Evil Next Door

by Amanda Lamb

  Major Dennis Lane, the supervisor in charge of all of the detectives in the Raleigh Police Department, then took the podium, with an expression of pride not unlike Chief Perlov’s.

  Lane wasn’t one to show much emotion. His neatly parted hair and Inspector Clouseau mustache screamed serious cop, but on this day he lauded his detectives and the incredible job they had done.

  “It’s a very rewarding feeling to solve a case this old, I can tell you that,” said Lane with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. “This is where the old-fashioned police work meets new police work. This is where the shoe leather pays off, and the DNA pays off,” he said. “It’s a meeting of both worlds.”

  Inside, Lane was bursting. He could barely contain his excitement. The case had gone on for so long, and while they had never given up on finding the killer, there were days it had felt unsolvable. At the podium, Lane kept his feelings in check, but years later he admitted his real feelings from that day.

  “Thrilled is probably an understatement. It’s probably one of the best feelings I ever had when I was on the police department,” Lane said without reservation. “Drew Planten was a conniving, sneaky predator who scouted and picked out people and was going to do what he was going to do,” he added with disgust. “Once he identified who his target was going to be, he would get to that target one way or another.”

  But at the podium on the day of the press conference, Lane didn’t get into his emotions about the case. He skirted the details saying he didn’t want to compromise the integrity of the investigation by revealing too much at this early stage while preparing the case for trial. He also pointed out that the investigation was continuing, and the police still needed the public’s help with information, specifically information about Planten.

  “We are looking at any other unsolved crimes in our jurisdiction and other jurisdictions,” Lane said.

  Detectives Taylor and Copeland, who had spent most of their careers behind the scenes in the police department, were suddenly touted publicly as heroes who had solved the case with their relentless perseverance. After the press conference ended, the cameras surrounded them like a tornado and microphones were shoved in their faces from every direction. The investigators had dressed up for the occasion—Copeland in a tan blazer with an olive shirt and a beige and burgundy speckled tie, Taylor in a navy blue blazer and a blue and white paisley shirt buttoned up to her neck. They seemed as though they had properly prepared for the media circus that was suddenly being thrust on them. As bright lights shone in their faces, and reporters rapidly fired questions at them, they stood side by side and answered confidently. The first question was whether they thought their “old-fashioned police work” paid off.

  “It is the best way in the world to do police work,” Copeland said with a grin.

  “It’s the only way,” Taylor chimed in off-camera, finishing his sentence, as she was prone to do.

  “There’s a lot of paperwork, but if you don’t knock on people’s doors and talk to people, you’ll never get what you need, and that’s what you have to do,” Copeland said.

  “Exactly,” Taylor said, punctuating the end of her partner’s sentence with a smile.

  Copeland thanked all of the other investigators who’d worked so hard on the case before he inherited it. He thanked his family and Taylor’s family for their support throughout the long and arduous investigation during which the detectives spent many hours away from home. He also thanked the Bennett family for their unlimited patience. Reporters then asked Copeland how Stephanie’s loved ones were reacting to the arrest.

  “They’re very emotional. They’re very happy, and there’s no way I can say I know how they feel, because I can’t,” Copeland said sincerely.

  Family Reax

  In television news there is always the primary story that is referred to as the “nuts-and-bolts,” and then there are sidebars that are additional stories related to the main story. The bigger the story, the more sidebars there will be. One predictable sidebar to an arrest in a murder case is always getting reaction from the victim’s family which in the television news business is slugged “reax.”

  Reporter Melissa Buscher of WRAL was a veteran, straightforward, responsible reporter whose innate nurturing instinct would strike just the right tone with Stephanie Bennett’s family. So, while the press conference was going on, Buscher headed up to Virginia to get reaction from Stephanie’s father, Carmon Bennett, and her stepmother, Jennifer.

  Unlike other marriages that had buckled under the weight of grief, it appeared that Carmon and Jennifer’s bond had only gotten stronger as Jennifer supported her husband through this unimaginable tragedy. Their collective strength was evident the day they spoke to Buscher about Planten’s arrest.

  “Shock, quite a shock, we had no idea that they were this close to solving this thing,” Carmon said as he sat on the bench on his front porch in front of the camera. He was shoulder to shoulder with his wife. “We knew they’d been working very hard on it.”

  “I just started crying,” Jennifer said of receiving the phone call from Sergeant Clem Perry regarding Drew Planten’s arrest. “I just wasn’t believing what I was hearing.”

  Investigators had tried to keep Carmon and Jennifer in the loop over the previous weeks, but they were also mindful not to give them too much information. The last thing Perry wanted to do was get this man’s hopes up only to have them dashed again if Planten had not been a match. They also didn’t want to blow the case by possibly allowing the information to leak out and somehow tip Planten off they were onto him.

  The couple had tried to have hope over the past three years, but their resolve was wearing thin, and there were many times they considered the fact that the case might never be solved.

  “We were up and down and just a couple months ago we said, you know, I bet they never find this person, and then we’d tell ourselves we can’t think like that, we’ve got to think positive,” said Jennifer as tears rolled down her face, and she held on tightly to Carmon’s arm.

