Evil Next Door

by Amanda Lamb

  They were still following up on every tip on a daily basis, Morgan told reporters, but reading between the lines it was clear that they had nothing, absolutely nothing. They were no closer to solving the case than they had been on the very first day.

  “A constant relentless pursuit of the truth and the person who is responsible for this terrible crime,” Morgan said as he characterized the investigation. “We’re dealing with what appears to be a very organized offender. Organized offenders don’t make a large number of mistakes.”

  And so far it appeared the killer had made few, if any, mistakes, given the fact that he was still a free man. Like the permanent grief etched on Carmon’s and Mollie’s faces, there was a combination of determination and anxiety on Morgan’s face too.

  “It’s just something that you can never put down, and you have to keep working on it out of a sense of duty to the victim and the family,” he said with firm resolution.

  Angel on Tape

  On the second anniversary of Stephanie Bennett’s murder the Raleigh Police Department released a home video of her to the media. The goal of the release was simple—keep the case in the public eye and maybe someone will come forward with information. What better way to do that than by showing a video of the beautiful girl-next-door whose life was tragically snuffed out by a sexual predator? Nothing else had worked; why not try to tug on the heartstrings of the public in an effort to get someone with information to come forward?

  The video aired on every local television station in the Raleigh area. The first clip was labeled “Summer 1996.” It showed Stephanie sitting on the floor in an oversize white T-shirt with her legs crossed. Her hair was up in a short ponytail bound by a blue scrunchie. She was perched over a suitcase folding clothes, either in the act of packing or unpacking.

  In the following clip Stephanie was playing a tune on an electric organ in her father’s den. Her brown shoulder-length hair was down this time, and she wore a white, short-sleeved V-neck sweater, a black skirt with white flowers on it, and sandals. She looked young and carefree as she reluctantly performed for the camera.

  After she finished at the organ, Stephanie stood up in front of the camera nervously clapping and snapping, never making eye contact with the person who was taping her. Finally, she said in a soft voice tinged with a strong southern accent, “Can we go now?”

  The third clip was labeled “Christmas 1996.” In it Stephanie and Dee Powell sat on the couch shoulder to shoulder. Stephanie wore a white turtleneck, a bright green V-neck sweater, and jeans. Her legs were crossed casually and there was a wide grin on her face. Dee was trying to coax Stephanie into looking at the camera. Ever the bashful subject, Stephanie kept turning away. Finally, she looked at the person behind the camera, giggled like the schoolgirl she was, and said in the same syrupy voice from earlier, “You look like Rudolph!”

  “High School Graduation 1997” was the next title on the screen. Stephanie, wearing a red cap with a yellow tassel on it and a gown with a large white collar, made her way across the stage. In this segment of the video Stephanie’s hair was now cut fashionably short in a sophisticated bob. She stood next to her father, Carmon Bennett, in her cap and gown with a smile on her face from ear to ear. It looked like she was probably posing for a still photograph while the video was rolling. Then she stood next to Dee, who also graduated that day, their arms around each other, both proudly holding their diplomas in their free hands.

  The following scene was shot in Carmon’s house after the graduation ceremony. It showed Stephanie looking mature and elegant in a slim black cocktail dress with white trim. She was standing idly at the kitchen counter. It captured one of those awkward moments in home videos in which no one is really doing anything, but the videographer insists on rolling tape until something does happen.

  Someone then asked Stephanie from behind the camera whether she wanted to see the graduation video. In a low, breathy voice she said, “Yeah, I do.”

  Stephanie then joined Dee at the table to read graduation cards. The girls whispered and laughed quietly, sharing confidences as they each separately read through their individual stacks of cards. It was clear from the scene that they had shared a deep bond of friendship well before they ever became stepsisters.

  The final clip was a continuation of the first one on the tape. Stephanie had her hair up, and she was sitting down as the camera moved in for a tight shot on her Noxzema-girl face. This time she was clearly avoiding the camera. Finally, she turned toward the lens and the person behind the camera said something about her hating to have the focus be on her, and just above a whisper Stephanie said, “I do.”

  House of Horrors

  After the home videos, the tape contained video of the crime scene taken by a police officer in Stephanie’s apartment on May 21, 2002, the day her body was found. The two-year-old tape had been in evidence since the very first day, but no one other than investigators had ever seen it before. Once again, while it had little relevance when it came to solving the crime, the goal was to get the public’s attention, and it was hoped, make someone come forward with information.

  The camera started outside the apartment and then went inside and moved down the hallway to Emily Metro’s bedroom. The sight of Stephanie’s body on the floor had been digitally covered, to prevent the disturbing image from being seen on television.

  Raleigh Police Department psychologist Michael Teague said there were things the video didn’t show. He was specifically interested in a framed photograph Emily told police had originally been facing the bedroom door. When Stephanie’s body was found, the frame was on the floor at the edge of the closet facing the wall.

  “There was something about the scene [the killer] liked, something he didn’t like, so he put it in the closet. There was some stuff on the windowsill he put away. Some stuff on the bed he put in the closet. He was a director,” Teague said. “He was staging the scene. He was definitely staging the scene.”

