gardens, the world’s largest outdoor sculpture garden, aromatherapy provided by the bountiful magnolias and azaleas. And, as was true of the entire Myrtle Beach area, there was plenty of golf. It was a great place to live—a great place to fall in love.
For Stephen Stanko, Murrells Inlet was indescribably beautiful. The contrast to the scenery he’d grown used to in prison was practically dazzling. Locals didn’t necessarily see it as perfect, however. Compared to the beaches on the Atlantic Ocean, Murrells Inlet was swampy.
The Lings lived in a small L-shaped house. With light green siding and black shutters around white window frames, it looked like it could have been a mobile home bent at its center. It was situated so that its concave angle faced the road. There was a wooden porch and a set of steps at the front door, just left of center.
Stanko felt like he’d stepped in it—stepped into paradise. It wasn’t just the locale, either. Like Humbert Humbert, the hero/villain of Nabokov’s Lolita, he’d lip-smackingly insinuated himself into his own peculiar dream. Only two months after meeting Laura Ling, Stephen Stanko was cohabitating with her and her daughter.
OWL-O-REST
For some of the time after Stephen Stanko got out of prison, he had a job, but most of his energy was dedicated toward confidence games. In his heart of hearts, in his innermost psyche, he was a flimflam man. No getting around it.
On December 8, 2004, Stanko—as usual, well kempt and wearing a suit—walked into the Owl-O-Rest Factory Outlet furniture store in a small strip mall between a post office and a suntan place on 17 Business North, in Surfside Beach, South Carolina.
It was a family business, owned by a woman, her ex-husband, and her mom. The woman was Kathleen “Kelly” Crolley, who years later recalled, “The store was started by my stepfather in June of ’83. I originally agreed to help him part-time, while completing college here at the beach. A year later, he passed away.”
The establishment was modestly sized—7,500 square feet.
She was twenty-one at the time. Her mother had four children under eight—and one on the way. The store was no gold mine—not now, and definitely not then— but Kelly played with the cards she was dealt and ran the store to the best of her ability. She made some changes. Now the store stocked a lot of coastal designs and also offered a lot of special orders for people. They worked with about 150 different vendors.
Crolley was one of four people working on the day Stanko came in. He was wearing business attire. Although he was polite enough, he wasn’t relaxed and seemed in a hurry.
“If I was to order a gift for my wife, would it be delivered in time for Christmas?” he asked.
Crolley said it would. All he had to do was say the word and she would place the order immediately. The present would arrive in plenty of time.
“If it doesn’t arrive on time, could you give me a photocopy out of a catalog? You know, so I’ll have something to wrap and put under the tree.”
Crolley remembered saying no problem. The man said he was in the market for a rolltop desk and another one, which would fit into an odd space.
“I think he said four feet. He decided on the one for sure and would think about the other,” she recalled.
Stanko explained that he was building a house on Pawleys Island. As Crolley and Stanko looked at all kinds of desks, discussing the pros and cons of each, he answered his cell phone five times.
“He would walk around the corner, sometimes to accept the call and thank the other party for their contribution, and offer to meet them for lunch,” Crolley recalled. He told them he hoped that he could find people to match their generosity.
She normally would not inquire about a customer’s private conversation, but she couldn’t help herself. She told him