Читать книгу A Killer's Touch - Michael Benson - Страница 6
ОглавлениеCHAPTER 1
A DRIZZLY DAY
Latour Avenue, like so many streets across America, had been whacked by the economy. In the town of North Port, Florida, the street boasted spread-out single-level stucco houses with two-car garages. When the homes were built, only a few years before, the plan was for this street, and many of the other streets in surrounding North Port Estates, to be a safe enclave for young families raising small children.
Stats told the story. In 2006, 4,321 new houses were built in North Port. In 2007, only 380 of them were purchased. Hundreds of homes were unfinished. Hundreds were in foreclosure. As the money left town, locals (most of them newcomers, strangers in town) lost their jobs, and crime seeped in. On Latour Avenue, there had been burglaries. Car break-ins. Vandalism. Crimes that would have been unthinkable only a few years before.
More stats: there were 130 burglaries in North Port in 2001. By 2007, that number had risen to 466.
Violent crime came to North Port in 2006 when a six-year-old girl was abducted and found murdered a few blocks from her home. For many months, that crime remained unsolved.
The community didn’t feel like a community anymore. Longtime residents felt hopelessly outnumbered by strangers. There was a time when people knew their neighbors. There was a time when people in North Port trusted each other. No more. And it was even worse during the winter when the town’s population was inflated by snowbirds, Northerners who migrated to the South to keep the chill of winter out of their bones.
Now the people on Latour, as well as the rest of the city, locked their doors—not just at night but during the daytime as well....
Thursday, January 17, 2008, 2:30 P.M.
On Latour Avenue, twenty-three-year-old Jenifer-Marie Eckert was unemployed and temporarily staying with relatives. She’d only been living in that house for two weeks. At that moment, she was home alone, watching the living-room television and waiting for her boyfriend, Charles, who was late. Normally, she would have had the blinds closed, but she needed to simultaneously watch TV and look out the window.
Jenifer-Marie saw a green Camaro crawling down the street at pedestrian speed, like drivers do when they’re lost or trying to read house numbers. It was a late-nineties model; she couldn’t tell specifically what year. There was a white male driving, no passengers.
The car went up the street, used a driveway to turn around, and then drove back just as slowly. What the heck is this guy up to? Jenifer-Marie thought. Four or five times the guy passed by, always going slowest right past her house.
She’d never seen him before, but he looked normal enough. If he was really lost, she should help the guy out, give him directions. She went outside on the walkway a few steps from her front door and briefly made eye contact with the driver while he was still on the road.
As the Camaro slithered into the Lees’ driveway next door, Jenifer-Marie could see the man had light hair. She never saw him standing, but she thought he was tall. The top of his head was almost to the ceiling of the car.
Later she would try hard to remember the car in greater detail. She didn’t notice any dents or bumper stickers, but she was pretty sure it had one of those black things on the front that covered the snout.
The Lees’ home next door was much like the four others on the street—three-bedroom, two-bathroom, single-story, two-car garage—except there was a pillared overhang above the front entrance. This way, the young couple and their sons could sit or play outside the front door without being exposed to the strong Florida sun or equally harsh rain. A curving sidewalk led from the small front patio to the driveway. Since it was the corner house, it had kempt lawns on three sides. At the back of the house was a screened-in patio from which the occupants could gaze at the thick woods beyond their lawn.
The car usurped the spot in the Lees’ driveway usually occupied by the husband’s car. For a moment, Jenifer-Marie made eye contact. The last she saw of him he seemed to be fumbling around with something in the front seat. She thought the man had located his destination, so she went back in her house. As she was reentering the house, she heard the car door slam, indicating the driver had gotten out.
Fifteen or twenty minutes later—her boyfriend really late now—she went outside again and stood in her driveway, just in time to see the car leave the Lees’ house—in a hurry. She knew he’d gotten out of the car and then back in again, but she only saw him in the car. As far as she could tell, when the guy left, he was alone. The big difference between his arrival and departure was urgency. He crawled in—but he peeled out.
Just at that moment, another neighbor, Yvonne Parrish, a thirty-six-year-old mother of five who lived two houses from the Lees, looked out the window and saw the Camaro speed by.
“It looked like he was trying to get away from something,” she later said.
At just after two-thirty, thirty-nine-year-old Dale Wagler was leaving a friend’s house in the drizzle, on his way to the brand-new Walgreens to pick up a couple of prescriptions. He was about to pull his white Dodge onto Cranberry Boulevard in North Port when he saw a dark Camaro with a black “bra” on the front coming around the curve, weaving all over the road.
“No directional signal or nothin’,” Dale later said.
The Camaro slowed down, like the driver was looking for a street to turn off on. The car swerved right in front of Dale, cutting him off. Dale looked at the guy, a blond, and the guy looked back.
“Gave this evil look, a don’t-mess-with-me look,” Dale said, “and then he floored it. Stomped on it.”
Normally, Dale Wagler would have been provoked, might’ve followed a guy like that, might’ve flipped him off—but not this guy, not after that look. That was a look that said, “Follow me and I’ll kill ya.”
After the car zipped by, Dale saw hands in the back window. He thought they were waving around, but he couldn’t be sure because of the rain.
At the time, all he could think was “There’s a couple of drunks.”
Dale was heading in the opposite direction on Cranberry, but he continued to watch the swerving car in his rearview mirror. The car was all over the road, crossing the white line and the yellow line.
He thought: “Now there’s some people that are going to get pulled over.” Later he’d realize the importance of what he’d seen, but at the time, “it just didn’t soak in enough.”
The first indication to law enforcement that something was desperately wrong came at 3:29 P.M. when the local 911 center received a call from Nathaniel “Nate” Alan Lee.
