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Authors: Michael Benson

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On March 24, 2008, Susan Kirby Kallestad wrote a letter to Sheriff Davenport in response to the Internal Affairs investigation regarding the handling of Jane Kowalski’s 911 call. She wrote that she “accepted her responsibility” for not passing on the information from Kowalski’s phone call to the oncoming dispatcher. She wanted to note, however, that she did pass the information on to dispatcher Kattie Beasley, and asked that she air the info put into the computer by call taker Mildred Stepp. Kallestad wrote that she had only recently had the opportunity to listen to the tape of the Kowalski call in its entirety and was concerned by the fact that the internal investigation did not address inappropriate handling of the call by the call taker Stepp, who, Kallestad wrote, delayed in posting vital information. The call came in at 6:30
P.M.
, Kallestad noted, but it wasn’t until twelve minutes later that Stepp posted information in the “Signal 59/Agency Assist” that had been opened into the computer-aided-dispatch for units responding to North Port. Kallestad wrote that Stepp spent a full nine minutes on the phone with Kowalski without entering any notes at all into the CAD system, which is the nucleus of CCSO dispatch operations.
All calls were supposed to be entered into that system in a timely fashion, she wrote, but for twelve minutes, Stepp entered nothing. She called that an “unacceptable amount of time” and “absolutely inexcusable,” particularly considering the critical nature of the call. The twelve-minute delay in entering info in the system included the entire nine minutes of the call, plus three additional minutes. Listening to the call, Kallestad wondered if Stepp understood the “importance of this call.” (She, for example, was told of a screaming child; yet immediately she relayed a verbal message that the call concerned a “crying child,” diminishing the urgency.) Kallestad wrote that because of the conclusion of the internal investigation, her name and Elizabeth Martinez’s name were “forever linked” as the dispatchers who mishandled the Kowalski call; yet, Stepp’s failures were not addressed. She requested that her letter be added to the file containing the reports and documents produced during the internal investigation, and also that a copy be placed in her own personnel file.
 
 
Already flabbergasted and annoyed with the system that had failed to save Denise Lee’s life, Jane Kowalski was further irritated when the 911 call she’d made was released to the press. That was because her phone number appeared both on the tape and on the transcript of the tape. Despite the ease with which it could have been redacted, everyone watching the news on TV or reading a newspaper suddenly knew Kowalski’s cell phone number. According to law enforcement, they had no right to bleep out that information. All redactions in released materials were the responsibility of the media.
She expected half the kooks in the world to call, but it wasn’t that bad. “I got some phone calls, but it wasn’t horrific or anything,” she said.
What
was
a pain was the media feeding frenzy that ensued. She had reporters at her door all day. She tried to do the right thing and make everyone happy, so she told the same story—the exact same story—about “a thousand times.”
 
 
Nate Lee announced that he was starting the Denise Amber Lee Foundation, a movement calling for the revamping and improvement of 911 systems across America.
As winter turned to spring, the snowbirds migrated north and the natives of southwestern Florida sought ways to help the foundation. On the evening of March 30, 2008, Nate threw out the first pitch for a Port Charlotte High School baseball twin bill held at Pirate’s Cove. Port Charlotte donated 100 percent of that night’s proceeds, from both the gate and the concessions, to the charity, an amount in the vicinity of $1,000.
About the evening, Coach Bob Bruglio said, “I just thought, ‘What a tragic thing.’ I was born and raised in this town, and I want this community to be a community. When I grew up here, there was nothing. Kings Highway was a dirt road. You opened a gate to go to Arcadia and you closed the gate, so you didn’t let the cows out.”
CHAPTER 12
CRIMINOLOGISTS’ REPORTS
On May 2, 2008, at 11:00
A.M.
, criminalistics specialist Cortnie Watts met with Nate Lee at the NPPD, in the property area. Watts was under orders from Detective Christopher Morales to show to the victim’s husband items of evidence for identification. All of the items were clothing discovered down the road from the shallow grave, and they were in bags sealed with evidence tape. The first item was the pair of blue boxer shorts.
“Recognize these?”
“They’re mine,” he said. “She ... She used to like to wear my boxer shorts.”
A pair of red women’s underwear. Lee said he believed they belonged to Denise.
A portion of a bra strap. “I can’t be sure,” he said.
When the items were rebagged and sealed, they were sent to the DNA Labs International to see if any DNA found on them was a match for either Michael King or Denise Lee.
Watts swabbed Nate Lee inside his mouth with a long Q-tip–like applicator for DNA.
Five days later, at two in the afternoon, Detective Morales instructed Watts to swab the nine-millimeter Luger shell casing found near the burial site. The casing was removed from its evidence bag, swabbed, then resealed in the bag. The swab was sent via FedEx to DNA Labs International (DLI) for testing.
 
