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Download the Amazon Music app today. On April 26, 2002, a man was walking towards his apartment complex in Raleigh, North Carolina, when he noticed something moving around in the bushes.
The man stopped and looked closer, and to his horror, he saw a peeping Tom.
A person was literally standing there in the bushes with their face up against the glass, looking in the window of this young girl's bedroom.
And so the man who saw this immediately yelled aggressively at the peeping Tom, which sent the peeping Tom running for their life.
When word spread about this incident, residents of the complex were hopeful that the Peeping Tom was so scared from getting caught that they would never do it again.
But unfortunately, they would be wrong. Because that Peeping Tom was not just being creepy.
They were also planning something. Something evil.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
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Okay, let's get into today's story. If you're anything like me, you love a good story that has twists and turns and moments that make you stop and think like, how is the story even real?
That's why I want to recommend the podcast Crime Junkie.
Every week, amazing host Ashley Flowers unravels stories about missing people, murders, and mysterious deaths.
These strange, dark, and mysterious cases range from stories ripped straight from the headlines to cases you really won't hear anywhere else.
It's binge-worthy, true crime storytelling that is thoughtful, well-researched, and always leaves you wanting more.
Discover why Crime Junkie has such a loyal community and dive into your next mystery today.
Search for Crime Junkie wherever you're listening right now.
On April 26, 2002, 23-year-old Stephanie Bennett parked her car outside of her apartment complex in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Stephanie was worn out from a long week at work, and so she was looking forward to relaxing and spending time with her friends over this weekend.
She grabbed her purse off the passenger seat, got out of her car, and began walking towards her apartment.
Stephanie was dressed in business casual work clothes.
She had shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes, and a huge smile.
Stephanie's friends said she looked like she could play the perfect girl next door on a TV show.
It was a beautiful spring evening in Raleigh, about 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and Stephanie saw a bunch of people out by the lake that was only about 100 yards from her apartment building.
Stephanie just continued walking towards the lake, and as she did, she saw all these people out having fun and walking around and jogging with their dogs.
Most of the people were Stephanie's neighbors, or they lived in the apartments just on the other side of the woods that were next to her apartment complex.
And while Stephanie loved seeing all the familiar faces out there by the lake, who she really liked seeing were all the dogs.
And that evening, Stephanie saw a dog she thought looked particularly happy, a big black and brown Rottweiler trotting in front of its owner with its tongue hanging out of its mouth.
Stephanie smiled wide and walked over to the owner and the dog, and she leaned down and said hello to the dog.
Then after that, she said hello to a couple of her neighbors who were nearby, and then finally she just turned and headed towards her first floor apartment.
Stephanie stepped inside and found her two roommates waiting for her on the couch.
The three women had been friends for years, and they still spent as much time together as they could, even though their lives had gotten really busy with work and with boyfriends.
Stephanie told her roommates she'd be back in a couple of minutes, and then she went to her bedroom.
There, she changed out of her work clothes and put on a T-shirt and jeans.
It was Friday, but she and her roommates did not have any big plans.
They were just gonna hang out at home together.
After getting changed, Stephanie grabbed the cordless phone off her bedside table, and she called her boyfriend, Walter Robinson.
Walter and Stephanie had been together for four years, and they were planning on getting married someday.
Walter had even bought Stephanie a promise ring, which is a piece of jewelry that typically precedes an engagement ring.
Walter picked up the phone on the other end and he and Stephanie talked about how their days had gone.
Stephanie's face lit up whenever she talked to Walter and she was always happiest when she was with him.
But at the time, they couldn't really be together nearly as much as they wanted to because Walter had moved to South Carolina for grad school.
They were only about a four-hour drive from each other and they would go back and forth to see each other all the time.
But that wasn't enough for Stephanie. She wanted to live with Walter and be with him all the time.
So recently, she had made the decision to move to South Carolina as well, and she and Walter had already begun looking for an apartment they could share.
On the phone, Stephanie told Walter how much she missed him, and he reminded her that she would be in South Carolina before she knew it, and everything would be perfect.
Stephanie told Walter that she loved him and then hung up the phone.
She was a bit sad when she had to say goodbye, but her roommates were waiting for her in the living room, and they could always cheer her up.
That night, Stephanie and her roommates ate dinner, they watched TV, and basically just made each other laugh for hours.
Stephanie knew her friends were going to miss her when she moved to South Carolina, but they were also really excited that she was about to take this next big step in her life.
A few hours later, Stephanie and her roommates were still sitting in the living room when there was a knock at the door.
They weren't expecting anyone, but they lived in the type of apartment complex where neighbors would sometimes drop by to borrow things like sugar or laundry detergent.