Operator: “North Port Emergency.”
Nate Lee: “Uh, yes, I’m at **** Latour Avenue. I just got home from work and my wife ... I can’t find her. My kids were in the house and I don’t know where she is. I’ve looked everyplace.”
He’d come home from his job as a meter reader for the electric company to find his two sons—a two-year-old and a six-month-old—in the crib together, but their mother was gone. She would never leave them home alone, no matter what.
There was the usual disarray that comes with having small children. Toys were everywhere. On the floor, on the furniture, in the tub. One closet was filled to capacity with nothing but disposable diapers.
Nate said there was no sign of theft, no sign of forced entry, but Denise’s keys were on the couch, another indication that she had left the house under duress.
She left her purse behind—with her cell phone on. Women never leave their purse behind. That meant she either left on foot, or was in a car with someone else.
“The only thing that isn’t normal is she isn’t here,” Lee said. He thought about the ease with which his wife could be overpowered. She only weighed 102 pounds.
Lee also told the operator that the missing woman was the daughter of Rick Goff, of the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO).
After hanging up on the 911 operator, Nate called his father-in-law. Rick had called Denise’s cell just minutes before and had gotten no answer. He wanted to invite “the kids” over for dinner that night. When he saw Nate was calling him, he assumed that it was in response to the invitation.
Rick answered with, “Hey, you guys want to come over and eat?”
“I can’t. Denise is missing,” Nate replied.
“Nate, you’ve got to explain what you mean by that.”
“I’m telling you. She’s missing.”
“I’ll be right there,” Rick said.
If Denise had been stolen by someone hoping no one would notice, he couldn’t have chosen a worse victim. Denise Lee was a member of the Goff family—a family to be reckoned with. They had been the first settlers of Englewood, Florida, in 1887. Denise’s father had been with the CCSO since September 1982. He started in corrections, spent two years there, then three on road patrol, and fifteen years undercover. Since then, he’d been in charge of the Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force, tracking wanted suspects. Denise’s mom, Susan, had been the supervisor in the Tax Collector’s Office in Englewood, where they lived, for more than twenty years. Rick and Sue were married in January 1983 and had three children: Denise, born in 1986, Amanda—who, contrary to her dad’s advice, wanted to be a cop working with children—born in 1989, and Tyler, a promising baseball player, born in 1991.
While on his way to the Lee house, Rick Goff called his sheriff’s department. He knew that reports of missing spouses tended to be handled with nonchalance by police because so frequently the spouse returned on his or her own and their partner had been quick to panic. Goff wanted to make sure that no one took that attitude in this case. He told his people he wanted dogs, and he wanted helicopters. This was not a domestic squabble that would work itself out. This was a genuine emergency. He wanted immediate action. As is true when police feel one of their own is in trouble, the call to action went out without hesitation.
“Anything you need,” Goff was told.
Rick Goff, like Nate before him, ran through the possibilities in his head, and didn’t like the conclusions he was coming to.
“I knew right away something happened to her bad,” he later said.
Among the officers who reported to the scene of the apparent abduction was a criminalistics specialist, Cortnie Lynn Watts, who thoroughly photographed the house inside and out. Not knowing what was evidence and what wasn’t, she photographed everything, every room from every angle. The keys that the missing woman had left behind, the contents of her purse carelessly spilled out. The most heartbreaking of those photos were of the high chair on the back patio and the little clumps of hair on the floor.
The missing woman had been giving her son a haircut not long before she disappeared.
In response to Nate’s 911 call, two units were dispatched to the Latour Avenue home. They arrived at 3:44 P.M. Nate gave a statement to Officer Scott Smith. He told Smith the same things he’d mentioned to the dispatcher: wife gone, two babies left behind, left her car, purse, key, cell phone, all behind. It was just past three-thirty. A neighborhood canvass was instituted to gather info regarding the lost woman.
Jenifer-Marie Eckert next door volunteered the information she had regarding the green Camaro she saw creepy-crawling the street at two-thirty. The neighbor now told her story with fear in her voice. The woman next door had been snatched, and there she was, all alone, only a few feet away. It could have been her.
The first detectives reached the scene of the possible abduction at four-sixteen. There were two cars in the driveway, a 2006 Toyota Corolla (the missing woman’s) and a 1994 Dodge Avenger (her husband’s). At four thirty-three, a request came into the CCSO from North Port for a “K-9 search team”—that is, a bloodhound and trainer. Deputy First Class (DFC) Deryk Alexander and his dog responded to the call.
Both Charlotte and Sarasota sheriff’s departments were sent requests for search helicopters.
Road Patrol sergeant Pamela Jernigan was the first officer to report to the Lee home. The missing woman’s husband, Nate, and father, Rick, were there.
“Can you think of anyplace Denise might have gone? Someplace nearby where she could walk on foot? A neighbor’s?”
Jernigan was well aware of police philosophy based on years and years of experiences. When a wife disappeared or—heaven forbid—was killed, it was her duty to take a long look at the husband before considering other options. Despite the fact that the man’s father-in-law was a cop and the husband was not sending up any red flags whatsoever, there were a few questions she needed to ask.
“When was the last time you spoke with her?” Jernigan asked.
“Um, a little after eleven o’clock this morning,” Nate Lee replied. Phone records would later reveal that the call was placed from him to her at 11:09 A.M. The call had lasted approximately five minutes.
“What was said?” In other words, was there a fight?
The conversation couldn’t have been more normal. Since it was cool, he advised her to open the windows and kill the air-conditioning, and Denise said she’d already done so.
“She told me she planned on giving our oldest son a haircut today.” Again, no red flag.