 
DNA Labs International, located in Deerf ield Beach, Florida, received, in all, thirty swabs for analysis. The first thirteen of those were swabs taken from the Camaro and its contents.
Only two of those contained sufficient DNA for analysis: One from the back of the driver’s seat, near the bottom, was a match for Denise Lee. It was now impossible for King to claim Denise was never in his car. The chances of that DNA belonging to anyone other than Denise were 1 in 9 trillion. A hair found in the car also belonged to Denise.
A bloodstained yellow blanket found in the Camaro yielded a DNA mixture. Denise was the primary contributor to the tested material, and Michael King was almost certainly the secondary contributor. The profile on the secondary DNA was not complete; but still, chances that the DNA did not belong to King were 1 in 280.
The next four swabs to be tested came from King’s attire when arrested. His shirt, jeans, and sneakers yielded insufficient data. However, his black boxer shorts had visible bloodstains on the right and left exterior waistband. According to the DNA Labs report, however,
No DNA profile foreign to Michael Lee King was obtained from this item.
Seven swabs from King’s “rape room” were tested, two successfully: one from the Winnie-the-Pooh blanket and one from a section of carpet that had been cut out and removed. Both semen and blood were detected on the blanket. The bloodstains were a mixture of male and female DNA. Neither the suspect nor the victim could be eliminated as possible donors. The chances that the combination DNA belonged to someone other than the suspect or the victim were 1 in 600,000. The carpet contained both blood and semen. There was a 1 in 19,000 chance that some of that blood didn’t belong to the victim, a 1 in 310 chance that some didn’t belong to the suspect. King was the donor of the semen. Long hairs found at the scene belonged to the victim.
Evidence gathered at Denise Lee’s postmortem procedure was also sent to the FDLE for DNA analysis and given top priority. Those items included the vaginal, anal, and oral swabs, and those from the victim’s breasts, and medial left thigh. Also among the items to be tested were fingernail clippings, head and pubic hair (hairs that included the root bulb), and duct tape still attached to the victim’s head.
 
 
In early April 2008, Nate Lee and Rick Goff lobbied Florida State lawmakers to establish statewide standards for the training and certification of 911 emergency dispatchers.
A few days later, Nate came to the Charlotte County Justice Center, where he held a press conference and announced that he blamed the CCSO for not saving his wife. He intended to sue.
A tearful Nate Lee said, “If you have heard Ms. Kowalski’s call, you heard severe incompetence [by the Charlotte County communications center]. That is unacceptable. Someday I’m going to have to tell our little boys, who will have very few memories, if any, of their amazing, courageous, and brave mommy. Despite all of this, I will have to tell them that she died needlessly. People need to be responsible for what happened. If that call was dispatched, we would never have wasted time looking and searching at all because Denise would have been rescued that night and would be with us today,” he concluded.
Representing Nate Lee in the lawsuit was attorney Thomas D. Marryott, of Punta Gorda, Florida, who delivered the letter to Charlotte County Commission chairman Tom D’Aprile, informing the county of his client’s intention to sue the sheriff’s office for incompetence on behalf of himself and his two sons.
Marryott said, “The sheriff’s office received sufficient information in a timely fashion in particular with Jane Kowalski which we believe, if they acted in the appropriate fashion, would have saved Denise Lee’s life.”
“We need to know if [the murder] could have been avoided and, if so, how. We have to make sure it never happens again,” D’Aprile said.
Rick Goff called for the employees involved in the botched 911 call to be fired and added that he was still waiting for an apology from Sheriff Davenport.
On April 16, the Goffs, Nate Lee, and his sons went to the National Crime Victims’ Rights Week ceremony in Port Charlotte. The event was organized by the Center for Abuse and Rape Emergencies (CARE) and the Charlotte County chapter of Parents of Murdered Children (POMC). During the ceremony, 101 local murder victims’ names were read, and with each name a flower—a red, pink, or white rose—was pinned to a wreath of twigs. The ceremony was held in a movie theater and a spotlight lit the wreath.
Donald Mason, the head of the state attorney’s office in Charlotte County, spoke at the ceremony. He said the ceremony’s theme was “justice for victims, justice for all. For some, justice is revenge. For others, justice is acceptance and forgiveness. For others, justice is something that can never be rendered on earth. I urge you all to make the best that you can from this day.”
Rick Goff also spoke, telling the audience about Denise: “I cried when she was born,” he said. “I cried the day I dropped her off at school. I cry every day now. It’s day by day. Some days are better than others. I have no good days. I just want to remember her for the special person she was. I just remember everything about her.”
 