So Stephanie got off the couch and walked over to the door and opened it up.
And standing on the other side was one of her neighbors, a middle-aged guy she knew pretty well, and he looked very shaken.
Stephanie's roommates joined Stephanie at the door to see what was going on.
Stephanie asked the neighbor if everything was okay, and the man just shook his head and said no.
He said he had been walking by outside when he saw something moving in their bushes.
It was dark out and the lights at the apartment were not very bright, so at first he thought it might just be an animal.
But as he got closer, he said he saw a man in a hooded sweatshirt and that the man's face was pressed up against Stephanie's bedroom window.
When the neighbor had called out to him, this peeping Tom had run off, so the neighbor didn't get a good look at him.
When Stephanie heard this, she felt a chill run down her spine.
Earlier that night, she'd been in her room taking off her work clothes, and she pictured this guy in this hooded sweatshirt just standing there watching her.
The neighbor told them he had reported the incident to the apartment manager, but he said Stephanie and her roommates really needed to be extra careful to always lock their doors and keep their blinds closed.
They thanked the neighbor for letting them know, and then as soon as he left, Stephanie shut and locked the door.
Then the three roommates just stood there in the living room, kind of stunned by what they had just learned.
They knew their apartments were not the nicest place to live or anything, but they'd always felt safe here.
Now they had to worry about some pervert peeking into their windows and trying to watch them undress.
A few minutes later, Stephanie went back into her bedroom.
Immediately, she adjusted the blinds on the window so nobody would be able to look in from the outside.
Then, she thought about maybe telling her boyfriend, Walter, or her dad about what had just happened.
She knew they both prided themselves on being strong southern gentlemen who protected women, but in this case, Stephanie felt like there really wasn't anything either of them could do.
The incident had already been reported, and knowing about it would just make her father and Walter angry and upset.
And so Stephanie told herself everything would be fine, and in just a couple of months, she'd be long gone to South Carolina, far away from this apartment and the creep who tried to spy on her.
On May 20th, 2002, so almost a month after the Peeping Tom incident, Stephanie was getting back home from work again.
She got out of her car and she saw people walking around the lake like usual, but this night she didn't stop to talk to any dogs or any of her neighbors.
Instead, she went straight to her apartment.
The truth was, Stephanie had been feeling anxious and upset all day.
The weekend before, she had gone to South Carolina to see her boyfriend, Walter, and it was the happiest she had been in weeks because they had found the perfect apartment.
But when it was time for her to drive back home, Stephanie had broken down in tears and told Walter that she just wanted to stay with him.
She didn't want to leave. He said he felt the same way, but he reminded her that she'd be back here for good in only a month and that the time between now and then would fly by.
Stephanie knew he was right, but she still felt like every day she spent in Raleigh was a day she wasn't as happy as she could be.
And so Stephanie walked into her apartment and quickly closed and locked the door behind her.
And right away, she had to admit to herself that there was actually another reason she was feeling so anxious.
Both of her roommates were out of town. And since she'd learned about the Peeping Tom a month earlier, she had hated being alone in this apartment.
Without her roommates there, the place just felt empty.
It felt too quiet. So Stephanie turned on the TV just for some background noise, then she made herself dinner, sat down on the couch, and watched TV while she ate.
At about 8pm, so a couple of hours after she'd gotten home, Stephanie called Walter from the living room, and they talked about all the things they were going to put in their new apartment to make it really feel like home.
Talking to Walter definitely cheered Stephanie up, but she was still dreading sleeping in her apartment by herself.
So after she hung up with her boyfriend, Stephanie made herself a cup of tea, which she'd always been told was good to calm the nerves.
She took her tea into the bedroom, but left her bedroom door open a crack.
She just wanted to make sure she could hear any noises coming from other parts of her apartment.
Stephanie then put her cup of tea down on the bedside table and then glanced over at the window to make sure the blinds were still closed.
When she saw they were, she felt comfortable, so she got undressed, put on a nightgown, and climbed into bed.
Then she reached over and took a sip of her tea, and then picked up a book and read for a bit.
After finally feeling relaxed, Stephanie put the book down, flipped off the light, and began to fall asleep.
The following afternoon, Stephanie's boyfriend, Walter, came out of one of his grad school classes and immediately began scrolling through his contact list on his phone.
Walter and Stephanie talked almost every morning before she went to work and he went to class.
But that morning, Stephanie had not answered her phone when he called.
Walter hadn't thought much about it. There was a chance that maybe Stephanie had been getting ready for work or that she'd gone in early.
But Walter had tried calling a few more times since then and he had sent Stephanie a couple of emails, but he still hadn't heard back.