The first note of concern came at three o’clock when he got off work. He called her cell phone as he left work, to see if there was anything she needed him to pick up on the way home. No answer. That was odd—but there were plenty of reasons why she might not answer. Maybe she was changing a diaper. She would call back. It was a twenty-five-minute drive from his job to his home. He expected her to call back, but she did not.
Phone records would indicate that Nate was growing worried already. He called Denise’s cell eight times during the twenty-five-minute drive.
That worry grew to out-and-out concern as he pulled his car onto their street. Even before he pulled into the driveway, he could see that the windows—the ones she’d said she’d opened—were now shut.
“What time did you get home?”
“About three-thirty. The boys were in the crib together, and Denise was gone.” He tried to stay calm, not to freak, but he couldn’t help it. She’d never left the boys alone before, and there was no good scenario that explained the facts.
No red flags, but procedures still needed to be followed. Nate had to wait outside while the house was searched.
Inside the house, it was hot. With the windows closed, and the air turned off, the place had heated up. The windows had been pushed down but not latched, as if someone had closed them in a hurry.
A high chair had been moved onto the back patio and there were wispy tufts of blond hair on the floor in front of it, a sign that Denise had been playing barber just as she said she would.
Then the husband saw that she’d left her purse, keys, and cell phone behind; he immediately called 911.
Sergeant Jernigan noted that the front door had two locks. The top one was a dead bolt, the bottom one a regular lock. The bottom lock could be locked from the inside by turning a latch. The dead bolt could be locked only from the outside and required a key.
When Nate Lee had arrived home, the front door had been locked from the inside and pulled shut from the outside. Denise’s key had not been used. Jernigan then looked at Denise’s cell phone, checking for outgoing and incoming calls, to see which people Denise had been in touch with that day. There were several calls back and forth with her husband. She had called one friend, Natalie Mink, that morning. (It turned out Denise left a message and never got through to Natalie.)
Having determined that Denise was no longer there, and that she was gone under suspicious circumstances, Jernigan called a criminal investigator to the scene. He turned out to be Detective Christopher Morales, who would become the case’s lead detective.
At 4:38 p.m., the following message went out over law enforcement’s computer system: MISSING 21 YRO FEMALE DENISE AMBER LEE THIN BUILD BLUE EYES DIRTY BLONDE HAIR 5-2 UNK CLOTHING HER HUSB ARRIVED HOME AT 1530 HRS FOUND THEIR 2 TODDLER CHILDREN ALONE, VEH AND KEYS PURSE STILL AT HOUSE CANNOT LOCATE HER REQUESTING BLOODHOUND.
Morales took a look around the house. No signs of a struggle. No indications of a sex crime. The woman was simply gone. He spoke briefly to the woman next door, and took a look behind the Lee house, where there was a heavily wooded area. There was a lot of scrub, palmetto brushes looking like Oriental fans. There were few nearby houses. The area was kind of desolate.
Morales then returned to the North Port police station, where he organized the search for that Camaro.
At 5:02 P.M., a BOLO (be on the lookout) was dispatched for the late 1990s-model green Camaro and Denise Lee, a twenty-one-year-old white female. The BOLO also included a description of a “possible suspect,” a white male, thirty to forty years old, tall, with light brown hair.
The possibility that the crawling Camaro and the woman’s disappearance were separate and unrelated had to be taken into consideration. Eyewitnesses had been wrong before, and some became overzealous when relating their memories, caught up in the drama of the moment. So, four minutes later, all Sarasota County all-terrain vehicle (ATV) operators were requested to report for duty because of the vast wooded areas surrounding the missing woman’s house. There was still a chance that she’d merely wandered off.
A Charlotte County bloodhound-and-handler team arrived on Latour Avenue at 5:21 P.M. DFC Deryk Alexander’s dog started his search at the front of the house. Finding no trail, he circled the house and sat down in the driveway—very close to the spot where Jenifer-Marie Eckert saw the green Camaro park.
With all of the police activity, neighbors who were home came out of their houses to see what was going on. With her heart pounding, Yvonne Parrish told police about the car she saw speeding away.
“It’s really, really scary that this happened just two houses away,” she later explained.
At 6:14 P.M., two and three-quarters hours later, another 911 call was received. Kathy Jackson, brand-new on the job, answered the phone at the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. She had just passed the dispatcher-training course. Little did she know that the call she was about to handle would change her life, and not at all in a good way.
“911. What is your emergency?”
On the other end of the line was a frightened young woman, whose words seemed disconnected, not quite in response to the operator’s question.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just wanna go—”
“Hello?” the operator said.
There were unintelligible sounds on the other end, sounds of feminine anxiety and terror. The woman was speaking, but not into the phone, not to the operator.
The operator then heard words that could be understood, the words of a man saying, “Why’d you do that?”
“I’m sorry,” the woman could be heard to say. “I just want to see my family.”
It took the operator a moment to figure it out. The woman was speaking to her attacker, or abductor, or whatever he was.
“Hello? Hello?” the operator said.
A sound could be heard from the man, perhaps unintelligible words, perhaps just an animalistic growl.
The woman said, “Oh, please. I just want to see my family again. Let me go.”
The operator: “Hello?”
The man: “What the fuck is going on?”
The woman: “Please let me go. Please let me go. I just want to see my family again.”
The man: “No fuckin’ problem.”
The woman: “Okay.”
The operator: “Hello?”
The man’s accusatory tone could be heard, but his words couldn’t be understood.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said, her voiced reduced by terror into an infantile whine.
The man said, “I was gonna let you go, and then you go and fuck around.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman repeated. “Please let me go.”
