Evil Next Door (11 page)

“I don’t know whether I’m thorough or lucky,” Copeland said. “I think I just look at what is reasonable, what is there. I can’t read somebody’s mind. You have to look at the facts. And when you have nothing else you have to go by the facts that are there.”

Detective Ken Copeland came to police work through hard work. A proud member of the Haliwa Saponi Indian tribe, Copeland grew up in the small rural community of Warren County about eighty-five miles northeast of Raleigh. His father, Archie, a tobacco warehouse employee, and his mother, Keasey, a stay-at-home mother, raised Copeland and his two sisters to respect authority and work hard at whatever they chose to do in their lives.

Copeland joined the U.S. Marine Corps twenty-four days after graduating from Warren County High School in 1988 and served a four-year tour of duty. He still sports a short flat-top haircut and the in-shape physique of a military man.

After getting his associates’ degree from Nash Community College, Copeland joined the Raleigh Police Department in 1994. From the start, he had his eye on being a detective, but he knew he would have to pay his dues first. On December 23, 1999, Copeland achieved that goal; he was awarded the coveted gold badge with the word
Detective
on it.

“I had become what I aspired to be,” Copeland recalled proudly.

His first case as a detective was an embezzlement from a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on New Year’s Eve. Copeland got the suspect to confess to the crime after just two hours in the interview room. He was exhilarated by his newcomer’s success, but still, he knew it was a far cry from handling a homicide case.

Getting a crack at the Stephanie Bennett case, even as a bit player, was the opportunity of his career for Copeland. He started his investigation by comparing every sex crime with any potential connection to Stephanie’s murder. He was sure of one thing: Stephanie did not know her killer. While most sex crimes involve someone the victim knows—an ex-boyfriend, a co-worker, an acquaintance—there was no evidence Stephanie knew her attacker. That alone motivated Copeland to want to work even harder to solve the case. Random sex crimes, let alone random murders, were not something that usually occurred in Raleigh, North Carolina, and he wanted to make damn sure it didn’t happen again.

“This one was one that you could definitely look at with one hundred percent certainty and say,
this is a stranger.
This was not meant to happen. And she is a true victim,” Copeland said.

Copeland started looking closely at the city’s sex crimes to see if there were any similarities to Stephanie’s homicide. If there was strangulation, bondage,
anything
involved that might be linked to the Bennett case, it raised a red flag for him and received his extra attention.

The sexual component in Stephanie’s murder made it one of the most heinous crimes Copeland had ever seen. The thought that this young woman had been tortured by a pervert for God knows how long before she was killed made him physically ill. It consumed him daily as he worked on it in between all of his other cases. What made the crime even worse in Copeland’s mind was that it had happened in the sanctity of Stephanie’s home, a place where everyone should have an expectation of safety.

“This was a bad combination of sex and murder. It was one of the worst. It was brutal. The thought of being in your own home and being bound and gagged like that . . .” said Copeland. “I could not imagine what Carmon Bennett was going through.”

If there was one thing The Garbage Man was known for, it was never giving up. As long as he had anything to do with the Stephanie Bennett case, Detective Ken Copeland vowed to live up to his reputation.

The best way out is always through.

—ROBERT FROST

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday, April 12, 2003, relatives and members of Stephanie Bennett’s sorority gathered at her alma mater, Roanoke College, in Salem, Virginia, to dedicate a handmade bench in her memory. Stephanie had graduated from college in the spring of 2001 just a year before she was killed. The event was bittersweet as Stephanie’s loved ones tried to concentrate on honoring her memory, but were also painfully aware that nearly a year had gone by and no one had been arrested for her murder.

The beautifully handcrafted cherry bench made in Stephanie’s honor sat beneath a shady tree dappled in bright sunlight as it streamed through the branches. A large festive yellow ribbon was tied to one armrest. Someone had laid a bouquet of yellow tulips on the seat. Next to the bench on the ground at the foot of the shading tree was a plaque that read: “Time goes on, people touch you and then they’re gone. But you and I will always be friends like we were then. In Loving Memory of Stephanie Bennett ’01.”

