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[Music]
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up next
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a young woman is dead and the neighbor
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says the killer
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is a window peeper she was uncomfortable
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about that
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she does not feel like it was a very
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safe place i had no idea
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how this could happen despite the
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evidence
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the case can't be solved we're working
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on it but we don't have any
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viable leads at this time until police
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find evidence their suspect
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had killed before i don't think he was
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finished
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i don't think he would have stopped
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[Music]
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for stephanie bennett graduating from
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roanoke college was only the start
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armed with the business degree she took
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a job with ibm
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and was anxious to finally earn some
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money
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this was kind of her first foray into
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the world she
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was really starting her life she was a
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young woman with a lot of potential she
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was excited about being on her own
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but after working there for about a year
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one day
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she just didn't show up she was a very
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responsible young woman she was somebody
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that
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always showed up to work on time when
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nobody could get in touch with her
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everybody got concerned so family
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members asked her apartment manager to
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check up on her
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immediately i've got a dead person is
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the person conscious
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she says stephanie was found dead
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on the bedroom floor she had a very dark
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indention
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around her neck which is obviously due
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to strangulation
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stephanie didn't have an enemy in the
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world it just i mean flabbergasted i had
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no idea what
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how this could happen or why it would
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have to be stephanie
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it just there was no reasoning for any
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of this
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at all there was no sign of forced entry
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into her ground floor apartment
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although the killer might have come in
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through her bedroom window
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the window screen had been removed from
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that window which would indicate that
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somebody
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had possibly gone in through that window
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nothing was stolen but some items in the
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apartment a phone
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a water glass and a box of tissues were
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found
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in the closet of the second bedroom
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the closet itself almost looked like
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something maybe somebody had been
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in that closet and waiting
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the killer was apparently wearing gloves
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they told me there were no fingerprints
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at all
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at the crime scene of anybody other than
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the ones that belonged in the apartment
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outside in a line of bushes near the
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apartment
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investigators found items that might
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have been linked to the murder
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there was six pair of women thong
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underwear
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strode in those bushes at that point it
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appeared that um
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this crime may be sexually motivated in
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nature
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none of these items however was
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stephanie's
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the medical examiner estimated that
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stephanie was killed sometime
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around midnight investigators learn
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that stephanie was on the phone with her
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boyfriend walter robinson
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around 8 pm so walter was eliminated as
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a suspect
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since he was a four hour drive away from
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stephanie's apartment
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and had witnesses to prove it stephanie
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she was certainly a low-risk victim she
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didn't engage in anything that could be
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characterized as
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risky behavior just a normal girl from a
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very good family
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then police learned of an email
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stephanie sent several weeks before her
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murder
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she'd emailed my sister and said she was
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afraid
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but she never conveyed that to me
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stephanie was afraid because a window
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peeper had been seen around her
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apartment building
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there had been a report of the peeping
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tom and
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when she found out about that the
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peeping tom had been looking into her
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window she didn't see it but a neighbor
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saw it and reported it