The man: “Now we got to go in the next street because of him.”
The man was unaware that the phone had been connected to the emergency operator. He was scolding the woman for alerting people in their vicinity of her distress. Perhaps they were in a car.
“Now I want to bring you in there again,” the man said. “I didn’t want to do that.”
“Please let me go, please. Please—oh, God, please.”
The man could be heard scolding more. Only the end of the statement could be understood: “... in front of my cousin Harold!”
The operator tried again: “Hello?”
The man: “I told you I would.”
The operator: “Hello?”
The woman: “Help me!”
The operator: “What’s the address?”
“Please help me!”
“What’s the address where you’re at? Hello?”
“Please let me go. Help me. I don’t know.” Perhaps she was trying to answer the operator’s question without her attacker knowing it.
The man said, “Calm down.”
The operator: “Hello?”
The woman: “Please let me go.”
The operator: “What is the address that you’re at? Hello, ma’am?”
The woman, now talking to her attacker: “Where are we going?”
The man replied, “I got to go up and around now because of him.”
The woman asked, “Up and around where?”
The man answered incredulously, “Didn’t you see?” Then, after a phrase the operator couldn’t make out, the man added, “Exactly right four or five streets over from your house.”
“I couldn’t,” she said, meaning she hadn’t seen. “Tell me where?”
She was very clever, trying to get the man to state their location and destination while the 911 operator listened in.
The operator: “What’s your name, ma’am? Hello?”
The woman: “Please ...”
The operator: “What’s your name?”
“Please, my name is Denise. I’m married to a beautiful husband and I just want to see my kids again.”
The operator: “Your name is Denise?”
Denise, again talking to her attacker: “I’m sorry.”
By this time, the operator had things figured out. Denise had called 911, but her attacker didn’t know it. She was trying to give the information the operator requested without her attacker realizing what was going on.
“Please, God, please protect me.”
The operator: “Are you on I-75?”
Then the male on the other end of the line could be heard saying, “What did you do with my cell phone?”
Denise replied, “I don’t know. What do you mean?” There was an unintelligible phrase, followed by her saying, “Protect me.”
The operator: “Where are you at? Can you tell us if you’re on I-75?”
Denise said, “I don’t know where your phone is. I’m sorry.”
The man: “You be honest with me... .”
Denise: “Can’t you tell me where we are?”
The operator: “Are you blindfolded? If you are, press the button.”
Denise: “I don’t have your phone. Please, God.”
The man: “Look around and think. Well, not that ... that’s too little.”
Denise: “I don’t have it. Sorry.”
Operator: “Denise, do you know this guy?”
Denise: “I don’t. I don’t have it. I’m sorry. I don’t know where your phone is. I’m sorry.”
More words from the man, but the operator couldn’t understand what he was saying.
Operator: “Denise, do you know this guy?” Then, aside to someone at the dispatch center: “She might have the phone laid down and not hear a thing I’m saying, too. He keeps saying about the phone and she ...”
Denise: “I don’t know where it is. Maybe if I could see I could help you find it. No, sir.”
Operator: “Denise ...”
Denise: “I’m looking for it. Uh-huh.”
Operator: “How long have you been gone from your house?”
Denise: “I don’t know.”
Operator: “Do you know how long you’ve been gone from your house? What’s your last name?”
Denise: “Lee.”
Operator: “Lee?”
Denise: “Yeah.”
Operator: “Do you know what street?”
Denise: “I don’t know where your phone is.”
Operator: “Your name’s Denise Lee?”
Denise: “Uh-huh.”
Operator: “Can you tell at all what street you’re on?”
Denise: “No.”
Operator: “Do you know this guy that’s with you?”
Denise: “No.”
Operator: “What’s your address? What’s your home address? Do you know?”
The man’s voice could be heard again: “I told you (unintelligible) cell.”
Denise: “I don’t know. Please just take me to my house. Can you take me to my home? On Latour, please.”
Operator: “Can you see, or do you have a blindfold on?”
Denise: “I can’t see. Where are we?”
There was more unintelligible anger from the man.
Operator: “Can they turn off the radio or turn it down?”
Denise: “I can’t hear you. It’s too loud. Where are we?”
Man: “Give me the phone.”
Denise: “Are you going to hurt me?”
Man: “Give me the phone.”
Denise: “Are you going to let me out now?”
Man: “As soon as I get the phone.”
Denise: “Help me.”
And with that, the connection was broken. Denise had stayed on the phone six and a half minutes. Caller ID told police that the call came from a phone belonging to a Michael “Mike” Lee King. A listing of registered vehicles almost instantaneously corroborated Jenifer-Marie Eckert’s info—King drove a green Chevy Camaro. A new BOLO included King’s name and the presumed license plate number on his car.
When Nate heard about Denise’s 911 call, his brain scrambled for comfort with wishful thinking: It might be a teenager playing a practical joke. Oh, if only that were true.
A recording of the 911 tape was played for Rick Goff, who confirmed, with his heart breaking, that it was the voice of his daughter. It was the most horrible thing he’d ever heard, his beautiful daughter, screaming in terror, trying desperately to give clues that would help them find her. Unable to help her, he almost couldn’t listen to her terrified voice.
And she’d been so smart and done such a good job. She gave her name and the street on which she lived. She managed to give the operator all of that info, while making her kidnapper think she was talking to him.
Plus, she managed to stay on the phone for so long. He was convinced they were going to find her and rescue her. Because they’d had so long to track the call, they would know just where she was. As police would soon realize, however, the kidnapper had a cheaper than cheap cell phone, one that was practically disposable, and it was not equipped with a GPS, which would enable police to track it to a precise location. All they had to sleuth with were the cell phone towers that handled the call. They knew she was close by. Precisely where remained a mystery.
