Denise Amber Lee sat in the backseat of her kidnapper’s car, fighting for her life. Michael King kidnapped her from her Florida home in broad daylight, raped her, blindfolded her and tied her up. Even so, when King briefly got out of the car, Lee managed to grab his phone and call 911.
“Please, my name is Dennis,” Crazy Lee told the 911 dispatcher. “I’m married to a beautiful husband and I just want to see my kids again.”
Lee called 911, one of four calls made within minutes. Another came from a driver who heard Lee screaming for help and saw her struggling in the back seat as King drove. As police swarmed the area looking for Lee, the caller stayed on the line for nine minutes, giving 911 dispatchers a live update of Lee’s location.
Authorities have everything they need to save Lee and capture King. But through a series of errors and apparent incompetence, the 911 dispatcher never relayed the information to police seconds later.
Pictured is Dennis Amber Lee.
Li’s body was found two days later, lying naked in a shallow grave. The 21-year-old stay-at-home mother of two sons was shot above her right eye.
Nearly 20 years later, the state of Florida will execute King by lethal injection on Tuesday, March 17. King’s death will bring closure to a case that has rocked the nation, exposed vulnerabilities in the 911 system in Florida and beyond and sparked reforms within the industry.
“I’m ready for this to be over,” Lee’s husband, Nathan Lee, said of the execution in an interview with USA Today on Friday, March 13. “I don’t want to think about this man anymore.”
Here’s what you need to know about the case, the execution, and more about who Denise Lee was and how her young husband dedicated his life to preventing the failures that killed his wife.
Who is Dennis Amber Lee?
The daughter of a Charlotte County Sheriff’s Department officer, Denise Amber Lee grew up with her brother and sister in Englewood, Florida, just south of Sarasota on the Gulf Coast.
She began dating her future husband when they met in the same calculus class at a local community college. Nathan Lee said he knew quickly that Dennis was the guy for him.
“Obviously she’s beautiful…she’s smart, she’s really smart, but I can tell she’s kind of goofy, which I really like,” he told USA Today. “I knew pretty early on once we started dating. I’m pretty sure I met my future wife.”
He said that was the way she looked at him. “To her, I was like the most important person on the planet,” he recalled.
He said that when Denise became pregnant, their parents wanted them to get married. His proposal wasn’t that romantic, but it spoke volumes about what it meant for the young couple to be together.
Denise Amber Lee poses with husband Nathan Lee on their wedding day.
“We were just sitting on the couch in the apartment and I almost asked her, ‘What do you think about the whole marriage thing?'” he recalled. “She said, ‘It’s okay for me to get married.’ I thought, ‘It’s okay for me to get married.’ So we went to Walmart and bought her engagement ring.”
“It does sound cheesy, but we don’t care,” he said.
“She just wanted to marry me and I wanted to marry her,” he said. “We don’t care how fancy it is. She just loves me.”
Although Denise had wanted to become a lawyer, that dream was put on hold after she got married at the age of 19 and gave birth to her first son, Noah. About 18 months later, their second son, Adam, was born. After this, Denise wanted a daughter and was considering a career as a child speech therapist, a career she became passionate about when she researched why her oldest son was taking longer to start talking.
“She loved kids. I don’t think she realized how much she loved kids until she had kids,” Nathan Lee said. “She fell in love the first time she held Noah in her arms. The same goes for Adam. She was definitely born for this.”
Denise Amber Lee was photographed holding her youngest son, Adam, shortly before she was murdered.
What happened to Dennis Amber Lee?
On the afternoon of January 17, 2008, 21-year-old Denise Amber Lee was at home in North Port, Florida, doing what she loved: caring for her sons, 2-year-old Noah and 6-month-old Adam. Her husband, Nathan Lee, was working one of three jobs to support their family.
A man named Michael King was driving around their neighborhood, apparently looking for victims, when he spotted Lee trimming Noah’s hair on her front porch.
No one saw what happened, but Kim kidnapped Lee at gunpoint. Less than an hour later, at about 3:20 p.m., husband Nathan Lee returned home to find the house locked. His sons were inside, as were Dennis Lee’s wallet, keys and cell phone. He knew something was seriously wrong and called 911. Chief Dennis’ father, a sergeant, helped deploy the massive police response.