Walter was getting worried. It was just weird for Stephanie not to respond to him at all.
After scrolling for a minute, Walter finally found the number for one of Stephanie's roommates on his phone.
Then he walked out of the building and called the friend while he headed to his car.
Walter told the roommate what was going on, and the roommate said that Stephanie hadn't answered her phone when she called either, and so the roommate said that she was worried too.
She told Walter she was out of town right now, but she'd call their apartment manager, and the manager could at least go by their place to just see if Stephanie was at home.
Walter thanked the roommate and then tried to convince himself that everything was going to be okay.
At 3.30 p.m., the apartment manager approached Stephanie's door.
Stephanie's roommate had given the apartment manager permission to unlock the apartment and go inside.
And so after knocking and not getting an answer, the apartment manager pulled out a key and opened up the door and walked into the living room. and right away, nothing looked out of the ordinary.
So she called out to see if anybody was home, but the place was silent.
So the manager walked into the hallway that led to each of the three bedrooms.
Stephanie's bedroom door was closed, but the door across the hall was open just a crack.
So the manager walked down the hallway and looked through that crack into that room, and what she saw caused her to turn and run down the hall screaming.
And then once she got outside, she frantically pulled out her phone and called 911.
About 10 minutes after that 911 call, Lieutenant Chris Morgan, head of the Violent Crimes Task Force in Raleigh, put on his white fedora hat and walked out of his office.
Lieutenant Morgan was a big guy, and he seemed even bigger when he spoke in his booming southern drawl.
But it was really that white fedora with its soft brim and indented crown that made people always notice him wherever he went.
In truth, Morgan had begun wearing the hat when he was a young investigator because he liked how it looked.
It was a throwback to lawmen from an earlier time.
But Morgan had proven to be a highly skilled detective, and the more crimes he solved, the more attached he became to this white hat.
Over time, Morgan had started to see the hat as some kind of a magical charm that helped him close case after case.
A little before 4pm, Morgan arrived at Stephanie's apartment.
Other officers and crime scene analysts were already hard at work.
One of the officers greeted the lieutenant and then quickly ushered him down the hallway to one of the bedrooms.
Morgan stepped inside the bedroom and looked down at the floor.
Right away, he took off his fedora and stood there respectfully for a full minute, not moving or talking.
Everyone who worked with Morgan knew that his big outward persona was actually just a small part of who he was.
Inside, Morgan was a highly empathetic person and it was his empathy that really made him such a great cop.
He had worked violent crimes for years, but he still felt heartbroken every time he saw a victim.
Violent crimes were an attack on his community and a robbery of everything the victim would have experienced in their life.
After his moment of silence was over, Morgan put his hat back on and crouched down to the floor.
He was looking at one of the most gruesome crime scenes he'd ever witnessed.
The young woman lying there had already been identified as Stephanie Bennett, and Stephanie was lying on her back, naked, with her arms and legs stretched out to the sides.
There were ligature marks on her wrists and ankles from where she had clearly been tied up.
There was a dark purple mark around her neck, and there was a pair of blue women's underwear stuffed inside of her mouth.
Lieutenant Morgan was sure the mark on Stephanie's neck meant she had been strangled to death, but Morgan just couldn't get over how pronounced that mark on her neck was.
Whoever had done this to Stephanie had inflicted as much pain on her as they possibly could.
Then Lieutenant Morgan called over one of the crime scene analysts.
He wanted confirmation of something he already knew to be true.
He told the analyst he believed there were clear signs of sexual assault and the analyst agreed.
Morgan stood up. He felt angry and sick.
But he knew that in the case of sexual assault, there would be DNA samples from the attacker on the victim's body.
And that was evidence Morgan could use to catch the person who did this.
Looking around the room, Morgan saw that the window was closed, but the window screen had been removed.
He thought there was a chance that that window was how the killer had entered the apartment.
But Morgan also noticed several photos on the wall in this room that were of a young woman who was not Stephanie, so he assumed that this was actually not Stephanie's bedroom.
So Lieutenant Morgan walked to the bedroom across the hall, and right away he saw pictures of Stephanie and her friends and family in there, so he knew this was her room.
And so for some reason, the killer had carried out their attack on Stephanie in her roommate's bedroom.
Morgan thought, you know, perhaps the killer just wanted to stay close to their exit route, which would be through the roommate's window.
Morgan walked around Stephanie's bedroom, and the way it was decorated really hit him hard.
There were stuffed animals on the bed and Harry Potter books on the shelves.
All he could think was that Stephanie was barely older than a kid, and some horrible person had crept in here and taken everything from her.
Morgan also started thinking about all the apartment complexes near the lake.