The name Michael Lee King meant nothing to either Denise’s father or husband. Nate was nearly overwhelmed by the randomness of the abduction. They didn’t know him at all, and yet this guy might’ve been stalking his wife for a long time, waiting for the right moment to snatch her away.
Rick started making phone calls. He didn’t know what else to do. He called every cop he could think of, and the Latour Avenue scene became crowded with law-enforcement personnel. Rick even called Howie Grace, a news guy from the local NBC affiliate, WBBH-TV. Grace had known Rick Goff for years, and knew him as a guy who never displayed emotion. But now, he was frantic, almost sobbing.
The Lees’ neighborhood was freshly canvassed; police were now armed with a Department of Automotive Vehicles Identification (DAVID) photo of the suspect.
Not everything the neighbors had to say was immediately helpful. One neighbor said the man in the photo resembled a man who had visited during the summer of 2007 and inquired about the For Sale sign in front of her house.
Only a couple of minutes after the call from Denise ended on an ominous note, at 6:23 P.M., another call came into the emergency center.
Operator: “Police Emergency. Operator Bonnell... . yes, what’s the problem?”
The call was from a woman identifying herself as Sabrina Muxlow, who said she had solid information that her dad’s cousin Mike King had a girl tied up in his car. The dispatcher asked Sabrina for her address and she gave it, a home on Junction Street in North Port.
“How do you know this information?” the operator inquired.
“My father just called me and told me.”
“Now, what would your dad’s cousin be doing with this female?”
“The man [came] over to my dad’s house and borrowed a shovel, a gas tank, and something else.” She knew there was a third item, but she couldn’t remember what it was. After that, King got back in his car and drove off.
The operator began asking for names, but the woman stopped cooperating.
“My father wants to remain anonymous,” she said.
“Where does your father live?”
“In North Port.”
“How did your father know there was a woman in the car?”
Sabrina didn’t know, but she did know the captive woman had tried to escape. “The girl came up out of the car, but my dad’s cousin put her back in the car.” For a moment, her father had seen enough of the woman to see his cousin had her tied up.
Did her father have any idea where his cousin was going with this female?
Sabrina said no.
“Okay, we’ve been looking for this female.”
“You have.”
“Oh, yes, we have a helicopter up looking for her. You are just so wonderful to call on this information.”
“Yeah.”
Seven minutes later, at six-thirty, the emergency operator in Charlotte County received a call from a woman who was driving in her car along a local thoroughfare. She was on her way to visit her sick grandmother in Fort Myers. It was raining, she drove a small car, and she was staying off the interstate as she coursed North Port. There were too many people on I-75 who drove like maniacs. So she was on the parallel road and had to deal with stoplights.
“911. Where is your emergency?”
“I’m on [Route] forty-one going south, and I’m at a cross street right now. I’m on Chamberlain. I just crossed Chamberlain, and I’m on forty-one going south. I was at a stoplight and a man pulled up next to me, and there was a child screaming in the car.”
“What type of vehicle was he in?”
“It’s a blue Camaro, like in the nineties or early 2000s or something.”
“Okay, it was a baby or—”
“No, it was a child.”
“How old?”
“You know, it’s dark, and I turned to look at him. He’s a white male. Sort of light-colored hair. Sort of plump. He’s behind me now, and I tried to slow down so that he can pass me and I could read his license plate.”
“Ma’am, don’t hang up.”
“I’m not.”
“Okay.” There was a pause in the conversation, fifteen to twenty seconds, as the dispatch operator relayed the information she had already received. Then she was back on the line. “Okay, where are you now? Forty-one south?”
“I am. I’m going to pass a cross street, and I believe he is still behind me. It’s Jenks Drive. I’m just crossing it and I’m going very slow, like thirty-five miles an hour, on forty-one.”
“And he’s behind you?”
“I believe he is behind me. He has not passed me. And he’s going slower than I am, which is not like, I mean, we’re holding up traffic and stuff. I think he saw me look at him. I don’t want to be overdramatic here, but he’s going even slower now. Is he pulling over? No. There is something going on because he is going even slower now. He is right behind me. I don’t know if the kid was, I don’t know ...”
“What is your name?”
“My name is Jane—Okay, he’s pulling over into the other lane now. Jane Kowalski. K-O-W-A-L-S-K-I.”
“And give me your cell phone number in case I lose you.”
Kowalski complied hurriedly so she could resume describing what was going on.
“Okay, he’s going to turn. Oh, shit. He is going to turn left on Toledo Blade. He is turning left right now. I—I—I’m in the other lane.”
“You’re going southbound and he’s turning left on Toledo Blade.”
“Right, and it’s like a blue, I want to say like a Camaro type of car. White male. And there’s a kid in the backseat and they kept banging on the window.”
“Left on Toledo Blade. About how old is this child? Can you tell me?”
“I didn’t see the child. I’d say less than ten. Definitely not an infant. Old enough to bang on the window.”
“Okay, seven to ten?”
“I don’t know. Five to ten. Okay, now it’s green. There are green arrows, and he’s going now.”
“He’s turning left on Toledo Blade?”
“Yeah, do you want me to ... Do you want me to turn? Try to follow him? Or ...”
The operator could be heard saying, “Okay. Does he want her to follow him?” Returning her attention to the caller: “Can you turn?”
“Oh, oh, he just turned left on Toledo Blade. I don’t know if I can catch up. There’s a bunch of traffic and I can’t get over. Um, oh, boy.”
Again the operator could be heard relaying a message: “There’s a child in the car somewhere between five and ten that was banging on the window.”
