RALEIGH - A lawyer for the apartment complex where Stephanie Bennett was murdered argued Tuesday that Drew Planten was a serial killer who could not have been stopped, regardless of safety precautions.

Bennett's father, Terry "Carmon" Bennett, blames Bridgeport Apartments for not protecting her and has sued Equity Residential Inc., a Chicago-based apartment chain.

Opening arguments took place Tuesday in the civil trial.

Dan Hartzog, a lawyer for Equity, said Planten, who was charged with killing Bennett and was linked to another woman's death, also might have killed a Michigan woman in 1993.

"This crime was committed by a serial killer," Hartzog said.

But Charles A. Bentley, representing Bennett's estate and her father, said an Equity official, when told about a man lurking outside Bennett's apartment weeks before her death, told Bridgeport staff not to warn tenants about him.

Planten, a chemist for the state Department of Agriculture, was charged Oct. 19, 2005, with killing Bennett but committed suicide before the criminal trial. A sample of his DNA matched genetic clues left at the ground-floor apartment where Bennett, 23, was raped, bound and strangled in May 2002.

After Planten's arrest, police found a stash of pornography and weapons as well as personal items belonging to Bennett and dozens of other women. A gun found in the apartment was used in the 1999 fatal shooting in East Lansing, Mich., of a topless dancer named Rebecca Huismann, Michigan prosecutors have said.

Planten grew up in Michigan and moved to Raleigh in 2000.

Hartzog told jurors that Raleigh Detective Ken Copeland thinks Planten also raped and killed a woman in 1993. Raleigh police spokesman Jim Sughrue said the department couldn't comment on Hartzog's statement.

Michigan authorities could not be reached.

Mary Jean D'Agostino, 30, was found in an East Lansing apartment complex, having suffered a "brutal death," Michigan prosecutors said at the time. Planten lived near her, Hartzog said.

"He could be a suspect in this," D'Agostino's mother, Patricia, said of Planten in a telephone interview Tuesday evening.

Planten also had lived near Huismann, the 1999 victim, and kept an apartment in a complex next to Bennett's.

Hartzog didn't specify how Raleigh police came to think Planten killed D'Agostino.

Bentley told jurors that Bennett's death could have been prevented if a broken lock on a window had been fixed after a previous tenant complained about it. Poor outdoor lighting and a large bush outside the apartment's window might have allowed Planten to hide unnoticed and watch Bennett on multiple occasions, Bentley said.

"This case is not about Drew Planten," Bentley said. "It was about the condition that existed at Bridgeport."

Hartzog said, "We did not cause the crime, and it would not have been prevented."

He told jurors that police detectives found the names of 34 people, including 27 women, in Planten's apartment after his arrest, as well as the personal items of several women who had no idea they were being stalked until Raleigh police contacted them.

Detectives found directions to some of the women's residences, with dates on rental-car receipts matching the days Planten apparently printed out the directions, Hartzog said.

Police think that Planten entered another woman's third-floor apartment, stole a videotape of her and her friends, copied it and returned the original without her knowledge, Hartzog said.

The trial will continue today with testimony from Chris Morgan, a retired Raleigh police lieutenant who led the initial investigation into Bennett's death.