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.

E-mail messages obtained by The News & Observer show how Joanne Reilly, Planten's supervisor at a state Department of Agriculture fertilizer lab, told detectives about events where they might get Planten's DNA from paper, utensils or gloves.

Planten, 35, analyzed the content of fertilizer as a technician at the lab in West Raleigh. Police arrested him outside the lab on Oct. 19 and charged him with murdering Bennett, a 23-year-old woman who was sexually assaulted and strangled in her North Raleigh apartment in 2002. He's being held in Central Prison in Raleigh awaiting trial.

Investigators said Planten's DNA matched DNA left at Bennett's apartment.

Agriculture officials were happy to cooperate with police, so investigators didn't need a search warrant to enter the lab, said David McLeod, the department's attorney.

"All the supplies and equipment belong to the department, not the employee," McLeod said.

Reilly began sending e-mail to Detective Ken Copeland in late August and suggested ways she could help obtain Planten's prints or DNA.

"I have also been thinking about bringing in some ice cream or something since our fertilizer season is winding down," Reilly wrote. "I may be able to get a used spoon for you without being too obvious."

Later, Reilly sent Copeland a message about a Sept. 15 luncheon at the Golden Corral on Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh. Police obtained an item from the restaurant, but the messages do not say what.

"If things didn't work out as planned today," Reilly wrote Copeland after the luncheon, "we may have another chance."

Reilly, who declined to comment for this report, and Copeland continued exchanging e-mail as they waited for the results of DNA tests on the item from the restaurant.

"Hello Joanne," Copeland wrote on Sept. 19. "Just hollering at you to see if there [are] any 'DREW' events occurring. As always, he is the first person that comes to my mind when I sit down at my desk."

Later that day, Reilly responded: "Not really. He is sitting in front of his ion chromatograph as always, but he is shaking from head to toe, which I have never seen before, but maybe that is a nervous mannerism of his."

It appears from the messages that the Golden Corral trip didn't produce a usable DNA sample. But Reilly kept trying.

"We had our reception/ice cream party," Reilly wrote Oct. 3. "I had an opportunity to get something but felt very uncomfortable about it and backed off. Let me know when you hear something and if we need to, I will decide if/when we might set something else up."

Investigators got a break Oct. 17 when Reilly told Planten that 10 limestone samples were "in question" and had him re-analyze the material, according to the messages.

"He is upset at having to repeat his work," Reilly wrote. "We cannot guarantee that he will use gloves, but he usually does when running limestones."

Thirty-two minutes later, Reilly hit the send button for her last missive to detectives:

"Gloves are on."