Murder victim's family refiles lawsuit

RALEIGH -- The family of Stephanie Bennett, who was raped and killed nearly five years ago in her North Raleigh apartment, refiled a lawsuit Monday against the owners of the complex where she lived.

Bennett, 23, a contractor for IBM who lived with a friend and stepsister, was found slain May 21, 2002 in her ground-floor apartment at Lake Lynn’s Bridgeport Apartments.

She was killed by an intruder who raped and strangled her. Her murder went unsolved for three years until Oct. 19, 2005, when Raleigh police arrested Drew Planten, a reclusive chemist with the N.C. Department of Agriculture who lived in an adjacent apartment complex at the time of Bennett’s death.

In the lawsuit filed Monday at the Wake County Courthouse, Bennett’s father Terry “Carmon” Bennett is seeking at least $10,000 in damages. He accuses the landlord of not providing a safe environment and not properly fixing a window in his daughter’s apartment. Equity Residential, which owns Bridgeport Apartments, has denied those accusations, saying they had no way of preventing a driven serial killer like Planten.

Planten committed suicide while being held at Central Prison awaiting his trial. Police have said his DNA matched evidence left at the crime scene. Planten was also linked to the 1999 death of Rebecca Huismann, a topless dancer shot to death in an East Lansing, Mich., driveway. His name also has been considered in a 1993 murder case in East Lansing, where a woman was strangled to death. Planten grew up in East Lansing and attended Michigan State University there.

When Raleigh police searched his apartment after his arrest, they found an extensive stash of pornography, weapons and evidence suggesting that he stalked dozens of other women.

Bennett’s father initially sued Equity Residential in May 2004, before Planten surfaced as a suspect in the murder. The civil case went to trial in January, but attorneys for the Bennett family dismissed the case voluntarily and indicated they’d later refile the lawsuit. North Carolina law allows plaintiffs to dismiss a case once and refile it within the year.