 
In October 2008, Deputy Daniel Cameron, of the SCSO, was working at the Sarasota County Jail, where Michael King was incarcerated. It was Deputy Cameron’s job to supervise prisoner recreation, which was held on the jail’s caged roof.
One day, Cameron and King began a conversation—the first time that the two had spoken to one another. It was just chitchat, at first. They were both originally from the Midwest and talked about the difference between Midwestern and Florida weather.
Then King said, “Do you know why I’m here?”
The deputy said no.
“They think I killed that girl in North Port,” King said. Cameron felt a start. King added, “I met her, but I didn’t kill her.”
 
 
On December 12, 2008, Nate Lee appeared on
Dr. Phil
to discuss the flaws in the 911 system and how they might have cost his wife her life. Not everyone was pleased with his appearance.
Charles Cullen, president of the California chapter of the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), who also appeared on the program, called it a “setup.” Although he expressed the utmost respect and sympathy for Nate Lee, he felt that using local mistakes to indict all 911 systems was “a disgrace.”
CHAPTER 13
PRELIMINARY HEARINGS
Preliminary hearings for the capital murder trial of Michael King were held in courtroom 4-A at the Twelfth Circuit Courthouse on Ringling Boulevard in Sarasota, which was also where the trial would be held. While in court, Michael Lee King wore a series of dress shirts in pastel colors with just the top button unbuttoned. The witness stand was in the center of the back wall, to the judge’s right, directly in front of the centered lectern from which both sides would do their questioning. For an attorney to get any closer to a witness than that lectern, he or she would have to ask permission from Judge Economou to approach. The courtroom was modern, with individual padded seats for spectators, instead of the wooden pews that made older courtrooms resemble a church. Judge Economou’s bench was at the rear right corner of the room; the defense was on the right side; the prosecution was on the left. The jury would sit against the left wall.
Ringling Boulevard! It was the perfect setting for the media circus that was expected because of the notoriety that the case had garnered. An extra layer of security protected the courthouse for every Michael King hearing. Law enforcement’s biggest fear was that a vigilante would try to inflict some instant justice on King. At all times, at least five SCSO deputies would be on hand, both to maintain order in the court and to protect the defendant.
Two of King’s court-appointed lawyers were John J. Scotese and Carolyn Schlemmer—no strangers to capital murder cases. In 2007, both had been on the defense team of Blaine Daniel Ross, who, in 2004, murdered his mother and father with a baseball bat and then clumsily attempted to make the scene appear like a robbery. Ross was convicted and sentenced to death.
Schlemmer, without Scotese, was also part of the unsuccessful defense team for Richard Henderson Jr. in 2007. Henderson was charged with killing his entire family on Thanksgiving Day, 2005, and then sleeping in his parents’ bed. Schlemmer did her best to paint Henderson as insane, but a jury didn’t buy it. In that case, at least, Schlemmer convinced the jury to recommend life in prison rather than execution.
Schlemmer’s career had not turned out at all as she had anticipated. When she was attending law school at Stetson, she had wanted to be a prosecutor, but fate pushed her onto the other side of the aisle.
“I had to take the public defender clinic while in law school because the prosecution clinic was full,” she explained. She graduated in 1991 and began her career working for a friend’s firm in St. Petersburg. After that, she worked as a public defender in the traffic division in Tallahassee. In 1993, for the first time, she defended a client facing the death penalty, and capital murder cases became her specialty.
How did she handle defending the worst of the worst?
“I do feel that, no matter guilt or innocence, everyone is entitled to good representation and a fair trial,” she said. “Maybe that is why I can so easily represent the people accused of the worst crimes. I have a knack for separating feelings and work. You either have it, or you don’t.”
The third person on King’s defense team was assistant public defender Jerry Meisner. One notch on Meisner’s belt was that he had a few years earlier accomplished something very rare: he’d successfully argued that a client was not guilty because he was insane.
Jurors rarely buy insanity defenses—they don’t like ’em. In February 2005, Meisner’s client Larry Smith, of North Port, was acquitted of second-degree attempted murder charges because a jury found him insane. Smith had fired four shots at a gas station following an argument, but Meisner sold his theory that Smith was temporarily insane due to “involuntary intoxication,” an adverse reaction to a prescribed antidepressant.
 