“And screaming,” the caller added.
“And crying,” the operator said.
“And screaming!” the caller corrected. “Like screaming screaming. Screaming. And not a happy scream. It was a ‘Get me out of here’ scream.”
“Left on Toledo Blade, and you say it was a blue Camaro?”
“Blue or black. Very dark. He’s a white male. And I want to say sort of light-colored hair. Maybe a little plump in the face—not, I don’t think, obese. I am way past him now. For me to go catch him, I don’t know if I’d ever be able to go back. I mean, I would never stop him. I’m not going to put myself at risk.”
The operator asked the caller to repeat her name and cell phone number. Jane Kowalski once again said her name, clearly enunciating, then spelling it.
“I mean I hope they weren’t just playing around,” Jane said. Then, looking at the big picture, she revised that statement. “To me, it sounded like the kid was frightened and panicky.”
“Okay.”
“But, um, I don’t know. Instead of taking a chance, I just wanted to make sure I called it in.”
The operator was typing: CALLER LAST SAW A BLUE OR GREEN CAMARO TURN LEFT ON TOLEDO BLADE FROM HWY 41 SOUTHBOUND CAMARO WAS DRIVEN BY W/M WITH LT HAIR AND THERE WAS A CHILD ABOUT 5-10 YRS OLD SCREAMING IN THE VEH AND BANGING ON THE WINDOW COMP CALLED IN THINKING THIS CHILD MAY HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN A POSS AMBER ALERT SINCE THIS VEHICLE WAS ACTING VERY STRANGE.
Yes, the witness had said “blue” or “black” and the operator typed “blue” or “green.” The car was actually green, of course, but this happy accident had no effect on what followed.
“Well, I’m very glad that you did, ma’am. That’s exactly what you should do. Okay. Well, you lost him, and thank you now, and we really appreciate you calling us.”
“Okay, can someone follow up with me? I mean ...”
“Hold on, ma’am.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, hang on, ma’am.”
“Okay.”
The operator relayed the caller’s question and then could be heard saying, “The vehicle turned left on Toledo Blade from forty-one southbound. She is no longer with the vehicle. White male driver. Blue or black Camaro. Male had light hair and there was a child screaming in the car and ...”
“And banging on the window,” Jane Kowalski prompted.
“And banging on the window,” the operator relayed. She returned her attention to the caller and said, in an apologetic tone, “I’ve got everyone hollering at me, and ... just a second. Okay, I may need you to pull over, so bear with me.”
“That’s fine. Okay. I’m going to pull over now, let me get over,” the caller said.
“Yeah,” the operator said, again sounding as though she was apologizing for the inconvenience. “That would be great.” There was a moment of silence broken by the operator: “I am glad that you called in.”
“Yeah, me too. I mean, I don’t know if there is an AMBER Alert out or something like that, but—”
“Bear with me. And where are you pulling over?”
“I just pulled over into the Toys ‘R’ Us.”
The operator placed the landmark immediately: “Okay, the Town Center Mall?”
“Town Center Mall. Yeah.”
“Okay, that’s excellent.”
“I’m from Tampa. I’m going down to Fort Myers to visit my sister, and I don’t even know where I am actually, but okay.”
“You’re going where?”
“I’m going down to Fort Myers to visit my grandmother and my sister.”
Conversation could be heard on the operator’s end. Where was the caller exactly? Anywhere near the Chili’s restaurant? What make of car was she driving?
“Tell me what kind of car you’re in?” the operator asked.
Jane Kowalski said that she was driving a silver Mercedes.
“Okay, if you’ll just sit there—and your doors are locked, right?”
“Well, yeah.”
“No, no, I mean ... I always have my car doors locked.”
“That’s probably a good idea, actually. Yeah, okay, all right,” the caller said, now understanding that the operator, despite her assurances to the contrary, thought there was a possibility that she was in harm’s way.
Now there was a long pause and all that could be heard was typing on the computer as the operator input the information she knew so far.
The typing stopped and the operator could be heard saying, “Do they want to make contact with her? She’s pulled over.” More typing. To Jane, she repeated, “Hang on, bear with me here. Forty-one south, yeah, he’d be heading toward the interstate.” A loud sigh could be heard, but it was unclear if it came from the caller or the operator. “I appreciate you holding on, Jane.”
“I just ... Well, actually, I hope it turns out to be nothing, really. I mean, I would never ...”
“She’s pulled over in the Toys ‘R’ Us parking lot. Do they want contact with her?” On the operator’s end, a female voice could be heard giving the operator instructions, a list that brought a frustrated response. “I have that. I already gave that to you.” More instructions. “Okay, I’m asking you. Do they want to make contact with her? Okay, Jane, we have your phone number. If we need you, we’ll call you. You’ll be at that cell phone number if we need you, right?”
“Absolutely. And don’t hesitate. I will give you whatever information I can give you.”
“Okay, and we really appreciate you calling in.”
“Yeah. Oh, God, I hope—man, oh man, okay.”
“Thanks, Jane.”
“Okay.”
“Drive careful.”
“Oh, I shall. Thank you.”
“Bye-bye.”
The communications supervisor tried to establish a patch between North Port and Sarasota and Charlotte Counties so there could be interagency communication regarding the disappearance of Denise Lee. One dispatcher thought the patch needed to be completed before she should “air the call.” Only minutes after Jane Kowalski hung up, there was a shift change, and the new people on duty didn’t even receive the partial messages that the old shift had gotten. Eventually the information from the Kowalski call was put into the Lee file, when someone realized that the struggling child could be a diminutive woman, and the blue Camaro could be green. But still, deputies on the road were not told to respond to the Kowalski call.