They were home to a lot of other young women like Stephanie, so Morgan really had to act fast to make sure this did not happen to anyone else.
At 9am the following morning, Lieutenant Morgan and his investigative team were back at Stephanie's apartment complex.
They had only wrapped up their initial search a few hours earlier, so most of them had barely slept.
But nobody would know that from looking at Morgan.
He was full of energy when he walked around the complex to meet up with Stephanie's neighbors.
He wanted to know if anybody had seen or heard something on the night of the murder.
But nobody had noticed anything strange.
In fact, it had been so quiet that the neighbors who shared a wall with Stephanie's bedroom said they hadn't heard any noise at all.
Morgan had his team collect information on everybody they could find at the apartment complex.
But because of the nature of the crime, the sexual assault and very violent murder, he figured they were looking for a man.
Normally, Morgan's first suspect would have been Stephanie's boyfriend, Walter, because in the United States, almost 35% of female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner.
But the night before, Morgan had contacted Walter in South Carolina, and the young man had completely broken down on the phone when he heard about what happened to his girlfriend, and Morgan's team was quickly able to locate multiple witnesses who had been with Walter at the time of the murder.
So Morgan turned his attention to the men in Stephanie's apartment complex, and he found that almost every man his team spoke to was willing to provide DNA samples.
In fact, just about everybody who had known Stephanie, even if they had barely known her, told police they would do whatever it took to help police find her killer.
They just kept saying how kind Stephanie had been to everyone, that this just didn't make any sense.
While members of Morgan's team collected DNA samples from Stephanie's male neighbors, Morgan met with residents who had not been home when police first arrived.
And Morgan pretty quickly found someone who had information that could help.
It was the neighbor who had warned Stephanie and her roommates about the peeping Tom a month earlier.
The neighbor recounted his story about seeing the peeping Tom, but as hard as he tried, he really could not give Morgan much of a description.
Then, Morgan spoke to another resident, a man with a very heavy Czech accent, who claimed to have also seen the peeping Tom.
But, just like Stephanie's neighbor, the guy with the heavy Czech accent really did not get a good look at him.
He just said the guy at Stephanie's window appeared to be white, so Caucasian, he was pretty big, and he appeared to have short hair.
Morgan thanked both of the men for their help, because even without a detailed description from either one of them, they had actually given investigators a major lead here.
And Morgan thought the killer could have been spying on Stephanie through her window for weeks or months, picturing her as their victim and devising their plan.
So Morgan rounded up his team and told them to start looking for anyone who might fit the limited description they had of this peeping Tom.
Then Morgan returned to Stephanie's apartment to see if maybe there was anything he might have missed.
But what Morgan didn't know was someone was watching him while he was doing this.
They were hidden in the shadows of the parking lot and they could see everything that was going on.
After speaking to Stephanie's neighbors, Lieutenant Morgan had focused his investigation on finding this peeping Tom.
But so far, police had come up empty in their search.
Lieutenant Morgan encouraged his team to please remain patient because he believed the peeping Tom would slip up and they would eventually get him.
Because Morgan was convinced this peeping Tom would not just stop with Stephanie, they would start looking for another victim.
So, Morgan had made sure to have officers on site at Stephanie's apartment complex and the other complexes nearby in case this peeping Tom started looking in other windows.
On the night of June 3rd, so roughly two weeks after Stephanie was murdered, a young police officer was walking the grounds of one of the apartment complexes near Stephanie's.
And suddenly this officer heard something coming from the bushes a few yards away.
The officer quickly crouched down behind a nearby wall so he'd be out of sight.
And then the officer craned his neck around that wall and he focused on the bushes.
And there he saw a man standing in them, looking through an apartment window.
The young officer saw this man, this peeping Tom, lean his face right up against the glass.
And then he also saw this peeping Tom undo his belt and then reach into his pants.
The moment this happened, the young officer radioed for help and then got out from behind that wall and began sprinting towards the sky in the bushes.
The Peeping Tom heard the officer, turned, and started to run.
The young officer sprinted after him, but the Peeping Tom was fast.
However, just then, two more officers came running out of the darkness from the other direction, and they leapt at this man and tackled him to the ground.
The Peeping Tom tried to break free, but the officers kept him pinned down and got him handcuffed.
The young officer who originally spotted the Peeping Tom eventually joined the other two officers totally out of breath, and then he called into the station and told Lieutenant Morgan they had finally caught the Peeping Tom.
And as the officers led the Peeping Tom to a police cruiser, they had no idea there was somebody else nearby watching their every move.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
Listen now on the Medical Mysteries or Redacted feeds or search A Redacted Medical Mystery wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, it's Mr. Balan. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time, my show, Mr. Balan's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
To listen and uncover the truth alongside us, head to either the Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries or Redacted show pages right now.
