many false leads, and as it turned out, April 12 was just as bad. Stephen Stanko look-alikes were coming out of the woodwork. One of the first calls of the day came from the father of a Florida woman who had been chased by a man outside a Miami Beach club. The father told police his daughter subsequently saw Stanko’s picture on TV. She turned “white as a sheet and freaked out.” She was sure it was the man who chased her. Of course, he was long gone now.
At Coastal Carolina University, campus hysteria hummed along unabated. Kathryn Donohue, a CCU student who waitressed at Ruby Tuesday, reported that at about seven o’clock the previous evening she’d seen Stephen Stanko. After her shift was through, she saw his picture on a campus flyer and she was certain it was the same guy.
“He was with another person,” she told campus police, a person who was ambiguous in terms of gender. Androgynous . At first, the waitress thought the person was a man, based on the dress, actions, haircut. When she got up close, she could see that it was actually a woman.
It was the female who paid the check. With a credit card. The man and woman didn’t talk to each other during their meal, and spent most of the time looking out the window as if they were waiting for someone.
The credit card provided a lead by which police could establish that the man with the he-she friend was not the guy.
Stephen Stanko was nowhere near CCU, Miami Beach, Boca Raton, Jacksonville, Columbia, Clyde—or Myrtle Beach. He wasn’t in any of the places witnesses said he was.
CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News kept showing Stanko’s photo, dwelling on the perverse and sadistic details of the Ling crimes. The result was predictable, and for a time, Stanko was spotted even more often than Elvis.
So where was he? Despite the media saturation, the real Stanko was playing a real-life game of “Where’s Waldo?” blending like a chameleon into a crowd of similitude.
With that much notoriety, the law enforcement agencies directly involved (Georgetown County, Horry County) were being inundated with not only tips from people eager to be an eyewitness, but offers of help from the outside.
One volunteer, who repeatedly e-mailed the Horry County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) during the manhunt, was a fellow by the name of Johnny Johnson (pseudonym), who claimed to be a private investigator who had been doing “pro bono” intelligence work for the law enforcement agencies of the world ever since 9/11. The guy had found a handful of e-mail addresses that, he said, belonged to Laura Ling. He recommended that Ling’s Internet activity be investigated for clues that might help the manhunt. Cyber investigators followed up on the lead and found the following entry on one membership website that read: Hello, my name is Laura Ling. I’m 43 years old from USA. I speak English. My marital status is divorced. Nothing uncommon there from a middle-aged single woman. And no help at all with the manhunt.
Stephen Stanko’s coauthor Gordon Crews told WBTW-TV in Florence, South Carolina, that if he knew Stanko, the man would not be taken alive.
“I don’t see him giving up,” Crews said. “I don’t see an easy resolution to this at all.”
TV news smelled the fear and played to it. A psychologist explained how spree criminals on the run were like terrorists.
“Domestic terrorists,” he said.
Sure, a couple of lives had been lost, but the greatest product of the killer’s spree was mass fear. You couldn’t blame TV, the psychologist said. People had the right to know.
Throughout the Southeast, Tuesday morning, April 12, 2005, would have been a good time to rob a bank. Police forces were preoccupied with the manhunt, and everything else could wait.
The tension in the Lowcountry seeped not just into CCU, but into the region’s public schools as well. Beth Selander, the principal at Seaside Elementary on Woodland Drive in Garden City Beach, sent a mass e-mail to her
At Coastal Carolina University, campus hysteria hummed along unabated. Kathryn Donohue, a CCU student who waitressed at Ruby Tuesday, reported that at about seven o’clock the previous evening she’d seen Stephen Stanko. After her shift was through, she saw his picture on a campus flyer and she was certain it was the same guy.
“He was with another person,” she told campus police, a person who was ambiguous in terms of gender. Androgynous . At first, the waitress thought the person was a man, based on the dress, actions, haircut. When she got up close, she could see that it was actually a woman.
It was the female who paid the check. With a credit card. The man and woman didn’t talk to each other during their meal, and spent most of the time looking out the window as if they were waiting for someone.
The credit card provided a lead by which police could establish that the man with the he-she friend was not the guy.
Stephen Stanko was nowhere near CCU, Miami Beach, Boca Raton, Jacksonville, Columbia, Clyde—or Myrtle Beach. He wasn’t in any of the places witnesses said he was.
CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News kept showing Stanko’s photo, dwelling on the perverse and sadistic details of the Ling crimes. The result was predictable, and for a time, Stanko was spotted even more often than Elvis.
So where was he? Despite the media saturation, the real Stanko was playing a real-life game of “Where’s Waldo?” blending like a chameleon into a crowd of similitude.
With that much notoriety, the law enforcement agencies directly involved (Georgetown County, Horry County) were being inundated with not only tips from people eager to be an eyewitness, but offers of help from the outside.
One volunteer, who repeatedly e-mailed the Horry County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) during the manhunt, was a fellow by the name of Johnny Johnson (pseudonym), who claimed to be a private investigator who had been doing “pro bono” intelligence work for the law enforcement agencies of the world ever since 9/11. The guy had found a handful of e-mail addresses that, he said, belonged to Laura Ling. He recommended that Ling’s Internet activity be investigated for clues that might help the manhunt. Cyber investigators followed up on the lead and found the following entry on one membership website that read: Hello, my name is Laura Ling. I’m 43 years old from USA. I speak English. My marital status is divorced. Nothing uncommon there from a middle-aged single woman. And no help at all with the manhunt.
Stephen Stanko’s coauthor Gordon Crews told WBTW-TV in Florence, South Carolina, that if he knew Stanko, the man would not be taken alive.
“I don’t see him giving up,” Crews said. “I don’t see an easy resolution to this at all.”
TV news smelled the fear and played to it. A psychologist explained how spree criminals on the run were like terrorists.
“Domestic terrorists,” he said.
Sure, a couple of lives had been lost, but the greatest product of the killer’s spree was mass fear. You couldn’t blame TV, the psychologist said. People had the right to know.
Throughout the Southeast, Tuesday morning, April 12, 2005, would have been a good time to rob a bank. Police forces were preoccupied with the manhunt, and everything else could wait.
The tension in the Lowcountry seeped not just into CCU, but into the region’s public schools as well. Beth Selander, the principal at Seaside Elementary on Woodland Drive in Garden City Beach, sent a mass e-mail to her
Similar Books
