Michael King kidnapped Denise Amber Lee from her Florida home in broad daylight in 2008. Lee might have survived the ordeal if the 911 call hadn’t gone awry.
US expands death penalty methods
In modern history, most death row inmates faced one method of execution. There are now many other ways to die.
Florida has executed a death row inmate for the rape and murder of a housewife. The death exposed vulnerabilities in the nation’s 911 system and led to reforms within the industry.
Michael King, 54, was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday, March 17, for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of Dennis Amber Lee, 21. King kidnapped the married mother of two young sons from her home in broad daylight on January 17, 2008, less than an hour after Lee’s husband returned from work.
Lee might have survived the ordeal had it not been for his botched 911 call.
A driver who heard Lee’s cries for her life and saw her struggling in the back seat of King’s car called 911 and remained on the line for nine minutes. Dispatchers were given real-time updates on Lee’s location as police swarmed the area searching for him. However, due to a series of errors and apparent incompetence, the dispatcher was unable to relay the information to police, who were seconds away.
Within hours of the call, Dr. King took Lee to a wooded area, fatally shot Lee in the face, and left his body in a shallow grave.
More than 18 years later, at 6:13 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Dr. King was pronounced dead in Florida’s death chamber. At the time of her death, Lee’s widow, eldest son, parents and siblings stood as witnesses, all wearing pink, her favorite color.
According to a news witness, Associated Press, King did not apologize or ask for forgiveness when he spoke his final words.
“Ever since I found Jesus in prison, I have tried to live as a disciple of Jesus by living the two great commandments: to love God with all my heart, mind and being, and to love my neighbor and everyone, including my family, Dennis Lee’s family and everyone in the gallery,” he said of the execution team in barely audible words relayed from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office, reported by The Associated Press.
Here’s what you need to know about the execution, how a 911 dispatcher botched Lee’s rescue, and who is Dennis Amber Lee.
Dennis Amber Lee’s family speaks out after execution
Dennis Amber Lee’s father called his daughter a “hero” and Michael King a “coward” after witnessing her execution.
“The only thing that gave him courage that day was that he put a 9mm gun to his daughter’s head,” said Detective Rick Goff, who was a sergeant with the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Department at the time of the murder.
He said his daughter showed great courage in the back seat of Dr. King’s car and buried her wedding ring and much of her hair in the car to make sure investigators could identify her. The evidence proved important at trial.
“She took a murderer off the street,” Goff said. “She saved many lives through her actions.”
Dennis Amber Lee’s husband, Nathan Lee, said he was glad the execution was over so his family could focus on moving forward. Her eldest son, who was 2 years old when his mother was murdered, said the execution left him feeling confined.
“Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to know her and be raised by her,” Noah Lee said.
His brother, Tyler Lee, said the fact that King showed no apology or remorse “just shows what a true coward he is.”
What happened to Dennis Amber Lee?
On the afternoon of January 17, 2008, 21-year-old Dennis Amber Lee was at home in Northport, Florida, doing what she loves while caring for her sons, 2-year-old Noah and 6-month-old Adam. Her husband, Nathan Lee, worked one of three jobs that supported the family.
A man named Michael King was driving through the neighborhood looking for the victim when he spotted Lee cutting Noah’s hair on her front porch.
Although no one saw what happened, Dr. King was able to kidnap Lee at gunpoint. When Nathan Lee returned home less than an hour later, around 3:20 p.m., he found his house locked. Also inside were the wallets, keys and phones of his sons and Dennis Lee. Realizing something was terribly wrong, he called 911. Dennis Lee’s father, a local sheriff’s sergeant, helped develop the massive police response.
About four hours after the kidnapping, Dennis Lee was able to use King’s phone to call 911 as police swarmed to find her. Before he knew it for more than six minutes, the phone was open and the dispatcher could hear everything. The recording of the call was harrowing and heartbreaking, with Dennis Lee sobbing and pleading for his life.
“I just want to see my family. Please release me,” she cried. “God help me!”