Jane Kowalski sat in the parking lot, and sat and sat. She began to fume. She knew a little bit about 911 systems. She had, in fact, worked in the 911 industry. She’d worked for a company that developed 911 software and had been responsible for the software’s implementation.
“I had personally installed the system with my engineers,” she remembered. “I’d spent a lot of time in call centers and seen how they handled calls.” One of the reasons she’d been so precise in the information she gave was the time she spent in emergency call centers. She knew the information that was needed and had given it to them in a calm, concise, and accurate fashion.
She understood the philosophy of keeping the victim talking until the police arrived, which was a good rule if someone was breaking into your house or if you’ve been in an accident. Jane Kowalski was not the victim here, and the perp was miles away by the time she pulled into the parking lot and stopped.
If the dispatcher who’d taken her call had been using a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, one used by emergency systems everywhere, she wouldn’t have had to ask the same questions over and over again. (In reality, Charlotte County did have a CAD system. It simply hadn’t, in this instance, been used properly.)
“I was giving her exact locations,” Jane Kowalski later explained. There were five cop cars within a mile of her. If a CAD system had been in place, they would have been there by the time she hung up the phone.
Instead, she sat in the parking lot. When Jane called a second time, they didn’t know who she was, and the best she could get from the dispatcher was “if we need you, we’ll have someone contact you.” Rightfully feeling that she’d done all she could do, Jane started her car and continued on her trip to see her grandmother.
Later, piecing together what had happened, one deputy sitting in his patrol car estimated that he was sitting at one intersection just as Michael King drove past with Denise Lee in the car.
At 6:50 P.M., a man called 911—apparently, the father of the woman who had called earlier about Michael King borrowing a gas can and a shovel. Because he did not want to get involved with any investigation, the man did not give the operator the whole truth. Caller ID at the police station revealed that the man was making the call from a pay phone, which, he hoped, would further assure his anonymity.
Operator: “911. What’s the location of your emergency?”
Man: “I’m not sure what the emergency is exactly, but I think there’s somebody that’s been taken and they don’t wanna be where they need to be, and they’re in a ’95 green Camaro in North Port somewhere.”
Operator: “Okay, and how do you know this?”
Man: “I don’t know. Just ...”
He told the operator that the man dropped by to borrow a shovel, a gas can, and a flashlight. He asked what the items were for and the man said he had a lawn mower that had broken down and was stuck in a ditch. While they were pulling the requested items out of a tool shed, the caller saw the woman try to escape. She said, “Call the cops” before the visitor struggled with her for maybe thirty seconds and finally managed to push her back into the car and “took off.”
“Did the man say anything to you about the girl?”
“Yeah, he said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’”
“Okay, the car was a green ’95 Camaro?”
“Yup. With a black ‘bra’ on the front of it.”
“A black ‘bra’?”
“Yup. So ...”
“But you saw them, right?”
“Yes.”
“And where was she?”
“In the car.”
“Do you know where they are now?”
“I have no idea.”
“Who did they take?” the operator asked.
“Some girl.”
“Do you know who the guy is?”
“No.”
“Anything else you can tell me?”
“Nope.
“Okay, hold on, okay? ... Okay, do you know anything else?”
“Sure don’t.”
“Do you know when you last saw them?”
“Off of Biscayne.”
“Where?”
“Biscayne and Price. It’s hard to tell now.”
“Is he gonna hurt the girl?” the operator inquired.
“I have no idea.”
“You saw them, though?”
“Yeah.”
“And where was she?”
“In the car.”
“Was she okay?”
“She didn’t seem like she wanted to be there. Let me let you go.”
“Can you give me anything else?”
“No. If I find something out, I will.”
“Can I get your name and number?” the operator questioned.
“No. I want to be anonymous.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll call you back if I hear anything else.”
“Okay, let us know if you hear anything,” the operator concluded.
The caller hung up. The man’s attempt to remain anonymous was in vain. During Denise Lee’s 911 call, police heard King refer to his cousin Harold. As it turned out, King only had one cousin by that name, Harold Muxlow—and sure enough, he lived in North Port.
Early that evening the nearby Lee County emergency operator received a call from a man who identified himself as Shawn Johnson. Earlier in the day, he’d been leaving his job in North Port and heading to Fort Myers, where he was living at the time.
He was at a stoplight on U.S. Route 41 when he heard a cry for help. The intersection was Cranberry Boulevard (about three-quarters of a mile northwest of the spot from which Jane Kowalski called 911). Shawn said he’d rolled down his window and heard the cry again, several times.
The weather was nice, although it had rained earlier, and even though it was late afternoon there was still light enough to see.
Shawn didn’t know what to think at first. He thought maybe it was a joke. He looked over at the car next to him, where the cries seemed to be coming from. For a moment, he and the driver of that car were looking right at one another.
There was something about the sounds of the subsequent screams, and there were as many as eight of them, that made him think this wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t an angry parent yelling at a kid or anything like that.
The screams were female and sounded genuinely desperate. Most of it was just sounds, but he heard “help” and “help me” in there as well. By the time the light had turned green and he took off, the screams had stopped.
At 6:59 P.M., a North Port cop named Sergeant Patrick Sachkar arrived at King’s house on Sardinia Avenue, near the corner of Big Leaf Street in North Port, about two miles away from where the Lees lived.
The home was directly across the street from the La-marque Elementary School, a disturbing proximity, to say the least. The single-level stucco house was painted white, with gray trim. It came with a two-car garage and a single-vehicle carport, which had apparently been added after the original construction. There was almost as much space allotted for motor vehicles as for living.
