during the trial on the stand saying, there aren't enough people in the world for it to be another person. that's how accurate the testing was. they knew it was andre edwards. guilty. up next, a young woman is dead and the neighbor says the killer is a window peeper. >> she was uncomfortable about that. she did not feel it was a very safe place. >> i had no idea how this could happen. >> despite the evidence, the case can't be solved. >> we're working on it, but we don't have any viable leads at this time. >> until police found evidence their suspect had killed before. >> i don't think he was finished. i don't think he would have stopped. for stephanie bennett,

graduating from roanoke college was only the start. armed with a business degree, she took a job with ibm and was anxious to finally earn some money. >> she was really starting her life. she was a young woman with a lot of potential. she was excited about being on her own. >> but after working there for about a year, one day, she just didn't show up. >> she was a very responsible young woman. she was somebody that always showed up to work on time. when nobody could get in touch with her, everybody got concerned. >> so family members asked her apartment manager to check up on her. >> 911. the location of your emergency? >> i need somebody to come down to lake lynne drive immediately. i've got a dead person. >> is the person conscious? >> she's dead. >> stephanie was dead on the bedroom floor. >> she had a dark indentation around her neck due to strangulation.

>> stephanie had not an enemy in the world. i was flabbergasted. i didn't know why this would happen and why it would have to be stephanie. there was no reasoning for this at all. >> there was no sign of forced entry into her ground floor apartment, although the killer might have come in through her bedroom window. >> the window screen had been removed from her window. which would indicate someone possibly had gone through that window. >> nothing was stolen. but some items in the apartment, a phone, a water glass, and a box of tissues were found in the closet of the second bedroom. >> the closet itself almost looked like somebody had been in that closet in waiting. >> the killer was apparently wearing gloves. >> they told me there were no fingerprints at all at the crime scene of anybody other than the ones that belonged in the apartment.

>> outside, in a line of bushes near the apartment, investigators found items that might have been linked to the murder. >> there were six pair of women thong underwear strewn in those bushes. at that point it appeared that this crime may be sexually motivated in nature. >> none of these items, however, was stephanie's. the medical examiner estimated that stephanie was killed some time around midnight. investigators learned that stephanie was on the phone with her boyfriend, walter robertson, at around 8:00 pm. so, walter was eliminated as a suspect since he was a four-hour drive away from stephanie's apartment and had witnesses to prove it. >> stephanie, she was certainly a low-risk victim. she didn't engage in anything that could be characterized as risky behavior, just a normal girl from a very good family. >> then police learned of an e-mail that stephanie sent

several weeks before her murder. >> she e-mailed my sister and said she was afraid, but she never conveyed that to me. >> stephanie was afraid because a window peeper had been spotted around her apartment building. >> there was a report of a peeping tom. and when she found out about it, the window peeper had been spotted around her apartment. she didn't see it but a neighbor saw it and reported it. >> this alleged window peeper was now the prime suspect.

i remember how steph was never worried about what others thought of her and lived life in such a free, spirited way. she was a dependable friend and a beautiful person. >> the murder of 23-year-old stephanie bennett was difficult to solve because it appeared there was no connection between stephanie and her assailant. >> i have covered a lot of murder cases and i don't think there was ever a case that caused so much fear and concern in the community as this one. >> every day when i walk into my office, i see stephanie's picture.

and it is a picture taken of her smiling, having fun with her friends, having no idea that she would be dying at the hands of someone i believe was truly evil. >> during stephanie's autopsy, the medical examiner found signs of sexual assault and recovered a dna sample. this sample was compared to dna samples of all criminal offenders in both the state and national dna databases. there were no hits. >> there was not a lot of other evidence that was found at the crime scene. it appeared almost like what the suspect brought with him, he took away with him. >> investigators also compared the dna to every male who had any contact with stephanie, more than 250 people. and no one matched. police spoke with dozens of people who lived in the apartments near stephanie bennett's.