  Inside the house, Carmon allowed the photographer to take a shot of Stephanie’s old bedroom which had basically been left untouched since her death. It was not uncommon for the parents of children who died to leave their rooms just as they had been at the time of their death. It had become a sacred space to them. Stephanie’s bedroom was decorated in a typical frilly girl style with a blue and white gingham spread on the bed and teddy bears adorning every available space. There were also mementos, details of the life lost—for example, a prized diploma from Roanoke College and a poster full of pictures of Stephanie and her friends with the words “We love you Steph” written in the middle.

  Carmon and Jennifer marveled at how they were able to get through the agonizing three and a half years while there seemed to be very little hope of resolution. They concluded it was Stephanie herself who’d made their unlikely optimism possible. Not a day went by when Carmon didn’t think of his only daughter and the joy she had brought into his life.

  “Someone just last week said, ‘Did she ever not smile?’ She always smiled. She had a smile on her face continuously. Didn’t have any enemies in the world,” Carmon said with tears in his eyes. “I think she would be happy to know he’s been caught. Stephanie was a wonderful person and a very strong young lady, and a lot of our strength comes from Stephanie.”

  The investigators had told Carmon and Jennifer a little bit about Planten, but the couple still had many questions. Carmon was more sure now than ever that the killer had stalked Stephanie and waited for the right time to attack. He hoped the court process would allow him to finally get the answers he had been seeking since his daughter’s death.

  By accident, Jennifer had seen a picture of Planten online when she was searching the Web for information on the arrest. She hadn’t meant to look at it, not yet, but she couldn’t help herself. There was a part of her that desperately needed to know who this person was so she could begin to understand what had happened to her fami
ly.

  “A lot of anger,” Jennifer said of seeing Planten’s photograph. “I’m just dwelling on thinking of him sitting down there. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  “It’s just takes you back to day one,” Carmon piped in.

  “Why? I don’t understand,” Jennifer said, her voice cracking as she continuously wiped tears from her eyes.

  Jennifer’s daughter, Stephanie’s roommate and stepsister, Deanna Powell, was also at Carmon’s house that day. Dee wore a simple black T-shirt and had heavy bags under her eyes as though she had been up crying all night long since news of the arrest.

  “It’s somewhat of a relief. I have a little bit more faith in the police, but still, it’s really hard. Brings up a lot of things that I hadn’t dealt with in a long time,” Dee said swallowing audibly. “I’m disgusted, sick, it’s hard.”

  Dee said she was sure that Planten was not someone she or Stephanie ever knew, that the crime was completely random. As Carmon believed, Dee surmised Planten had been stalking Stephanie and had waited for the right opportunity to strike.

  “I’m angry at him. I keep thinking about [how he’s lived free] for the last three years. He just gets up and drives to work every day,” said Dee incredulously.

  In the front window of the Bennetts’ home was a single electric candle, the kind often seen in windows at Christmas. Carmon explained that Christmas had been Stephanie’s absolute favorite time of the year. After her death, he just didn’t have the energy or enthusiasm to decorate the house with lights anymore. He had decided that instead, a single candle would burn in their window year-round in honor of Stephanie’s memory. In an ironic way, it would be a solemn reminder of the light that was so tragically snuffed out.

  “The candle in the window says it all,” Carmon said in a weary voice.

  Bittersweet Justice

  Investigator Chris Morgan hadn’t been invited to the press conference at the Raleigh Police Department, but this didn’t keep the media from wanting his input. The cameras found him out at the State Fairgrounds where he was supervising the security detail.

  He had been working at the State Fair on the day Drew Planten was arrested. He knew something was up when Copeland, who was supposed to be working for Morgan as a security officer, got called into work at the police department and had to bow out of his duties at the fairgrounds. A little while later, Morgan got a call from a friend of his on the force telling him that the case had been solved.

  “For two-and-a-half years I had tried everything in my bag of tricks,” Morgan said bitterly, “but I couldn’t find this son-of-a-bitch no matter what I tried.” He added, “I was happy they had done better than I could do.”

  Morgan wanted nothing more than to see justice done for Stephanie Bennett, but at the same time, he had always hoped he would be the one to find justice for her. When he retired, leaving the case unsolved, it continued to eat away at him and often kept him from sleeping at night. He counted it among his failures as a detective. But on this day, under the clear blue October skies of the North Carolina Indian summer, Morgan finally made peace with the positive resolution, whether it came with or without his help.

  Later that night, Carmon Bennett called Morgan and thanked him for all of the hard work he had done on the case despite the fact he had not actually solved it. Mostly, he thanked Morgan for his compassion and his friendship throughout the investigation.

  Morgan said Detective Copeland also called him the next day and thanked him for giving him the opportunity to work on the case. Copeland acknowledged that he knew others above Morgan’s head had been skeptical of Morgan’s decision to put the case in his hands, and Copeland appreciated the fact that the retired investigator had had enough faith in him to ignore the naysayers.

  “It’s a good day. It’s a very good day,” Morgan said. “This is maybe the day when some things start to heal. There are some things that never will, but maybe this is the beginning.”