 
On April 16, Michael King himself appeared in court for the first time since his arrest. He was wearing a yellow prison jumpsuit. As would become the norm in court, King remained silent and stared straight ahead.
At the hearing, John Scotese argued that King’s statements to police and civilians (i.e., Harold Muxlow) in the minutes and hours following his arrest should not be released to the media.
Scotese argued, “Everything the court has been provided is not a public record because it does speak of participation. There are statements of participation in the sense of being present at certain locations.”
Judge Economou, however, reviewed the records and ruled that they did not contain admissions and should be released.
 
 
Fourteen months passed. King stewed in jail, not concerned with his grooming. On June 11, 2009, Michael King again appeared in court, now sporting long hair and a full beard. At the hearing, his lawyers noted that since community outrage over the case had been a predominant subject on online bulletin boards and in chat rooms, they should be allowed to ask potential jurors during voir dire if they had ever used the Internet to discuss the murder of Denise Lee. In the past, it was routine for potential jurors to be asked if they had written any letters to newspaper editors regarding a case. Asking them if they had ever blogged about a case was just an update of that. Questionnaires needed to be modernized. Did the potential juror online-chat? Tweet? Was he on Facebook?
Several mistrials had been declared in the recent past because of the common use of the computer as a research tool and as a way to express personal opinions. Nine jurors in a Florida drug trial admitted that they violated the judge’s instructions and researched that case on the Internet. A federal corruption trial ended in a mistrial when jurors were found to be using Twitter and Facebook.
Judge Economou okayed the updating of voir dire. In addition to tweeting and blogging, potential jurors could be asked what they remembered about media coverage of the case. Of particular concern to the defense team was an appearance by Nate Lee on
Dr. Phil,
during which the widower asked that mistakes made in the aftermath of his wife’s abduction become an impetus for improving 911 centers.
On Wednesday, July 22, 2009, Michael King appeared in court, clean shaven with neatly short-cropped hair, wearing a yellow prison jumpsuit and orange sandals.
Carolyn Schlemmer requested a change of venue, arguing that local notoriety rendered impartial jurors nonexistent. Almost everyone had read something about the case, Schlemmer told Judge Economou, and “when you read it, it is particularly disturbing.”
The judge ruled that they would cross that bridge when they came to it. He was not going to assume that an impartial jury was impossible to seat in Sarasota County. If that did turn out to be the case, he would rule that the trial could be held elsewhere. For now, the judge said, the case would move forward.
It was noted that the courtroom was not large, and it might be too small to handle the number of spectators and media that were expected. The victim had many friends and loved ones who intended to observe every minute of the proceedings.
The judge ruled that “provisions would be made” for Denise Lee’s supporters to sit in the courtroom. They would not, as some feared, be forced to watch the trial via TV monitor in an “overflow room.”
Jury selection would prove to be particularly cramped. A pool of one hundred jurors was expected on the first day. Those people, plus the family members, would already fill the courtroom. Where would everyone else sit?
The judge said, “We will have to make arrangements.” Before the jury was selected, the judge noted, some spectators might be allowed to sit in the jury box.
Schlemmer moved that evidence discovered at King’s home and obtained during a jailhouse conversation be ruled inadmissible. Detective Christopher Morales, Lieutenant Kevin Sullivan, and Deputy Daniel Cameron testified on these matters.