  These details only added to Teague’s firm belief the crime may have been videotaped as it occurred—a theory it should be noted that Detective Copeland never bought into and that Lieutenant Morgan was ambivalent about. But Teague was convinced that the killer had documented his gruesome deeds.

  “As Ted Bundy said, ‘You would never go to all this trouble without taking pictures,’ ” Teague said.

  In the video of Emily’s bedroom a sheer curtain hung from the window. The bed was neatly made, with a patchwork quilt and blanket folded at the foot of the bed. Nothing obvious appeared to be disturbed or out of place. In fact, the room was so neat it was hard to believe a brutal attack had taken place there.

  The videographer then moved across the hallway and zoomed in on Stephanie’s tidy bedroom. The bed covers were meticulously pulled back and folded on the floor at the foot of her bed. A quick scan of the room by the camera revealed the teddy bears on Stephanie’s bureau and the Harry Potter book on the night stand, further reminders that Stephanie was still in limbo between childhood and adulthood.

  The video gave no answers but left the viewer with one overwhelming feeling: Stephanie Bennett didn’t deserve to die.

  Civil Justice

  In the absence of justice in the criminal system, families of murder victims often look for other ways to vindicate their loved ones. Some set up websites and solicit the public to help them solve the case. Others get involved in promoting legislation to change the way our criminal courts work. But the most common catharsis for these families is the wrongful death lawsuit.

  The families can sue the actual suspect, if there is one, even if that person has not been charged. For example, this happened in the O.J. Simpson case when the family of Ron Goldman sued and was awarded damages from Simpson even though the ex-football player was found not guilty in a criminal courtroom.

  But if there is no suspect, families sometimes choose to sue a third party whose negligence may have contributed to their loved one’s death.

  On May 19, 2004, Car
mon Bennett filed a lawsuit against the company that owned and operated the Bridgeport Apartments, Equity Residential, based in Chicago, Illinois. In the lawsuit, Carmon alleged the complex failed to protect his daughter and was therefore negligent in her death. He cited the fact that after the Peeping Tom incident was brought to the apartment management’s attention, they did not notify the residents of the potential danger lurking in their neighborhood. The lawsuit also stated that the situation was further aggravated by the fact there had been multiple crimes reported in the area around the time of the Peeping Tom incident. It alleged these crimes should have made the apartment management more concerned about security. Records showed the police had been called to the area nearly a thousand times in the two and a half years before Stephanie’s murder. Not only did Bridgeport not notify tenants about the Peeping Tom but, the lawsuit said, they took no extra security measures, in light of the peeper incident and other recent crimes, to protect their residents.

  The lawsuit also alleged that high shrubbery and poor lighting around the complex gave the killer an opportunity to watch Stephanie under the cloak of darkness and to break into her apartment without being noticed by neighbors.

  The most specific allegation in the lawsuit involved the window in Emily Metro’s bedroom where Stephanie’s body had been found. Because the maintenance employee of the apartment believed the door was dead-bolted when he opened it, investigators assumed the window was the most logical point of entry for the killer. Carmon Bennett maintained the window was unlocked because the lock was in fact broken and had been broken for some time. The maintenance staff of the apartment complex had been previously notified about the window lock, but in the lawsuit, Carmon said it was never properly fixed.

  Publicly, Carmon Bennett said nothing about the lawsuit. But one didn’t have to be a lawyer to realize he was trying to make damn sure his daughter’s death was not in vain.

  Passing the Torch

  “He had become such a close friend. He had worked so hard on it,” Mollie Hodges said sadly after learning of Chris Morgan’s upcoming retirement. “He’s so concerned.”

  Lieutenant Morgan had vowed to himself and to Stephanie’s parents he would not retire until he got justice for their daughter. But after almost thirty years on the job, the last four years spent doggedly pursuing Ann Miller, who was suspected of poisoning her husband, Morgan was worn out and ready to go. Miller was going to be indicted for murder. Morgan’s work was done on that case until he was called to testify at trial. The Bennett investigation up until this point had gone nowhere, and he knew in his heart it might never be solved, no matter how many years he continued to work on the case. Yet, he had such a close relationship with Carmon, he felt like he had to tell him about his impending retirement in person and try to make the transition as smooth as possible. Morgan felt he owed him that.

  With Detective J. J. Mathews getting ready to make sergeant, Morgan needed to officially assign a new lead detective to the Bennett case before he left so he could make sure it was in good hands. Copeland had already worked on the case extensively, first with the Special Victims Unit, and then as a detective newly assigned to the Major Crimes Task Force. In Morgan’s mind, it was a no-brainer—Copeland was the guy to take the reins. Morgan told Perry he wanted Copeland to take the lead on the case.

  “I told Clem, ‘He’s a garbage man. He’s going to go through every scrap, every piece of crap that we threw away and maybe he’ll find something,’ ” recalled Morgan.

  Morgan said not everyone above him agreed with his choice, but he knew it was the right one, and luckily Perry agreed. After all, it wasn’t the first time higher-ups had questioned Morgan’s judgment.

