Stephanie Bennett's family claims the apartment complex where she lived failed to protect her. Chris Morgan, a former Raleigh police lieutenant, testifies in the case.

A high-profile civil trial about a woman killed in her North Raleigh apartment will not start in earnest until early next week.

The family of a woman who was killed at Bridgeport Apartments in North Raleigh wants to hold the property owner liable. The killing sent shockwaves throughout the Triangle.

Triangle Briefs: Undisclosed facts surrounding the brutal rape and strangulation death of Stephanie Bennett may come to light as a wrongful death lawsuit filed by her father goes to trial today.

Suspect killed self before trial began.

The apartments where Stephanie Bennett lived were unsafe, family's attorneys say. Terry Carmon Bennett, Stephanie's father, pauses as he recounts events of the day she was slain.

Where I come from, suicide was never glorified. Instead, it was viewed with contempt.

Mental health workers and a prison psychiatrist thought Drew Planten was no longer a suicide risk, a prison spokesman said.

Drew Planten, facing a possible death sentence for the killing of Stephanie Bennett in 2002, hanged himself Monday in his cell at Central Prison.

Prosecutor cites crime's cruelty.

Before police could charge Drew Planten with killing Stephanie Bennett, they needed his DNA. But it took two months of scheming with at least one of Planten's co-workers before investigators could swab a smidgen from a pair of gloves he used at work.

Growing up in Charlotte, Mich., Drew Planten struggled. He finished high school and graduated from college, but befriended no one, never dated and rarely went out.

Michigan police are re-examining the unsolved murder of a 22-year-old woman after Raleigh detectives found documents in Drew Planten's apartment containing the dead woman's name.

It took investigators more than four months to obtain a sample of DNA that police say connects Drew Planten with the May 2002 killing of Stephanie Bennett.

Sherrie Dillard, a professional psychic, disclosed last week that she had worked with Raleigh police as they tried to find the person who killed Stephanie Bennett in North Raleigh.

Nobody told Marsha Cook about the horrific crime that took place at Bridgeport Apartments before she moved in.

A new round of interviews with neighbors, coupled with forensic evidence, helped Raleigh police end a three-year manhunt and charge a 35-year-old man with the murder of Stephanie Bennett.

Drew Planten rarely talked at work, a state chemistry lab where for the past five years he tested the quality of commercial fertilizer. He has talked even less since his arrest Wednesday on the charge of murdering his former neighbor Stephanie Bennett.

A three-year hunt for the intruder who bound, raped and strangled 23-year-old Stephanie Bennett in her North Raleigh apartment has culminated in the arrest of a Raleigh man.

In an effort to find Stephanie Bennett's killer, police used the traditional tools of shoe leather and forensic science, but they also engaged the services of a psychic.

At one moment in May 2002, a shadow fell over the world of Stephanie Renee Bennett and plunged it into darkness.