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