many reported seeing a tall, thin man wearing a sweatshirt loitering in the area. one of stephanie's neighbors saw this person looking into stephanie's window. a police artist drew a sketch and released it to newspapers and local television stations. >> the phone calls began pouring in. because it was a high-profile case here at that time. numerous leads came in. >> but after tracking down hundreds of leads, only one appeared promising, a convicted sex offender who lived in the area. >> we were able to go out and make contact with this individual. it looked very 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 bureau of investigation that it was not a dna match. we were very disappointed. >> with nothing else to lose, investigators went back and

reinterviewed the people in stephanie's neighborhood who claimed they saw the window peeper in the area. this time, one neighbor reported some new information. >> we actually had one that reported seeing this peeping tom walking a dog that appeared to be a large rottweiler type dog and that he saw him walking him from bridgeport apartments over into dominion apartments. >> stephanie lived in bridgeport. >> we took our focus from bridgeport to dominion apartments. >> apartment managers remembered a tenant with a big, black dog who moved away. >> their very words to us were, "we know who you're talking about. his name is drew planten and he is a strange bird." >> 35-year-old drew planten had no criminal history and wasn't married and analyzed ingredients

for the department of agriculture. >> very reclusive individual. we went and interviewed people. he was very much to himself. very few friends. >> when police spoke with planten at his workplace, he claimed he never before heard the name stephanie bennett. >> wasn't many people within a 50-mile radius that was not familiar with the case. >> planten refused to go the police station so officers made an appointment to meet him at his apartment the next day. >> we told him we would see him at 5:00 and drew planten started shaking uncontrollably, like he was freezing cold. it was so bad, i looked back at him and said, "are you okay?" he said, "i'm fine." >> at that meeting, planten denied any involvement in stephanie's murder and refused to provide a dna sample. >> we always said maybe when that first person tells us no, that will be our man. >> but police had no evidence

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to force drew planten to provide his dna sample for testing. but one of their scientific experts had a suggestion. >> i said we need to get a sample that was more intimate from him. we need to get a sample which he had touched or used, such as a cigarette butt or a toothbrush, or an item of clothing. >> but that wouldn't be easy. it seemed planten knew he was being followed. >> surveillance was conducted on drew planten for a week, at work and at home, and we could not obtain any dna from that week's worth of surveillance. >> ultimately, investigators followed planten to a restaurant. but planten was one step ahead of them. >> he ate nothing but finger foods. when he would get up to go to the bathroom, he would take his

straw out of his drink and put it in his pocket and take it to the bathroom with him. he flushed all of his napkins. >> for dessert, planten ordered banana pudding, which he ate with a fork. >> he took two bites of banana pudding and took a napkin and wiped that fork for about five minutes and left the fork. of course, our investigators took that fork. >> they performed the analysis. >> i got a mixture of dna sampling, meaning there was one strong profile and one weak profile on there as well. >> apparently, the restaurant hadn't properly cleaned the fork. the strong profile was from an unidentified female. the weaker one, from a male, was compared to dna from stephanie's rape kit. >> the one weak profile on the fork was very similar to the profile that was found on the vaginal swabs from stephanie

bennett. >> but this profile was so weak, it would be inadmissible in court. >> it was a partial match, which told law enforcement and told me we were on the right track. we just needed to get a good dna sample from drew planten. >> since planten worked for the state, investigators got permission to search his workplace. mark bodet swabbed his computer keyboard, his radio and other items he handled. dna from those skin cells was compared to the biological evidence from stephanie bennett's rape kit. >> the dna that was obtained was an exact match to the profile from the dna that was obtained from the sperm sample from the vaginal swabs. >> investigators believe this dna evidence placed planten at the scene on the night of

stephanie's murder. based on the evidence, investigators believe the killer broke into stephanie's apartment through the bedroom window and waited for her in the closet. investigators believe stephanie arrived home, then called her boyfriend some time between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. prosecutors think her killer watched from the second bedroom and that stephanie was completely unaware anyone was there. later, after stephanie went to bed, he attacked. the evidence shows she was sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

