Shankar Vedantam

Stasha says her mother told her that Riley had worked out a formula.

This was Tasha's life.

Things were always off-kilter, confusing.

She remembers another time when they had to flee their house before the landlord came, probably because Riley hadn't paid the rent.

By the late 1970s, the family had settled in Porterville, California, a town on the western edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Riley spent his days working on his encyclopedia, and to Stasia's mind, swindling everyone he could.

It all ended when Stasia was 18.

That year, 1983, Riley Shepard did what he had done many times before.

He disappeared.

For more than a year, Stasia had no idea where he was.

Eventually, she found him living about an hour away in Fresno.

They reconnected, but everything had changed.

She now saw him for exactly who he was.

For years, Stasha felt torn between her distaste for Riley's behavior and her love for the dad who made her smoke rings and took her to the Brown Derby.

By the mid-'80s, Stasha had left Porterville.

A few years later, Riley returned to the town and played the role of the old cowboy musician.

Stasha mainly stayed in touch by phone as the years passed.

One day in 2008, she got a call.

Her dad had taken a fall in his home.

Riley rallied and moved to a nursing home.