  Morgan said when he spoke to Carmon the previous evening it made him reflect on the first conversation he had had with him on May 21, 2002, the day they found Stephanie’s body in her apartment.

  “This was a much better conversation,” Morgan said with a chuckle. “We knew that there was a monster out there. I always felt like if we didn’t get him sooner or later, he’d do it again. There’s a sense of relief.”

  Morgan said the case was never really cold; the work never stopped. He gave all of the credit to the detectives who solved it—Jackie Taylor and Ken Copeland—saying they were the real heroes. They put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured out who killed Stephanie. He was just a bit player in their magnificent triumph.

  “They just busted their humps on this case from day one and never gave up, never put it down, never let it go,” Morgan said shaking his head.

  Morgan knew one thing for sure—Planten’s arrest gave him back something he had lost for several years.

  “I slept a lot better than I have in the past three and a half,” he said with a grin, referring to the night of the arrest.

  And it was true that Chris Morgan did look well rested for a change.

  Courtroom Drama

  Shortly after the press conference at the police department ended, Drew Planten was scheduled to have his first court appearance. He had been in jail just about fifteen hours, but his physical appearance had already changed drastically. When Planten was brought into the Wake County District Court at 2:00 P.M. on Wednesday, October 20, 2005, he looked like something out of a freak show. He had refused to talk, walk, or eat since arriving at the Wake County Jail the previous evening. Deputies wheeled him into court strapped to a wheelchair. His head hung limp like a rag doll, though partially supported by a brace attached to the back of the chair so he wouldn’t completely fall over. His forearms were tethered to the arms of the wheelchair with plastic cuffs. His legs were tied to the foot-rest of the wheelchair. Wake County District Court Judge Anne Salisbury was told by Assistant District Attorney Susan Spurlin that Planten was being handled this way because he appeared to be in a “catatonic state.”

  Judge Salisbury watched the drama unfold as Planten, surrounded by multiple deputies and jail administrators, was wheeled directly in front of her bench. Salisbury, with her short brown curly hair, glasses, and powerful voice, always commanded authority in her courtroom. On this day, she had the determined expression of someone who was seeing something disturbing, but had decided not to publicly acknowledge the horror of it.

  “Mr. Planten, you are here today charged with first degree murder. I’m appointing you counsel to represent you in this matter,” Salisbury said from the bench with complete professional detachment from the bizarre circumstances. The formality of the court’s rigid procedures juxtaposed against Planten’s crazy appearance that no one was acknowledging made it look all the more ridiculous. Yet, somehow the formality of the courtroom transformed the weird moment into something that approached normalcy.

  “I’m not sure his physical condition is such that he can fill out that information,” the judge said referring to the paperwork that would declare that he didn’t have enough money to pay an attorney and was in need of a public defender. This statement was the judge’s only public acknowledgment of Planten’s strange appearance. “Out of an abundance of caution for the moment, I’m going to find that he is indigent.”

  Even though it was obvious he was not going to respond to her, Salisbury ended the brief court appearance with a direct statement to Planten. “Thank you, Mr. Planten, I understand you have an appointment you need to make,” the judge said in closing, as though speaking to a totally coherent individual.

  The appointment in question was Planten’s move from the Wake County Jail to North Carolina’s maximum security facility, Central Prison, just down the road. Central Prison had a hospital where Planten could receive medical care unavailable at the local jail. Central Prison was also the home of the state’s death row and housed a majority of the first-degree
murderers in North Carolina who were serving life sentences. Planten was preemptively being moved to the place where he would most likely spend the rest of his life if he was convicted of Stephanie Bennett’s murder.

  The ultimate decision to move him came from Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison, who was in charge of the local jail. Harrison said his officers simply could not handle someone in Planten’s state, someone who would not eat or care for himself.

  When Harrison talked to the media in the hallway after the court appearance, he scoffed at the suggestion that Planten was actually catatonic. In his opinion, Planten’s bizarre behavior was all just a well-rehearsed act.

  “You’ve got to remember, for three years he’s walked around. All of a sudden when he gets arrested, he’s in this state, so you figure that out for yourself,” Harrison said through gritted teeth, in his strong southern drawl. “But he’s been this way since he’s been in our custody. [Although] he has gotten up and used the bathroom, so like I said, you can read between those lines.”

  Harrison said his officers had had no choice but to bring Planten into the courtroom the way they did, tethered to the wheelchair. By law, everyone who is arrested in North Carolina must have a first court appearance within the next business day.

  “That was because he didn’t want to get up on his own,” Harrison said without apology. “He would not pay us any mind, so we just put him in the chair.”

  Harrison also confirmed that Planten had been on suicide watch at the Wake County Jail given both the severity of the crime he was charged with, and also the unusual way in which he was acting.

  Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby also showed up for Planten’s first court appearance. He had been overseeing the case, as he did all high-profile cases, even though it was officially assigned to one of his most experienced prosecutors Susan Spurlin. While Willoughby let his assistant district attorneys handle their own cases independently, he was always in the loop about what was going on and was always available to assist them when they needed him.