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A woman with large brown eyes and a bright smile, she was a native of Rocky Mount, Va. She moved to Raleigh in 2001 after her graduation from Roanoke College in Salem, Va. She and two other women rented a first-floor apartment in the Bridgeport complex off Lynn Road. Bennett worked for an IBM contractor.

Detectives believe that Planten was a Peeping Tom who was seen peering into Bennett's window a few weeks before her killing.

Detectives started reworking the case from the beginning in November 2004, and by spring 2005 had targeted Planten as a suspect. About five months later they obtained a DNA sample from his workplace that matched evidence left at the crime scene. Hours after the match, they arrested him.

When police searched Planten's home, they found an extensive pornography collection, at least 12 firearms, handcuffs and dozens of knives. Detectives also learned that Planten had written a will on an office computer.

Investigators found several of Bennett's personal effects in Planten's apartment -- including a laundry basket, bank statements and documents about her student loans, Spurlin, the Wake County prosecutor, said Monday. Also inside the apartment were newspaper articles about her death.

Spurlin said recent ballistics tests on one of the guns conclusively linked him to the October 1999 killing of Rebecca Huismann in the driveway of her Lansing, Mich., home. The shell casing and bullet recovered from the Michigan crime scene matched the gun perfectly, Spurlin said.

"It was fired from this weapon and none other," she said.

Prosecutors from North Carolina and Michigan were going to meet this month to discuss how to proceed in that case, Spurlin said.

A check addressed to Huismann was found in Planten's apartment, Spurlin said. Police seized directions to the homes of other women's homes, and documents containing the names of a score of women, Spurlin said.

"He was a dangerous man," she said.

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