Little Known Case Out of The Tarheel State
Review by Kim Cantrell
Stephanie Bennett, 23, was ready to move to South Carolina to be with Walter, her fiance (for all intents and purposes) – especially after she’d learned that a neighborhood peeping tom had been spotted at her window.
But there was a finishing touches before she could head out of Raleigh, North Carolina, and away from the unnerving pervert.
One weekend she found herself alone in her apartment; her two friends, who were also roommates, having out-of-state events of their own.
While frightening, she truly felt she’d be okay.
Sadly, she was wrong.
When Walter and Deanna, Stephanie’s roommate as well as stepsister, could not reach Stephanie by phone and learned that she hadn’t shown up for work, they asked the apartment complex manager to go in and check on her.
What he found would spur three years of aggressive investigative work, fueled by a father determined to find his daughter’s killer.
Just when it seemed that the Stephanie Bennett homicide would go unsolved, police honed in on a new suspect: a chemist described by those who knew him as a “strange bird” with a weird habit of wiping down everything he touched.
Journalist turned author Amanda Lamb does a fantasatic job of telling the story of how Drew Planten appeared on police radar after all other roads led to nowhere in her 2010 true crime Evil Next Door: The Untold Story of a Killer Undone by DNA.
With a smooth narrative that reads a lot like fiction, Lamb takes readers on a detailed – yet not to the point of mundanity – and chronologically correct journey from that dreadful night in 2001 until the surprise ending in January 2006.
Also, readers who have followed the debates of the Tim Hennis trial and the DNA evidence from same will find that the North Carolina state crime lab earns quite a bit of redemption in the matter of Drew Planten.
Lastly, kudos to Amanda Lamb, her publisher, agent, or whoever made the decision to forego usage of the term “shocking photos” or such other such ridiculous statements. I’m hoping the reduced verbiage of “Photos Included” found on the cover of Evil Next Door is going to be a new trend in true crime. (Unless of course there are photos that are truly shocking, of course. But honestly, though, that’s difficult to do these days.)
For more information about this book or to see more books from Amanda Lamb, visit the author’s website at www.alambauthor.com.
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