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this alleged window peeper was now
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the prime suspect
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i remember how steph was never worried
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about what others thought of her
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and live life in such a free-spirited
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way she was a dependable friend
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and a beautiful person the murder of 23
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year old stephanie bennett was difficult
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to solve because it appeared
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there was no connection between
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stephanie and her assailant
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you know i've been in this market for 13
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years
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and i've covered a lot of murder cases
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and i don't think there was ever a case
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that caused so much fear and concern in
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the community as this one
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every day when i walk into my office i
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see stephanie's picture
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and it's a picture that was taking of
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her smiling of her having fun
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with her friends having no idea
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that she would be dying at the hands of
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someone i believe
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was truly evil
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during stephanie's autopsy the medical
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examiner found
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signs of sexual assault and recovered
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a dna sample this sample was compared to
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dna samples of all
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criminal offenders in both the state and
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national dna databases
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there were no hits there was not a lot
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of other evidence that was found at the
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crime scene
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it appeared almost like what the suspect
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brought with him he took away with him
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investigators also compared the dna to
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every male
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who had any contact with stephanie more
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than 250 people
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and no one matched police spoke with
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dozens of people who lived in the
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apartments near stephanie bennett's
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many reported seeing a tall thin man
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wearing a sweatshirt
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loitering in the area
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one of stephanie's neighbors saw this
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person
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looking into stephanie's window
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a police artist drew a sketch
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and released it to newspapers and local
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television stations
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phone calls began pouring in because it
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was a high profile
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case here at that time numerous leads
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came in
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but after tracking down hundreds of
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leads
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only one appeared promising a convicted
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sex offender who lived in the area
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we were able to go out and make contact
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with this individual looked very
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promising early on
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and got a dna sample our hopes were
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really up at that point
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and we got the call back from the state
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bureau of investigation that it was not
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a dna match
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we were very disappointed with nothing
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else to lose
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investigators went back and
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re-interviewed the people in stephanie's
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neighborhood who claimed
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they saw the window paper in the area
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this time one neighbor reported
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some new information we actually had one
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that reported seeing
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this peeping tom walking a dog that
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appeared to be a large rottweiler type
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dog
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and that he saw him walking him from
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bridgeport apartments over into dominion
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apartments
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stephanie bennett lived in the
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bridgeport apartments
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so we took our focus from bridgeport
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over to the dominion apartments
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apartment managers there remembered a
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tenant with a big
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black dog who had since moved away
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their very words to us was we know who
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you're talking about
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his name is drew plant and he is a
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strange bird
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thirty-five-year-old drew planten had no
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criminal history
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wasn't married and worked analyzing
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fertilizer ingredients at the north
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carolina department of agriculture
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very reclusive individual later we went
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and interviewed people who knew him and
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had worked with him and he was just
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very much to himself very few friends
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when police spoke with planton at his
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workplace he claimed
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he'd never before heard the name
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stephanie bennett
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there wasn't many people within a
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50-mile radius that was not familiar
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with this case
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planton refused to go to the police
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station so officers made an appointment
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to meet him at his apartment