  To make the handoff go smoothly, Morgan decided it was time to introduce Carmon Bennett to the team that would be handling the case when he retired. Carmon was not a man who easily trusted people, and Morgan needed to make sure he was going to be comfortable dealing with new investigators. Even though many other detectives had worked on the case all along, Morgan, as the leader of the Major Crimes Task Force, had always been Carmon’s point person.

  In June 2004, Lieutenant Morgan took Perry and Copeland with him up to Carmon and Jennifer Bennett’s house in Rocky Mount. Above all else, Morgan wanted the Bennett family to know they would not be forgotten just because he was retiring. Morgan felt it was his responsibility to make sure Carmon had confidence in Perry and Copeland, if the grieving father was going to continue having a good relationship with the Raleigh Police Department.

  Carmon had gotten so used to dealing with Morgan it was hard for him to imagine himself working with other detectives. Morgan was the guy he could call at 3:00 in the morning when he couldn’t sleep just to talk about the case.

  When they came through the door of the Bennett home, Carmon immediately made it clear that he remembered Perry from the day Stephanie’s body was found. Perry was the one who had initially approached Carmon at the crime scene and kept him at bay until Morgan could speak to him directly. Perry wasn’t sure if that memory would bode well for him. He represented Carmon’s first contact with the police the night he found out his daughter was dead. He was nervous that Carmon would hold it against him and not give him a chance.

  During the meeting in Virginia, Carmon pulled Morgan aside and asked him if the fresh-faced young cops were really old enough to be detectives. Morgan assured Carmon not only were they old enough but they were good, and they would take care of his family and the case.

  “Clem is one of the most brilliant, effective detectives you could ever hope to have working on your case, and Copeland is too,” Morgan told Stephanie’s father.

  Later, Morgan would look back on the decision to leave the Bennett case in the hands of these capable detectives as one of the best moves he ever made. As it turned out, he was right.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Finding the Needle

  February 2005

  No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

  —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

  The six people named in former detective Sandy Culpepper’s file turned out to be just the leads Detectives Ken Copeland and Jackie Taylor were looking for. The witnesses all had one thing in common: they had seen the Peeping Tom. After years of the investigation gravitating away from the theory of the Peeping Tom as the logical suspect, it was once again slowly moving back in that direction.

  The detectives interviewed the six people, and those people gave them the names of other potential witnesses who might have also seen the peeper. Quickly, they started to develop a clearer picture of the suspect.

  Psychologist Michael Teague admitted he too had moved away from the Peeping Tom theory. He had been convinced the killer was someone with military experience and maybe someone who didn’t necessarily live in the area, but perhaps only traveled through. Teague felt that the killer’s talented use of restraints and the way he was able to subdue his victim quickly without causing her more injuries might point to a military background. Also, because the killer had been so elusive, Teague thought maybe he was someone who had been deployed for periods of time during which he could not offend. Clearly, the Peeping Tom was more likely to be someone local. After Taylor and Copeland got on the case and started rethinking this angle, Teague did as well.

  “Not all peepers rape, but just about all stranger rapists do peep,” said Teague in hindsight.

  The most defining interview, as it related to the theory that the killer could be the Peeping Tom, was with a Czechoslovakian man named Blaze Szalay who also lived in the Bridgeport Apartments. In an early interview with police, Szalay told investigators he had seen the Peeping Tom crouched down near Stephanie’s window just a few weeks before she was killed. It happened early one morning while Szalay was walking his dog. The initial description he’d given investigators was very general, not enough for them to go on. But when Copeland called Szalay back three years later, he was able to get more information out of the man w
ith a little creative probing.

  “I asked him if he remembered the case. I asked him if he remembered seeing the Peeping Tom. He said, ‘Yes, like it was yesterday,’ ” Copeland remembered, recalling his excitement that they were finally onto something.

  Szalay described a dark figure, a tall skinny man, looking into Stephanie’s bedroom window on the end of the building. Szalay told Copeland that when the man saw him, the peeper then retreated out of the shadows and slid down the side of the building in an effort to sneak away quickly without being seen up close.

  Szalay told Copeland he was curious as to what the man was doing, so he followed him around to the front of the building where he spotted him again. With a little light on him this time, Szalay got a better look. He said the man was wearing a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt.

  Szalay then told Copeland he had seen the man again. It was a few days later, and he saw the same man he believed to be the Peeping Tom walking a big brown or black dog, possibly a rottweiler, through the apartment complex parking lot.

  “I told my wife, you see that guy right there? He’s bad news, look out for him,” Szalay told Copeland.

  Szalay also told Copeland that the man walked back through the woods toward the neighboring Dominion Apartments. Originally, everyone had assumed the killer had come from the trail around Lake Lynn—but now they had a new lead. The Dominion Apartments were just fifty yards through the woods from Stephanie’s front door. This was consistent with what the other people who had seen the Peeping Tom had said—that he was either walking toward Dominion, or actually on the Dominion property. To get back to the lake, the man would have gone in a completely different direction, through the Bridgeport parking lot which bordered the path along the water.