Reporters approached Mollie Hodges, Stephanie’s mother, as she walked up to the gathering. While others in the group wore somber colors, blacks and grays, Mollie wore an almost blindingly bright orange suit. It was as if she were paying tribute to her daughter’s affable personality with her color choice. But her drawn face and eyes hidden behind massive sunglasses told a different story, the story of a mother still in the throes of deep mourning.

“It’s wonderful. Stephanie’s sorority sisters were her greatest friends, and she would be so proud,” Mollie said to the reporters. “It’s beautiful. It’s beautiful, and the girls did a great job.”

But Mollie couldn’t help but mourn her daughter’s absence on this sunny spring day—alumni weekend, a weekend Stephanie would have enjoyed coming back for, to see old friends. Stephanie should have been there talking excitedly about her job, about her love life, and reminiscing with her old pals. Instead, a solitary picture of Stephanie in her cap and gown from her college graduation leaning against the tree next to the bench was the only likeness of the beautiful young woman.

“She was always so happy,” Mollie said running her fingers beneath the edge of her large sunglasses to wipe away tears. “She always had a smile on her face, and if she was here today she’d still have that big smile.”

The school chaplain, the Reverend Paul Henrickson, addressed the solemn crowd peacefully at first, but then infused a bit of fire and brimstone into his tone.

“These are words I shared last year on May 25 at Stephanie’s funeral service,” the reverend began as he turned to survey the group assembled before him. “There are three things in the world of which we can be certain beyond any doubt—there is beauty, there is evil, and there is hope. We know beauty. We’ve seen it. We’ve touched it. We’ve loved it. We have held it as a newborn baby. We have celebrated the beauty of a daughter, a friend, one loved so dearly. Beauty is to behold. At the same time we know evil. We know that evil can topple large buildings. Evil can create wars. Evil can destroy happiness, can take away what is beautiful and innocent, and snatch it away in the blink of an eye. Evil is real, and it is powerful, and it longs only for suffering and death. We know beauty. We know evil, but we also know hope—hope that is not just wishful thinking. Hope looks at a handful of seeds and imagines fields of flowers.”

Mollie visibly choked back tears as the school chaplain spoke. She wiped her eyes beneath her sunglasses with a tissue at each mention of the word
beauty.
Stephanie’s sorority sisters stood quietly behind her mother in respectful reverence with their heads bowed and arms around one another.

Stephanie’s father, Carmon Bennett, stood stoically in the front of the crowd in his Sunday best—a gray blazer, a white shirt, and a striped tie. As always, his wife, Jennifer, was by his side. Like Mollie, Carmon wore dark sunglasses to hide his grief. On one side of Carmon and Jennifer stood Lieutenant Chris Morgan, like a secret service agent guarding the president. Psychologist Michael Teague stood on the other side of the couple.

One of Stephanie’s friends, Amanda Gamari, read a poem about Stephanie. She struggled to get through it, pausing at times to clear her throat and accept a hug from a friend who stood at her left shoulder for support.

“What brought us all together is a mystery to this day,” the young woman read. “We all had separate lives until senior year made its way.”

The woman choked back tears as another friend comforted her, putting her arm around her shoulder and giving her a hug from the side. It was clear that to these young women Stephanie’s death was probably the first major loss in their lives. At a time when they should have been celebrating the possibilities of their bright futures, they were instead pondering who took their dear friend from the world.

“Last year we lost a part of us, the part that made us whole. The only way to describe her is that she was the sweetest little thing, a breath of fresh air,” Stephanie’s friend continued through tears.

She ended by dedicating the bench in Stephanie’s memory and “her beauty that was within.”

After the brief service, Stephanie’s family and friends spoke to the media, surely not because they wanted to, but because they wanted to keep Stephanie’s story in the public eye. In unsolved murder cases, victims’ families learn quickly that it’s important to keep a media spotlight on the case. They go from being ordinary people to being modern-day spin doctors trying not to topple the investigation by revealing too much. But at the same time, they have a vested interest in keeping their loved ones’ stories out there because it keeps pressure on the police and often leads to new information in the case.