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the next day we told him that we would
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see him at five o'clock
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and drew planting started shaking
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uncontrollably
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like he was freezing cold and it was so
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bad that
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i looked back at him and said are you
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okay and he said i'm fine
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at that meeting planting denied any
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involvement in stephanie's murder
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and refused to provide a dna sample
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we always said maybe when that first
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person tells us no
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that would be our man but police had no
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evidence against plantain and he bore no
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resemblance to the composite sketch
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so they couldn't get a court-ordered dna
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sample
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for now it appeared police had hit
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another dead end
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police had no probable cause to force
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drew clanton to provide his dna sample
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for testing
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but one of their scientific experts had
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a suggestion
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i said we need to get a sample that was
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more intimate from him
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you need to get a sample which he had
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which he had touched or used
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such as a cigarette butt or a
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toothbrush or an item of clothing
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something like that but that wouldn't be
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easy
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it seemed planta knew he was being
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followed
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surveillance was conducted on drew plant
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for a week
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at work and at home and we could not
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obtain any dna from
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that week's worth of surveillance
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ultimately
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investigators followed planton to a
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restaurant
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but plantain was one step ahead of them
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we ain't nothing but finger foods when
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he would get up to go to the bathroom
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he would take his straw out of his cup
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and put his straw in his pocket and take
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it to the bathroom with him
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he flushed all of his napkins for
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dessert
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plantain ordered some banana pudding
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which he ate
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with a fork finally he picked up his
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fork
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and took two bites of banana pudding and
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then took a napkin and wiped that fork
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for about five minutes um and left that
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fork
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and of course our undercover detectives
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recovered that fork
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analyst mark beauday performed the
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analysis
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i got a mixture of dna samples meaning
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there was one strong profile and there's
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also one weak profile on there as well
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apparently the restaurant hadn't
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properly cleaned the fork
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the strong profile was from an
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unidentified female
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the weaker one from a male was compared
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to dna from stephanie's rape kit
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the one weak profile on the fork was
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very similar
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to the profile that was found on the
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vaginal swabs coming from stephanie
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bennett
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but this profile was so weak it would be
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inadmissible in court it was a partial
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match which told law enforcement it told
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me that we're on the right track
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we just needed to get a good dna sample
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from drew clinton since planton worked
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for the state
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investigators got permission to search
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his workplace
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mark beauday swabbed his computer
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keyboard
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his radio and other items he handled
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dna from those skin cells was compared
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to the biological evidence from
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stephanie bennett's rape test kit
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the dna profile that was obtained was an
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exact match
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to the profile of the dna which is
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obtained
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from this sperm sample from the vaginal
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suaves
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investigators believe this dna evidence
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placed plantan at the scene on the night
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of stephanie's murder
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based on the evidence investigators
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believe the killer broke
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into stephanie's apartment through the
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bedroom window
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and waited for her in the closet
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[Music]
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investigators believe stephanie arrived
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home
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then called her boyfriend sometime
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between
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eight and nine p.m
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prosecutors think her killer watched
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from the second bedroom
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and that stephanie was completely
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unaware