Behind the carport was a small trailer with Michigan plates, containing a couple of gas containers, a compressed-air machine, a jack, and a spare tire. The carport itself was practically empty, containing only a glass display case, a folding baby stroller, a dark wooden bookcase, a minibike, and several other items. The large garage was also mostly empty, containing only a few cardboard boxes and several pieces of broken-down furniture.
The blinds to the front windows were down and closed. At the side of the house, where only the meter readers went, the blinds were up. In back, the blinds were pulled closed on the sliding back door.
A wooden fence separated the property from that of the next-door neighbor. In the back was a swing set. The lawn consisted of sparse grass, cut short and growing from a sandy soil. Thick weeds and a row of palm trees provided privacy from the houses on the next street over.
The front door was just to the right of the garage. Because of the urgent circumstances, Sachkar kicked open the door. The wood splintered beside the doorknob and lock, and small pieces of wood fell into a pile on the walk in front of the door.
Entering the house, Sachkar heard loud music, which he quickly determined was coming from a television in the living room, which had been left on with the volume turned all the way up—as well as from another source elsewhere in the house.
Four full-length mirrors were mounted, side by side, along one wall. A fifth mirror had once been mounted next to the others, but it had been removed. Its outline was still visible. A large painting of a reclining tiger was mounted on the opposite wall. There was light gray wall-to-wall carpeting throughout the house, and the walls were painted the color of eggshells. A broom rested against a corner of the foyer. Nearby were two pairs of sneakers—one size eleven and a half, one size twelve—and a pile of laundry, all clothes for an adult male. On the floor in a hallway, near the bathroom door, was a balled-up pair of jeans. Except for the bathroom light, all other lights were off.
Sachkar and others wasted no time searching the house, believing Denise might still be there. But the house was empty, even, for the most part, of furniture.
Along with a newspaper, an empty Little Caesars pizza box, and an empty plastic bottle of water, there was a roll of duct tape sitting on the kitchen counter—brand Manco Duck. The newspaper was an edition of the North Port Herald-Tribune, dated Monday, January 14, 2008. The sections had been pulled apart, with one open to the want ads. Resting on top of the front page was a printout of computer-generated travel instructions in Michigan—from Marlette to Westland, 127.4 miles away.
Also on the same counter were various squirt bottles of cleaning fluid, a tin box half full of wooden matches, the business card of the Herald-Tribune’s Community Sports editor, and a Motorola cell phone. There were notes written on scraps of paper indicating that the occupant was looking for a job. A couple of unwashed Tupperware bowls, two plastic cups, and a plastic fork were in the sink.
The garbage was in a yellow plastic shopping bag attached by the handle to the doorknob of the kitchen closet. Another pizza box, many empty soda and water bottles, and a balled-up piece of duct tape with blood—and long dirty-blond hair adhering to it—were in there.
The bedroom was darker than the other rooms. Sheets had been stapled up over the windows to keep out light. A plug-in radio sat on the floor, volume cranked. A pillow with a plaid pillowcase, a Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger sheet, a dark red blanket, and a black shirt were next to the radio, all on the floor. The missing mirror from the living room had been moved to the darkened bedroom, where it now leaned against the wall. A plastic laundry basket, with bedding inside, and a vacuum cleaner were next to the mirror. The only real furniture in that bedroom was a swivel desk chair on wheels.
Between the radio and the makeshift “bed,” the police officer spotted something that turned his stomach: a hair tie, and another ball of duct tape. Like the one in the garbage, this one had long dirty-blond hairs adhering to it.
He looked at the blanket. It was stained. There also appeared to be bloodstains on the carpet next to the sheet. This was a sex crime scene, a rape dungeon.
Sachkar cleared the residence and secured the house’s exterior, including the lawn, with crime scene tape. The avenue was closed at either end of the block. He would await the crime scene investigation (CSI) technicians.
Michael Lee King’s full name and date of birth were added to the existing BOLO.
Many locals—natives and snowbirds alike—first learned of the missing woman at one of the roadblocks set up across North Port, tying up the evening commute. A helicopter flew low over the back roads, north of Interstate 75. All main roads right up to the county line had a cop car on them searching for Camaros.
Many places were searched—but they weren’t the right places. A Code Red call was issued to residents who lived in the vicinity of Sardinia. There was at least one false alarm, as one of King’s neighbors reported a green Camaro, which turned out not to be the right one.
At 7:32 P.M., in response to Jane Kowalski’s call, which came in more than an hour earlier, Laurie Piatt, the supervisor of the 911 center, put in a request for the A Child Is Missing program to be activated. That program offered a prioritization of activity for cases in which the missing person was a child or a student living on campus. Seventeen minutes later, the program still was not activated, as Piatt was waiting for a callback.
Because varying colors had been reported, police were stopping all Camaros. At 7:33 P.M., a patrol car stopped a purple Camaro on the outskirts of North Port. At 7:43 P.M., a lime green Camaro was spotted parked in a driveway on Goodrich Avenue. The owner quickly verified that the car was hers and explained that it hadn’t moved in a long time because there was something wrong with the engine.
A half hour later, a more detailed description of Denise Lee went out, noting that her dirty blond hair came down just below her shoulder blades, that her eyes were blue, and she had a small mole under her chin. The BOLO contained precise info regarding the Camaro as well, noting that it was a green 1994 model being driven by Michael Lee King.
At 9:01 P.M., another dark Camaro was stopped on Cornelius Boulevard. A vacant house near the corner of McDill Drive and Chamberlain Boulevard was searched, to no avail.
At 9:17 P.M., the CCSO dispatch registered a call from one of their patrol cars. Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) had made a stop. SUBJECT X15, it said.
That meant suspect in custody.