Sullivan said that on the evening of Michael King’s arrest, he arrived at the scene on Interstate 75 moments following the traffic stop by Trooper Eddie Pope. The defendant had already exited his vehicle and asked for an attorney. Sullivan said he took King on a ride-along in hopes of finding Denise Lee, but the efforts were in vain. King said he hadn’t been able to see during his abduction and didn’t know locations. Sullivan said that King was not read his Miranda rights and that the defendant told him that he had also been kidnapped.
Detective Morales explained that King clearly did not know about the 911 calls from his cousin Harold Muxlow and Harold’s daughter Sabrina, or else he would have realized that no one was buying his claim to be a victim. Morales said that many questions were asked of King during the ride-along, that no attempt was made to provide King with an attorney, although King asked for one on at least two occasions.
Deputy Daniel Cameron testified regarding the conversation he had with the defendant during October 2008 on the caged roof of the Sarasota County Jail during which King admitted to having met Denise Lee.
Denying the motion regarding evidence seized at King’s home, Judge Economou said that after Denise King made her 911 call on King’s cell phone, police were justified in entering his home. When police saw evidence of abduction in King’s home, a search warrant
was
acquired, after which evidence was seized—evidence that police had reasonable cause to believe was pertinent to the victim’s abduction.
The judge ruled that it was appropriate to suppress some postarrest statements made by the defendant. In his ruling, Economou said, “Neither Lieutenant Sullivan nor Detective Morales read Miranda rights to the defendant at the traffic stop or during the ride-along—the defendant was in custody at the time—nor did they provide the opportunity to have an attorney contacted.” The ruling to suppress included any and all statements made by the defendant up until the time he was finally read his Miranda rights at the NPPD station late on the evening of January 17 and into the early-morning hours of January 18. This included the statements he made to Harold Muxlow, who was brought into the interrogation room to pump his cousin for information. The judge also ruled inadmissible the statement made by King to the deputy on the jail rooftop.
(Before faulting the officers for not reading King his rights or allowing him to get an attorney, readers should keep in mind that any eventual prosecution of this man was not the priority of law enforcement at that time.
Finding Denise Lee was their priority.
In that sense, they chose the best course of action.)
 
 
As the prosecution prepared its case against Michael King, it was Suzanne O’Donnell’s job to be in charge of the hundreds of pieces of evidence.
“I was the evidence gal,” she recalled.
From O’Donnell’s POV, this was a complicated case because of the multiple crime scenes: the Lees’ house, the Camaro, King’s house, the burial site. She had to
edit
the evidence down to a manageable amount, prioritize, and eliminate the redundant.
A crime scene investigator’s motto is “When in doubt, bag it.” Evidence had been taken from Harold Muxlow’s house, for example, and none of it was pertinent to the crime. Not everything in the Camaro was relevant, either. King had paperwork in there that had nothing to do with the crime.
There was a bedpost found in the car’s backseat, and O’Donnell wanted it to be relevant. But she couldn’t tie it in, and the jury would never get to see it.
Her work was made easier by the “phenomenal job” done by the evidence techs, who had packaged and sealed each piece individually in clear plastic.
She knew of some trials where it took forever to introduce evidence. Each bag had to be cut open in front of the jury and the item removed so they could see what was inside. At King’s trial, no scissors would be necessary. She could just hold up each package. Witness, jury, everyone, could see what was inside.
The techs prepared the evidence in other helpful ways. Denise’s clothes found near the burial site were mounted on cardboard so that the jury could tell what they were. Otherwise, they would have just looked likes clumps of indistinguishable cloth.

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