Or search for A Redacted Medical Mystery in the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're fascinated by unexplained medical stories, well, stick around on Medical Mysteries.
Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
And if government conspiracies are more your style, Redacted is your go-to for stories that unravel secrets never meant to see the light of day.
Remember, you can listen to both shows early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus.
Ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime.
To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to amazon.com slash ballin.
That's amazon.com slash b-a-l-l-e-n. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today.
Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, Redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light, and it's called Lawless Planet.
Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger. the systematic destruction of our planet.
From activists who vanish in the Amazon to whistleblowers uncovering billion-dollar environmental crimes, these aren't just stories about the environment.
They're real-life thrillers about people caught between powerful forces willing to kill to keep their secrets buried.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.
Later that night, the Peeping Tom sat in an interrogation room at the police station.
In the hours following his arrest, police had been able to identify him as Christopher Campin.
He was 34 years old, he had short hair that matched the description police had gotten, and he had an extensive criminal record.
Christopher had been arrested multiple times on misdemeanor charges for, quote, secret peeping, end quote, also stalking, and also exposing himself.
And those were all acts that police considered potential gateway crimes that could eventually lead someone to commit full-blown sexual assault or even murder.
So for the first time since Stephanie had been murdered, Lieutenant Morgan thought he had a real potential suspect here.
Morgan stepped into the interrogation room and sat across from Christopher.
Morgan took off his white fedora hat and put it down on the table and then greeted Christopher in his booming voice.
And that voice and Morgan's sheer size made Christopher immediately shift in his chair uncomfortably and look down at the floor.
Morgan told Christopher that police knew all about his criminal history, and they knew that earlier that night he'd been spying on a young woman while she got into the shower.
Then Morgan just sat back and stared at Christopher.
And as he did, Christopher remained silent and just kept shifting around in his seat.
Finally, Morgan just asked him if he knew Stephanie Bennett.
Christopher immediately sat up straight in his chair and a look of fear came across his face.
He told Morgan he knew who Stephanie was, basically everybody in Raleigh did, because the case was all over the news.
But he said he actually didn't know her know her and he didn't have anything to do with what had happened to her.
Now, there was no denying what police had caught him doing that night, looking in the woman's window, but he said that did not mean he was also a murderer.
Morgan nodded and then asked Christopher some questions about his criminal history.
But the more Christopher spoke, the more Lieutenant Morgan felt like something was off here.
There was no question that everybody in the police department, including Morgan, hoped they had found Stephanie's killer when they brought Christopher in.
After all, he was caught red-handed being a peeping Tom.
He also roughly fit the description of the man who had been seen watching Stephanie through her window.
But Morgan had made a long, successful career out of reading people, and he was right way more often than he was wrong.
And listening to Christopher, he just did not think this guy could be behind the absolutely horrific crime scene he saw in Stephanie's apartment.
A lot of organization and planning had gone into Stephanie's murder.
Her killer had clearly been calculated and patient, and they had not left any discernible fingerprints anywhere. but the way Christopher spoke seemed completely scattered, not calm or organized at all.
Morgan knew others in the investigation would not want to hear the theory that had just crossed Morgan's mind, that there might be two different Peeping Toms in the apartment complexes near the lake, and that this one they had arrested was not the right one.
It was not the murdering Peeping Tom. Still, Lieutenant Morgan was a strong believer in science, so that night, police still charged Christopher with secret peeping and resisting arrest, and officers swabbed his cheeks to obtain DNA samples.
Now they would have to wait to see if Christopher's DNA matched the DNA found on Stephanie's body.
It only took a few days for Lieutenant Morgan to be proven right about Christopher.
The DNA samples did not match those found at the crime scene.
Christopher was indeed a peeping Tom, but he was not Stephanie's killer.
Morgan by this point had been pretty sure that this would be the outcome, but he was still disappointed.
He had stayed in close contact with Stephanie's family, and he had promised them that Stephanie's killer would be found.
But now he was getting concerned, because they were weeks into this investigation, and he no longer had any legitimate leads.
And not long after Christopher's DNA test results came in, Morgan got more bad news from the crime lab.
DNA samples found on Stephanie's body did not match any samples in the state or national DNA databases.
In short, that meant that the one major piece of evidence investigators had found had not given them any idea who killed Stephanie.
So Morgan went back to square one and just started re-interviewing residents at Stephanie's apartment complex. but he didn't discover anything that gave him the break in the case they desperately needed.
On top of that, there was something else that kept gnawing at Morgan.
Almost every man who lived in the apartments had voluntarily provided DNA samples.