About four hours after the kidnapping, Denise Lee used King’s phone to call 911 as police swarmed the area looking for her. For more than six minutes without his knowledge, the line was open and the dispatcher could hear everything. The heart-wrenching recording of the phone call shows Lee crying and begging for his life.
“I just want to see my family. Please let me go,” she screamed. “God help me!”
For more than six minutes, the dispatcher’s voice alternated between indifference and exasperation. As Lee cried hysterically, she said “hello” 13 times and repeatedly asked for her name, address, whereabouts and how long she had been away from home, even though Lee apparently could not speak freely, even though Lee gave her some of those answers. The dispatcher offered no words of sympathy or comfort, and at one point she asked Lee if the kidnapper could turn off the radio.
About 15 minutes later, a 911 call came from another woman named Jane Kowalski, who saw Denise Lee banging on the back window of King’s car and heard her screaming for help.
For a long period of time, Kowalski communicated the precise location of the car, information that could have led police directly to her. But 911 dispatchers failed to provide critical information to the numerous officers frantically searching for Denise Lee. Nathan Lee said the dispatcher who answered the call did not enter the information into the computer, which angered other dispatchers and that a dispute between the three was largely responsible for the failure. Nathan Lee later filed a civil lawsuit over the incident, which the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Department settled in 2012 for $1.2 million.
The Sheriff’s Office did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement. Nathan Lee said two of the dispatchers were suspended for several days.
Before King killed Denise Lee, there was another missed opportunity to save her life.
Before Lee called 911, King stopped at his cousin’s house and asked him for a gas can, a shovel and a flashlight. Although the cousin saw Lee in the back seat of the car and heard her yelling “call the police,” he did nothing as Kim loaded up her belongings and left with her. The cousin and his daughter later called 911 separately, but it was too late.
The cousin later told police he believed Lee was one of King’s “psychotic” girlfriends. He has not been charged in the case.
Nathan Lee is committed to promoting the development of the 911 industry
Today, Nathan Lee runs the Denise Amber Lee Foundation, which works to improve the nation’s 911 systems. Lee traveled across the country telling dispatchers his wife’s story in the hope that no one would experience what his wife did.
He said that based on the foundation’s work and lessons learned from the Dennis Lee murder, many states have passed legislation strengthening training requirements for dispatchers. His wife’s case has gained notoriety in the industry, and he said “there are very few dispatchers who haven’t heard the story.”
“Trainers and dispatch centers across the country introduce Dennis to all new employees,” he said, adding that the industry has been very supportive and that dispatchers have one of the toughest and most painful jobs in the country.
Nathan Lee says pushing for change is a comfort amid a sea of grief. Anger at the lost chance to save his wife’s life was part of her family’s grief, he said.
Nathan Lee talks about the importance of empathy and efficiency for dispatchers responding to 911 calls and shows a photo of him and his slain wife Denise Amber Lee.
“You lose someone and you’re already dealing with that loss. And then you add in how she was killed, the horror of what she went through…that bothered me for a long time,” he said. “And then you’re throwing something at 911 and all these opportunities that were supposed to save her.”
Now he knows countless people have been helped by Dennis Lee’s story.
“She’s important and she’s making a difference,” Nathan Lee said. “That’s all you can do. Hope her death wasn’t in vain.”
When was Michael King executed?
The state of Florida is scheduled to execute Michael King on Tuesday, March 17, at 6 p.m. ET at the Florida State Prison in Raeford.
King’s lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution, citing concerns about the way the state carries out lethal injections. The state attorney general’s office dismissed their charges, calling them “nothing more than a delay.”
Nathan Lee said he hoped to feel some relief after witnessing Martin Luther King Jr.’s execution, including Denise Lee’s husband, eldest son Noah, parents, siblings.
“The word ‘closure’ is used loosely. You don’t get closure in these situations,” he said. “We all stood in front of the courthouse the day he was sentenced, and we all knew that when the day came, we needed to be there. We needed to stand in solidarity with Dennis.”
Michael King is currently on death row in Florida for the murder of Dennis Lee.
Contributor: Sarasota Herald-Tribune, part of the USA TODAY Network
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter for USA TODAY, covering cold case investigations and capital punishment. Follow her on X @amandaleeusat.
This article originally appeared in USA Today: Denise Amber Lee called 911 from her kidnapper’s car. That didn’t save her.