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when investigators searched drew planten's apartment, they found several pieces of mail addressed to a woman in lansing, michigan, rebecca huismann. the postmark was six years old. a background check revealed that rebecca huismann was murdered in lansing, michigan, six years earlier and the case had never been solved. coincidentally, planten was a student at michigan state university at the time, which was just a few miles from lansing. rebecca huismann was working as a topless dancer at the time of her murder. it was something she had not planned on but she needed the money. >> she was a very beautiful

young woman and trying to make some extra money so she and her fiance could get married. >> after rebecca was finished work one october night in 1999, a bouncer took her to her car and she drove away. as she drove up to her apartment, someone, possibly a customer from the strip club, may have made an advance. whatever happened, the killer fired with a .45 caliber handgun. >> i need an ambulance. >> what is the problem there? >> my girlfriend. i just woke up and i noticed she wasn't with me. so i go out there and she's out in her car and her door's open, and i go out there and she has blood all over her face and i can't hear a pulse or a heartbeat or nothing. >> the motive clearly wasn't robbery. nothing in her vehicle had been disturbed. rebecca's purse was still there. >> it looked like, to me, based

on my experience, that it was a personal crime. just because shooting somebody in the face one time. >> on the ground near the car was a .45 caliber shell casing. it was the only evidence at the scene. >> we didn't have much evidence to work with at all. we had no fingerprints, tire tracks, footwear, nothing. >> everyone who worked with rebecca said she made a point of having no personal relationships with any of the club's patrons. >> she would leave the club and not have anything to do with it outside of what she did there for her employment. >> dozens of interviews were conducted. no clear suspects emerged. >> we still focused on the club, whether it was a customer or not. we were trying to look at tapes, surveillance tapes and things of that nature. but there wasn't any altercations between her or any of the dancers. >> when investigators in raleigh, north carolina, found

rebecca's mail in drew planten's apartment, they called lansing investigators with the news. they said if you have a .45 caliber handgun, please let me know. he says we got two. i said keep 'em. planten's two .45 caliber guns were test fired. analysts were especially interested in the marks on the shell casings. imperfections from the firing pin are imprinted on the shell casing when the gun is fired. and each are unique to each gun made. when the shell casing was compared to the shell casing from drew planten's gun, the results were unmistakable. >> some very well define parallel linear marks that were on the surfaces of all the tests and on the evidence cartridge

that was found in michigan. >> they also compared the lands and grooves on the test bullet compared to those of the fatal bullet. those also matched. >> my opinion is it's that gun and only that gun that could have fired it. >> by this time, planten was already in custody in north carolina and things weren't going well. at his court appearance, he refused to walk and had to be strapped to a gurney. >> when he was wheeled into court for his first appearance, he did not open his eyes. and i believe in drew planten's world, as long as his eyes were closed and he didn't see it, it may not have happened. >> but no one will know for certain all the details in either murder. shortly before he was to go on trial for murder in north carolina, drew planten suffocated himself with a plastic bag in prison.

>> i was disappointed that we weren't able to have a trial, that we weren't able to sit in the courtroom and hear a jury say you are guilty of first-degree murder of stephanie bennett. >> mr. planten was obviously a predator. we obtained information inside the apartment that led us to believe that he had looked into doing this, possibly, with other females. >> investigators are certain that the forensic evidence would have gained a conviction. but the real satisfaction is knowing that the evidence led to his capture. >> after we found out who planten was and did the search of his house, we did find some information on somebody he was probably currently watching for some time. it was very eerie to find that person and realize that you had maybe just saved her life by clearing this case. >> well, i know that forensic science played a huge role in this case. and, really, without the forensic science, without the

ballistics, without re-creating this case, rebecca huismann's murder would have definitely gone cold and unsolved. i truly believe that. >> forensic science was phenomenal in this case. it was -- as one person put it, it is where old fashioned police work meets modern science. up next, a predator terrorizes a texas town. >> i said i have a family, i have a son. just please don't rape me. >> he started to choke me. i couldn't breathe. i was gasping for air when he finally stopped. >> no one knew what he was going to do next. >> we had a huge problem. this guy wasn't going to stop. >> when police find him, the dna evidence exonerates him. >> he was smart enough to outwit the investigators. >> i knew he was just evil and i never knew there was evil people on this earth like that. >> it was 9:00 p.m. in texas