But there were a few men who had refused.
However, without just cause, Morgan couldn't force them to submit DNA samples.
So he believed there was still a chance that someone who lived close to Stephanie was her killer.
Police just needed something to point them in the right direction.
They at least needed enough evidence to get a warrant to obtain the DNA samples they were missing.
But after months of interviewing residents and monitoring the grounds, investigators still did not have anything to go on.
And by the fall of 2002, Morgan knew the case was going cold.
And as more time passed, he felt like he was failing Stephanie's family.
Then 2002 came to an end, and then all of 2003 passed with no real progress on the case, Stephanie's story slowly disappeared from the media, and it almost seemed like the community had moved on.
But Morgan was determined to keep the promise he'd made to Stephanie's family, even if he was not the one to solve Stephanie's murder.
In April of 2004, almost two years after Stephanie's murder, Lieutenant Morgan called on Detective Ken Copeland to take over Stephanie's case.
Copeland was a member of the Ha-Iwa-Saponi Indian tribe, and he'd grown up in a rural area not far from Raleigh.
He also was a former United States Marine who looked like he could punch a hole through a brick wall.
But most importantly to Morgan, Detective Copeland was known around the department as the, quote, garbage man.
Copeland was so detail-oriented that he would often find small pieces of evidence that other cops had just assumed were garbage.
So Morgan knew that if anyone could discover something that he had missed, it would be Detective Copeland.
After getting the assignment, Copeland immediately laid out a plan to re-interview as many people as he could at Stephanie's apartment complex who had been a part of the initial investigation.
He hoped that somebody would have new information for him.
The process was slow going and getting people to help police again years after the murder was not always easy.
But several residents did tell Copeland something that had not come up before.
They said they remembered seeing someone that they didn't know who seemed to spend day after day after day just watching the police conduct their investigation during that initial investigation period. but nobody could give Copeland a decent description of this person because this person always seemed to be just out of sight or blending in with a crowd.
Nothing Copeland heard was enough to give him a solid lead, but he was sure this was significant, and he wondered if maybe the killer had come back to the scene of the crime just to relish in what they had done.
But even with this new information, Copeland did not rush to any conclusions.
He was trying to rebuild this case from the ground up, and he was confident his method would pay off.
And finally, in February of 2005, 10 months after Copeland had taken over the case, he caught a massive break.
He was back at Stephanie's apartment complex to conduct another round of interviews when a man came running towards him, calling out in a strong Czech accent.
The man was one of the people who had told police early on that he had seen the peeping Tom by Stephanie's window.
The man came up to Copeland and just started talking right away, sounding very excited.
He said he had remembered something, and it was very important.
In fact, the man couldn't believe it had taken this long for him to remember this.
He told Copeland that when the peeping Tom had run away from Stephanie's window, he'd headed towards the apartment complex that was just on the other side of the woods.
Copeland felt a rush. Police had searched those apartments early on, but nothing had come of it, and Copeland had spent the bulk of his time focused on Stephanie's complex.
Now suddenly, he had a strong feeling that he would find what he was looking for just beyond the woods.
Copeland thanked the man with the Czech accent for his help and then headed toward the neighboring apartment complex.
When he got there, he went right into the management office and he asked one question of the people in that office.
Were there any residents in their building who made a practice out of spying on other residents?
The people in the office didn't even hesitate.
They said absolutely there was one person who did do that and they pointed Copeland toward that person's apartment.
Copeland's time as a US Marine had enabled him to remain calm in even the most stressful situations.
But in this moment, as he walked towards this apartment, he could feel his heart beating faster and faster.
Copeland was sure that talking to whoever lived in this apartment would finally break this case wide open.
Copeland finally arrived at the apartment, and after taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door.
A moment later, the person who lived there answered, and they were clearly intimidated by how big Copeland was.
But Copeland smiled, introduced himself, and showed his badge, and the person let him inside.
Copeland didn't waste any time. He asked this person right off the bat if they knew anything about Stephanie Bennett's murder.
And within minutes, Copeland knew the case had its first real suspect in years.
After that meeting, Detective Copeland followed up on some of the information he had just gotten.
Then he rushed back to the police station and told Lieutenant Morgan he was sure they had a lead that would finally pan out.
Morgan felt a mix of relief and urgency.
Detective Copeland, the garbage man, had come through just like Morgan had hoped.
But Morgan knew they had to make sure they had enough evidence to convict their new suspect in court.
Copeland had gathered a lot of information that day, and so with Morgan's help, they were able to secure warrants that would allow police to conduct surveillance on their suspect and to obtain a DNA sample without the suspect's cooperation.