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anyone was there
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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later after stephanie went to bed
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he attacked
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the evidence shows she was sexually
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assaulted
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and strangled to death but the killer
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left
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valuable dna evidence behind
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i think calling mr bennett the the day
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that we arrested drew plant
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was one of the the highlights of my
00:14:20
career
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when police searched planton's apartment
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they found
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pornography lock picking guides
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and knives they also found
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other disturbing evidence that opened
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the possibility
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that plantain may have killed before
00:14:42
when investigators searched drew
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clanton's apartment
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they found several pieces of mail
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addressed to a woman
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in lansing michigan rebecca huseman
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the postmark was six years old a
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background check revealed rebecca
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huseman was murdered in lansing
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six years earlier and the case had never
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been solved
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coincidentally drew planten was a
00:15:08
student at michigan state university at
00:15:10
the time
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which was also just a few miles from
00:15:14
lansing
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rebecca huseman was working as a topless
00:15:19
dancer at the time of her murder
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it was something she had not planned on
00:15:23
but she needed the money she's a very
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beautiful young woman
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and she was trying to make some extra
00:15:29
money so that she and her fiance could
00:15:31
get married
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after rebecca was finished work one
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october night in 1999
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a bouncer took her to her car and she
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drove away
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[Music]
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as she drove up to her apartment someone
00:15:47
possibly
00:15:48
a customer from the strip club may have
00:15:51
made an advance
00:15:52
whatever happened the killer fired with
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a 45 caliber handgun
00:15:58
i did an ambulance the problem there my
00:16:01
girlfriend
00:16:02
i i just woke up and i noticed that she
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wasn't
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with me so i go out there and she's out
00:16:08
in her car
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and her door's open and i go out there
00:16:11
and she's got blood all over her face
00:16:12
and i can't hear a pulse or a heartbeat
00:16:15
or nothing
00:16:16
the motive clearly wasn't robbery
00:16:19
nothing in her vehicle had been
00:16:20
disturbed
00:16:22
rebecca's purse was still there
00:16:25
robbery didn't look like to be a motive
00:16:26
it looks like to me
00:16:28
based on my experience that it was a
00:16:30
personal
00:16:31
crime just because shooting somebody in
00:16:35
the face
00:16:35
one time on the ground near the car
00:16:38
was a 45 caliber shell casing it was the
00:16:42
only evidence at the scene
00:16:44
we didn't have much evidence to work
00:16:45
with at all we had no fingerprints
00:16:48
tire tracks footwear nothing
00:16:52
everyone who worked with rebecca said
00:16:54
she made a point of having no
00:16:56
personal relationships with any of the
00:16:59
club's patrons
00:17:00
she would leave the club and not have
00:17:03
anything to do with it outside of
00:17:05
dancing there she didn't hang out with
00:17:07
anybody she didn't
00:17:09
associate with the patrons you know
00:17:11
outside of what she did there
00:17:13
for her employment dozens of interviews
00:17:16
were conducted
00:17:17
no clear suspects emerged we still
00:17:21
focused on the club
00:17:22
whether it was a customer or not uh we
00:17:24
were trying to
00:17:25
look at some tapes and surveillance
00:17:26
tapes and things of that nature but
00:17:28
there wasn't any
00:17:29
altercations between her or any of the
00:17:30
dancers
00:17:32
when investigators in raleigh north
00:17:34
carolina found rebecca's mail in drew
00:17:37
planton's apartment
00:17:38
they called lansing investigators with
00:17:40
the news
00:17:41
i said that if you have a 45 caliber
00:17:44
handgun
00:17:45
please let me know he says we got two
00:17:48
i says people planton's two 45-caliber
00:17:53
guns
00:17:54
were test-fired
00:17:57
analysts were especially interested in
00:17:59
the marks
00:18:00
on the shell casings imperfections from
00:18:03
the firing pin
00:18:05
are imprinted on the back of the shell
00:18:07
casing when it's fired
00:18:09
and the imperfections on each firing pin
00:18:11
are unique
00:18:12
to each one made when the shell
00:18:15
casing from the murder scene was
00:18:17
compared to the shell casing
00:18:19
from drew planton's gun the results were
00:18:23
unmistakable some very well-defined
00:18:26
linear marks parallel running linear
00:18:29
marks that were present across
00:18:30
much of the primer surfaces of all the
00:18:33
tests
00:18:34
and on the evidence cartridge that was
00:18:37
entered in the
00:18:38
iva site in michigan they also compared
00:18:42
the lands and grooves on the test bullet
00:18:44
to those
00:18:45
on the fatal bullet those also matched
00:18:50
my opinion that it's that gun and only
00:18:52
that gun that could have fired it
00:18:54
by this time plantan was already in
00:18:57
custody in north carolina
00:18:59
and things weren't going well at his
00:19:02
court appearance he refused to walk
00:19:04
and had to be strapped to a gurney when
00:19:07
he was wheeled into court for his first
00:19:09
appearance he did not open his eyes
00:19:11
and i believe in drew plant's world as
00:19:13
long as his eyes was closed and he did
00:19:14
not see it
00:19:16
it may not have been happening but no
00:19:19
one will know for certain
00:19:21
all the details in either murder
00:19:24
shortly before he was to go on trial in
00:19:26
raleigh north carolina
00:19:29
drew planten suffocated himself with the
00:19:32
plastic
00:19:33
bag in prison i was disappointed
00:19:36
that we weren't able to have a trial
00:19:39
that we weren't able to sit in the
00:19:40
courtroom
00:19:41
and hear a jury come back and say you're
00:19:44
guilty of the first degree murder of
00:19:45
stephanie bennett
00:19:47
and you have forfeited your right to
00:19:49
live
00:19:50
as a result of this crime i'd like to
00:19:53
know why he picked stephanie
00:19:55
why what was his reasoning i mean
00:20:00
it just just why
00:20:03
mr planton uh was obviously a predator
00:20:08
we obtained information and evidence
00:20:10
inside the apartment that
00:20:12
led us to believe that he had looked
00:20:14
into doing this possibly with other
00:20:15
females
00:20:17
investigators are certain that the
00:20:19
forensic evidence would have gained a
00:20:21
conviction
00:20:23
but the real satisfaction is knowing
00:20:25
that the evidence
00:20:27
led to his capture after we found out
00:20:30
who
00:20:30
planting was and did the search of his
00:20:33
house we did find some information on
00:20:35
somebody
00:20:35
he was probably currently watching for
00:20:38
some time
00:20:38
it was very eerie to find that person
00:20:40
and realize that you have maybe just
00:20:42
saved her life
00:20:43
by clearing this case well i know that
00:20:46
forensic science played a huge role in
00:20:48
this case and really without the
00:20:50
forensic science without the ballistics
00:20:52
without
00:20:52
recreating this case rebecca huseman's
00:20:55
murder would definitely gone
00:20:57
cold and unsolved i truly believe that
00:21:00
forensic science was
00:21:01
phenomenal in this case it was
00:21:05
as one person put it it is where
00:21:06
old-fashioned police work
00:21:08
meets modern science
