Convict-author captured peacefully in Georgia

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Gordon Crews, a criminal justice professor in Rhode Island and one of Stanko’s co-authors, said Monday that he didn't expect the fugitive to be taken alive. “I don’t see him giving up,” he told Florence, S.C., television station WBTW. “I don’t see an easy resolution to this at all.”

Hard time in the real world
Crews said Stanko had been having a hard time getting back into the real world after his release last year after serving 8 1/2 years of a 10-year sentence for kidnapping.

“Nobody wants a convicted kidnapper working at Best Buy with them,” said Crews, who teaches at Roger Williams University.

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“The last time I spoke to him, he was very, very depressed. He was on the verge of giving up,” Crews said. “He had stated he was not going back to prison because of the things he had been through.”

A week ago, Stanko was fired after working for a month as a salesman for Stucco Supply in Myrtle Beach. Jeff Kendall, the company’s general manager, described Stanko as a smooth talker who was up front about his time in prison but was unreliable and brought in few sales.

“He wanted to do everything,” Kendall said. “I was the one that gave him a chance. I said, ‘I’ll give you a chance, but from there, it’s up to you.’”

Pretending to be a lawyer
Even when he was working, though, Stanko reportedly was scamming on the side, pretending to be a lawyer.

Connie Price of Socastee, S.C., told The Charlotte Observer that Ling, who she knew through the local library, said Stanko was a lawyer who could help her with some of her legal problems.

Price said she hired Stanko as her attorney since about Thanksgiving and she last spoke with him Thursday.

"He said he was on his way to Columbia to meet with [former N.C. Sen.] John Edwards and was waiting on a package for me. I gave him almost $1,000. He's the biggest con man in the world," Price said.

He also was able to maintain a veneer of normalcy at the Horry County Memorial Library, according to several who knew him. They spoke Monday after investigators swarmed the building, taking the branch’s copy of Stanko’s book and sealing Ling's office.

Police said they believed that Stanko took Turner’s black 1996 Mazda pickup truck when he fled the area; Ling’s car was found in Turner’s driveway, authorities said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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