After visiting the apartments near Stephanie's, Copeland had been trying to secure a DNA sample from their new suspect.
But this suspect had stayed one step ahead of Copeland.
This man somehow knew he was being pursued, and he seemed to be a master at covering his tracks.
When the suspect went to restaurants, he always ate finger foods so he wouldn't leave prints on forks or knives.
He also pocketed any straws he used, and he flushed his napkins down the toilet.
At work, he wiped down his computer and desk every day, and he never disposed of anything in the trash can by his desk or in the dumpster outside the building.
Detective Copeland knew the suspect was beating him, but he also knew the suspect's one small weakness.
The man had a sweet tooth. The suspect's boss had told Copeland that the man often ate ice cream and other snacks at work, so Copeland had come up with a last-ditch effort to get a DNA sample.
He had asked the suspect's boss to arrange a lunch for her entire department, and he had asked the boss to do something important at that lunch.
So, on September 15th, 2005, almost three and a half years after Stephanie's murder, two members of Copeland's team were dressed in plain clothes, sitting inside of a Golden Corral restaurant.
The officers watched from across the restaurant as the suspect's boss walked up to the buffet line and grabbed a tray and put some banana pudding on it.
The tray trembled in the boss's hands because she was so nervous, but she did the very important thing Copeland had asked her to do.
She put that dessert tray right on the table in front of the suspect, and the suspect took the bait.
They grabbed a banana pudding, and then he picked up a fork and began eating.
After a few bites, the suspect wiped the fork down with a napkin and put the napkin in his pocket, but the suspect left the fork on the table.
Minutes later, the suspect walked out of the restaurant, and at that point, the two plainclothes officers rushed over to the table and bagged the fork as evidence. and that fork would provide a DNA sample that would eventually allow police to determine who had killed Stephanie.
Based on interviews, DNA samples, and evidence found at the crime scene, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Stephanie Bennett on the night of May 20th and the early morning of May 21st in 2002.
The sun was shining bright when the killer walked from his apartment complex over to Stephanie's.
He was carrying a duffel bag on his shoulder, he tucked his long hair under the hood of his black sweatshirt, and he kept his hands in his sweatshirt pocket so nobody would see the latex gloves he was wearing.
The killer scanned the grounds to make sure nobody was nearby, and he saw that everything was clear.
He'd chosen this time to come because he knew most people would still be at work and not out walking on the footpaths near the lake.
The killer moved quickly towards the high bushes in front of Stephanie's roommate's bedroom window.
He crouched down, climbed through the bushes, and then removed the window screen.
The window itself was locked, but the killer knew it was not that secure.
And so he grabbed the bottom of the window with his gloved hands, used all of his strength, and he forced it open.
Once it was open, the killer climbed into the roommate's bedroom and closed the window behind him.
He walked across the bedroom, opened the door halfway, and looked across the hall at Stephanie's room.
The door was closed. Satisfied, the killer turned back around and went inside of one of the roommate's closets, and once he was inside, he positioned the door so it was barely open a crack so he could still listen to what was going on in the apartment, and then the killer put his bag on the closet floor, he sat down, and he waited for hours.
Finally, at about 6 p.m., the killer heard the front door unlock and open.
He held his breath. He knew he still had to wait just a bit longer.
The killer heard the TV turn on in the living room, then he smelled food cooking in the kitchen, and he listened as Stephanie spoke on the phone.
All the while, the killer just kept breathing slowly so he would stay calm and patient.
Finally, hours after Stephanie had gotten home, the killer heard her coming down the hall.
From his spot in the closet, he not only could see Stephanie walk into her bedroom, but he could see her in the bedroom.
She left her bedroom door open. So the killer watched Stephanie as she got undressed and put on her nightgown.
Then he saw Stephanie grab a book and get under her covers, and he waited while she read.
Then the killer saw the light go off in Stephanie's bedroom, and he felt a jolt of adrenaline.
It was time to go. The killer grabbed his bag, stepped out of the closet, and then placed the bag down right in the middle of the bedroom floor.
Then he rushed out of the room, he went across the hall, he slammed open Stephanie's door, and he leapt onto the bed, pinning Stephanie down.
Stephanie was in complete shock and terror, but the killer just pushed one hand over her mouth to keep her quiet, and he used the other hand to hit her multiple times.
Stephanie was stunned and already bleeding.
With one hand continuing to cover Stephanie's mouth, the killer pulled her off of her bed and dragged her across the hall into her roommate's bedroom where he had left the bag.
Stephanie fought back and tried to break free, but the killer was so strong and he held her down and managed somehow to keep her totally silent.
The killer dragged Stephanie into the center of the room and then he reached over into his bag and took out several pieces of rope.