For the first time since Stephanie’s murder, her roommate and stepsister, Deanna Powell, talked to news reporters. Dee, as everyone called her, was the epitome of a southern girl with a perfectly coifed brown bob, a black cardigan properly buttoned over a simple black and white flowered dress, and a delicate silver pendant dangling around her neck.

“I think it’s amazing seeing how many people have come together and supported Stephanie,” Dee said. “I know she would be really honored. Knowing Stephanie, she’d probably be embarrassed, but she would be extremely honored. She had no idea how much people really thought of her.”

Despite her pulled-together appearance and cherubic face, Dee had the vacant look in her eyes of someone who had witnessed death firsthand. Clearly, the year had not done much to erase the profound pain of losing her stepsister and dear friend.

After the ceremony, Emily Metro, Stephanie’s other roommate, sat with her arm around Dee on the sacred bench. The friends had not been together for some time. Distance, and the pain of shared grief, had kept them apart. Emily’s hair was in a messy blond ponytail, and she wore a faded denim jacket over a white sundress. It gave her an air of someone who had not wanted to think too much about her appearance on such a sad occasion.

Emily recalled how she, Dee, and Stephanie had been excited about what their futures held; they were ready to go out and tackle the world, and then
this
had happened. It had changed everything.

Emily said that the service in her dead friend’s honor had touched her in a way she hadn’t expected. It dredged up emotions she had buried deeply in the bottom of her broken heart.

“It gave me chills. My heart was pounding,” Emily said with a tearful smile of the bench dedication ceremony. It was like witnessing a rainbow after a storm, the perfect blend of sorrow and joy. But her smile disappeared when she talked about Stephanie’s killer still roaming the streets.

“Every day you think about—maybe it was someone I saw. Do I know this person?” Emily said, her voice trembling with fear. “Just the fact that he’s going on living his life when so many other people’s lives have been torn.”

Carmon also spoke to the media after the event. He sounded confident as usual, but never removed his sunglasses, presumably to keep anyone from seeing the weight of the grief still lingering in his eyes.

“I thought it was beautiful, with the amount of people that were here, Stephanie’s friends and family. It makes you feel real good. Makes you proud of Stephanie,” Carmon said. “Yes, it’s difficult. It has been difficult. Stephanie’s birthday is the thirtieth of this month, and that’s going to be a pretty tough day.”

Carmon recalled the day he brought Stephanie to Roanoke College in 1997, her freshman year. It was a day no father could forget—the day he sent his little girl off into the world to officially begin her own life as an independent woman.

“She was excited the day I brought her over here and dropped her off. I was nervous and scared,” Carmon said, managing a small smile at the corners of his mouth. “I was the one that cried when I left, not her.”

And Carmon was still the one crying. He could not have imagined what a toll this grief had taken on his life, his family’s life, and the lives of everyone Stephanie had touched. Carmon had been working closely with the police, trying to keep tabs on the investigation, but investigators couldn’t tell him everything, just bits and pieces. He knew they had to keep some things private to protect the integrity of the investigation. He resisted the temptation some victims have to lash out at police when an arrest doesn’t come within what they consider to be a timely fashion. Instead, in a true test of his faith in the justice system, Carmon praised the detectives for their hard work.

“I have confidence in the Raleigh Police Department,” Carmon said. “They’re trying to find a needle in a haystack if you will. You know how elusive that can be. We’re just hoping that something like this doesn’t have to happen to another young lady. I’m sure as time goes on something’s going to give, and we just got to have faith and patience.”

Morgan hovered like a bodyguard around Carmon during the interview. He was always ready to jump in if a reporter got too pushy or personal and upset the father of the murdered girl. He couldn’t help himself. Morgan always felt the need to protect victims’ families even when they didn’t need protecting. As usual, Morgan had no trouble attracting television cameras himself. He took his turn after Carmon, appearing to be talking off-the-cuff, while in actuality, he delivered perfectly formed sound bites.