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 come back and say you re guilty of the first degree murder of stephanie bennett. mr. planten was obviously a predator. we obtained information and evidence inside 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 fo
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they said that 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 back when it s fired. and the imperfections on each firing pin are unique to each one made. and each are unique to each g when the shell casing was compared to the shell casing from drew planten s gun, the results were unmistakable. some very well defined linear
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 some 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.
court. it was a partial match, which told law enforcement and told me that 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 test kit. the dna profile that was obtained was an exact match to the dna which 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,