And then using that rope, the killer quickly bound Stephanie's wrist behind her back, and then he pushed her onto the ground, and then he used the other piece of rope to bind her ankles, and then once she was all tied up, he removed all of her clothing, and then he shoved her underwear into her mouth to gag her.
Then the killer left Stephanie on the floor of the roommate's bedroom, and then the killer crossed the hallway back into Stephanie's bedroom.
And there, the killer went into Stephanie's dresser and looked through her clothes and eventually removed a piece of Stephanie's underwear.
This would be his trophy. After that, the killer walked out of Stephanie's room, closed the door, and then went back into the room where Stephanie was bound and gagged on the ground.
The killer placed his trophy inside of his bag and then turned his attention to Stephanie.
The killer raped Stephanie. And then after he was done, he reached into his bag again and pulled out a long metal wire.
He leaned over Stephanie, wrapped that wire around her neck, and slowly strangled her to death.
After she was dead, the killer just stared at Stephanie's body for a whole minute.
Then he threw the wire back into his bag and also cut the restraints off of her wrists and ankles and threw that rope back into the bag as well.
Then the killer picked up the bag, climbed back out the window he had come in through, and ran across the dark apartment complex towards the woods.
A few minutes later, he arrived at his apartment, he opened the door, and the second he did, he was greeted by his very friendly and extremely happy-looking black and brown Rottweiler.
It would turn out that Stephanie's murderer was someone she had met before, but only very briefly.
His name was Drew Planton, and he was the owner of that very happy-looking Rottweiler that Stephanie had noticed and gone up to and crouched down and pet after coming home from work about a month before her murder.
And that was it. That was Stephanie's entire connection to Drew.
But for Drew, that small chance encounter had been enough.
And not long after that interaction, Drew had begun to stalk Stephanie and spy on her through her windows when she was in her bedroom.
And finally, Drew had decided Stephanie would be his next murder victim.
Because it would also turn out that Drew Planton had very likely killed before.
Police would discover that years earlier, he had very likely murdered an exotic dancer in Lansing, Michigan, but the case had gone unsolved.
However, everybody involved in that case fully believed Drew was the killer.
Drew was not on Lieutenant Morgan and his team's radar at first because he had moved out of the apartment complex near Stephanie's not long after the murder, and he didn't really fit the description of the peeping Tom they had been given.
He was tall, but he was gangly and had long, shaggy hair.
Also, Drew was a well-respected chemist in Raleigh who did not seem to fit the initial criminal profile.
But everything changed when the garbage man, Detective Copeland, took over.
When Copeland learned that the killer had most likely lived in the apartment complex near Stephanie's and that someone who Stephanie's neighbors didn't recognize had been watching the police from a distance, he had an idea.
Copeland did not like to stereotype people, but as someone who'd grown up in the rural South, he believed every community had a busybody who made it their job to know everybody else's business.
So he went to the apartment complex where he believed the killer lived, and he asked the office workers which resident spent the most of their time keeping tabs on their neighbors.
And they immediately pointed him to one of the resident's apartments.
But Copeland was not talking to the killer inside of that apartment.
He was talking to a woman who regularly spied on her neighbors and who knew everything about all of them.
And it turned out she was the person who had spent a lot of time lurking around the apartment complexes near the lake watching the police investigation unfold.
And that woman told Copeland he really needed to talk to Drew Planton, a man who used to live in an apartment close to hers and who had a pet Rottweiler.
She said Drew had always creeped her out, but more importantly, she had seen him several times before the murder, hanging around near the apartment where Stephanie would be killed.
And Copeland got confirmation from a few of Stephanie's neighbors, including the man with the heavy Czech accent, that they had often seen a man walking a Rottweiler around their apartment complex, and there was a chance that man could have been the peeping Tom they saw outside of Stephanie's window.
So Copeland came to believe that Drew was very likely Stephanie's killer.
Drew was able to elude police for a while, but eventually his love of sugar brought him down.
Copeland knew nobody would eat banana pudding with their hands, so he set up his sting operation with Drew's boss, and sure enough, a partial DNA sample taken from the fork Drew used to eat the pudding showed that he was most likely Stephanie's killer.
And that was enough to convince Drew's boss to continue helping the police.
And she would ultimately secure a pair of gloves Drew had used at work before he could throw them away.
And those gloves provided police with a more complete DNA sample that would be strong enough to hold up in court and that did make it clear that Drew really had murdered Stephanie.
In court, Drew Planton refused to walk, speak, or even open his eyes.
He acted like he was in a totally catatonic state.
But Drew was not catatonic. And ultimately, he would commit suicide in jail before a verdict could be handed down.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
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