ordered a grilled chicken sandwich and a soft drink.
The mall, in Northwest Augusta, was called Augusta Exchange. It was built on eighty-seven acres of farmland and opened in 1997. Its most notable features were a Target store and a twenty-screen movie complex, which included IMAX.
The Atlanta Bread Company was a chain restaurant with the slogan “Come for the food, stay for the culture.” The restaurant started out in 1993 as a single café in Sandy Springs, a suburb of Atlanta. Ten years later, there were more than one hundred of them in twenty-three states.
Waiting tables inside the restaurant was restaurant supervisor, twenty-four-year-old Chris Ainsworth, who remembered Stanko as polite and dressed well.
“He looked like a nice guy. He seemed calm, like nothing was wrong,” Ainsworth later said.
Seventeen-year-old assistant store manager Marcie Crown said that she didn’t recognize Stanko, even though his picture had been on television. His hair looked darker in person than it did on TV, she explained. He was dressed normally—gray jacket over a yellow dress shirt, jeans, a light blue vest, and a tie.
“He did not look dangerous at all,” Crown commented. “It’s very freaky.”
As Stanko was eating, the call came in that the stolen truck had been found. That news lit up law enforcement. After a few days of chasing ghosts, a license plate number was something real. This was it .
Within minutes, the mall was surrounded with deputy U.S. Marshals from the Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force, along with members of the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.
When Stanko came out, at approximately 3:25 P.M ., exiting the mall through the Mattress Depot, he was promptly and efficiently arrested.
An eyewitness to the arrest was twenty-one-year-old Jeremy Nave, who worked at the Atlanta Bread Company and was arriving at the shopping mall in his car as Stanko was exiting on foot.
“I saw a guy dressed in a suit,” Nave recalled. “He looked like he was coming from the Hallmark store. I stopped and let him cross the street. He walked toward his truck. Next thing, I turn around and see him on the ground, with two guys dressed in bulletproof vests standing over him. When I saw U.S. Marshals, county deputies, and the FBI, I figured it was a drug bust.”
Inspector James Ergas, of the U.S. Marshals, involved in the arrest, said it didn’t appear Stanko knew the jig was up, until the handcuffs were snapped on.
Officers patted him down and found a knife. He was handcuffed and whisked away. Stanko was charged with “unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.” During his brief stint in a Georgia jail, Stanko was separated from the rest of the jail population, according to Richmond County sheriff Ronnie Strength.
Fox News reported at 3:58 P.M. , about a half hour following the arrest, that Stanko was in custody.
Inspector James Ergas and Deputy Kenneth Shugars, also of the U.S. Marshal’s Service, questioned the suspect.
“Any aliases?”
“Yeah. ‘Stephen Knight.’ ‘Chris Knight.’” Then a joke: if they were named Stanko, they’d have aliases, too.
Beyond that, Stephen Stanko denied anything and everything. Whatever it was, he didn’t do it. What was he doing in Mattress Depot? He was applying for a job.
Stanko told Deputy Shugars that he was in Augusta to see the Masters, but he hadn’t gotten in. He stayed for the fun of it, because there was a 24/7 cocktail party under way.
Stanko repeated some of the lies he had told over the course of his flight. He told the federal officers about the restaurant franchises he owned. He said he drove a Jaguar, but it was in the shop.
He was asked about his injured hand, and he said he got that in a bar fight in Columbia, South Carolina. On the drive to the courthouse, Ergas said, Stanko was “very quiet, very sullen.”
Stanko briefly appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Georgia regarding the charges of criminal flight. An arrest warrant from
The mall, in Northwest Augusta, was called Augusta Exchange. It was built on eighty-seven acres of farmland and opened in 1997. Its most notable features were a Target store and a twenty-screen movie complex, which included IMAX.
The Atlanta Bread Company was a chain restaurant with the slogan “Come for the food, stay for the culture.” The restaurant started out in 1993 as a single café in Sandy Springs, a suburb of Atlanta. Ten years later, there were more than one hundred of them in twenty-three states.
Waiting tables inside the restaurant was restaurant supervisor, twenty-four-year-old Chris Ainsworth, who remembered Stanko as polite and dressed well.
“He looked like a nice guy. He seemed calm, like nothing was wrong,” Ainsworth later said.
Seventeen-year-old assistant store manager Marcie Crown said that she didn’t recognize Stanko, even though his picture had been on television. His hair looked darker in person than it did on TV, she explained. He was dressed normally—gray jacket over a yellow dress shirt, jeans, a light blue vest, and a tie.
“He did not look dangerous at all,” Crown commented. “It’s very freaky.”
As Stanko was eating, the call came in that the stolen truck had been found. That news lit up law enforcement. After a few days of chasing ghosts, a license plate number was something real. This was it .
Within minutes, the mall was surrounded with deputy U.S. Marshals from the Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force, along with members of the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office.
When Stanko came out, at approximately 3:25 P.M ., exiting the mall through the Mattress Depot, he was promptly and efficiently arrested.
An eyewitness to the arrest was twenty-one-year-old Jeremy Nave, who worked at the Atlanta Bread Company and was arriving at the shopping mall in his car as Stanko was exiting on foot.
“I saw a guy dressed in a suit,” Nave recalled. “He looked like he was coming from the Hallmark store. I stopped and let him cross the street. He walked toward his truck. Next thing, I turn around and see him on the ground, with two guys dressed in bulletproof vests standing over him. When I saw U.S. Marshals, county deputies, and the FBI, I figured it was a drug bust.”
Inspector James Ergas, of the U.S. Marshals, involved in the arrest, said it didn’t appear Stanko knew the jig was up, until the handcuffs were snapped on.
Officers patted him down and found a knife. He was handcuffed and whisked away. Stanko was charged with “unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.” During his brief stint in a Georgia jail, Stanko was separated from the rest of the jail population, according to Richmond County sheriff Ronnie Strength.
Fox News reported at 3:58 P.M. , about a half hour following the arrest, that Stanko was in custody.
Inspector James Ergas and Deputy Kenneth Shugars, also of the U.S. Marshal’s Service, questioned the suspect.
“Any aliases?”
“Yeah. ‘Stephen Knight.’ ‘Chris Knight.’” Then a joke: if they were named Stanko, they’d have aliases, too.
Beyond that, Stephen Stanko denied anything and everything. Whatever it was, he didn’t do it. What was he doing in Mattress Depot? He was applying for a job.
Stanko told Deputy Shugars that he was in Augusta to see the Masters, but he hadn’t gotten in. He stayed for the fun of it, because there was a 24/7 cocktail party under way.
Stanko repeated some of the lies he had told over the course of his flight. He told the federal officers about the restaurant franchises he owned. He said he drove a Jaguar, but it was in the shop.
He was asked about his injured hand, and he said he got that in a bar fight in Columbia, South Carolina. On the drive to the courthouse, Ergas said, Stanko was “very quiet, very sullen.”
Stanko briefly appeared before a federal magistrate judge in Georgia regarding the charges of criminal flight. An arrest warrant from
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