For more than six minutes, the dispatcher sounded at times disinterested and at other times irritated. She said “hello” 13 times as Lee cried hysterically, and it was clear that Lee was unable to speak freely, continuing to ask her name, location, address, and how long she had been away from home, even after Lee had given her some of those answers. The dispatcher offered no sympathy or comfort, at one point asking Lee if the kidnapper could turn off the radio.
About 15 minutes later, another 911 call came in from a woman named Jane Kowalski. Dennis Lee was seen banging on the back window of King’s car and he heard her scream for help.
For many minutes, Kowalski relayed the exact location of her car, information that could have led officers directly to her. However, 911 dispatchers were unable to get critical information to the many police officers desperately searching for Dennis Lee. Nathan Lee said the dispatcher who answered the call had not entered the information into the computer, which angered his fellow dispatchers, and that the failure was largely due to a dispute between the three. Nathan Lee later filed a civil lawsuit over the matter, which the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office settled in 2012 for $1.2 million.
As part of the settlement, the sheriff’s office admitted no wrongdoing. Two of the dispatchers were suspended for several days, Nathan Lee said.
Today, Nathan Lee runs the Dennis Amber Lee Foundation, which is dedicated to improving 911 systems across the country. Lee travels around the country telling dispatchers his wife’s story in hopes that no one else will have to go through what he did.
As a result of the foundation’s work and the lessons learned from Dennis Lee’s murder, many states, including Florida, have passed legislation that strengthens training requirements for dispatchers, he said. His wife’s case is so notorious in the industry that “trainers and placement centers across the country tell every new employee about Dennis,” he said.
“She’s important and she’s making a difference,” Nathan Lee said. “And that’s all you can do after this. Just hope she doesn’t die in vain.”
More information about who Denise Amber Lee is
Denise Amber Lee is the daughter of a sergeant with the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Department and grew up with her siblings in Englewood, Florida, just south of Sarasota on the Gulf Coast.
She met her future husband while they were both taking a calculus class at a local community college. Nathan Lee recently told USA TODAY that he knew right away that Dennis was the perfect fit for him.
“Obviously she was beautiful… She was intelligent, she was really smart, and I could see that she was a little goofy. I really liked that,” he told USA TODAY. “Once we started dating, I knew right away early on. I knew I had met my future wife.”
He said that’s how she saw him. “As if I was the most important person on earth to her,” he recalled.
When Denise became pregnant, the couple’s parents wanted them to get married. Although his proposal wasn’t all that romantic, it says everything about how perfect Dennis and Nathan were for each other.
“We were just sitting on the couch in my apartment and I almost asked her, ‘What do you think about the whole marriage thing?'” he recalled. “She was like, ‘You can get married.’ And I’m like, ‘It’s okay to get married.’ So we went to Walmart and got her an engagement ring. ”
He said, “It sounds really cheesy, but we didn’t care.”
“She just wanted to marry me and I wanted to marry her,” he said. “We didn’t care how fancy it was. She just loved me.”
Dennis wanted to become a lawyer, but that was put on the back burner when the couple married and had their first son, Noah, when he was 19. Our second son, Adam, was born about 18 months later. After that, Dennis wanted to have a daughter and was considering a career as a child speech therapist. As she researched why it took her oldest son a while to start talking, she became passionate about it.
“She loved children. I don’t think she realized how much she loved them until they were born,” Nathan Lee said. “The moment she first held Noah in her arms, she fell in love. Same with Adam. She was definitely born for it.”
Who is Michael King?
Michael King was a 36-year-old unemployed plumber with no significant criminal history at the time of Dennis Lee’s murder. He grew up with his three brothers in Pontiac, Michigan, and had moved to Northport, Florida, just days before killing Lee.
According to archived news articles from the Sarasota Herald Tribune, part of the USA TODAY network, King’s relationships with women have been troubled, with his own wife criticizing him and calling him meek and deceitful.
King has faced sexual harassment allegations from various women, with one woman claiming he raped her, but none of the allegations were reported to police, the Herald Tribune reported.
His family reported that Dr. King was capable of big talk, was somewhat slow-witted, and sometimes acted like an “eccentric.” King’s family believes his behavior stems from a childhood sledding accident in which his head slammed into a metal post in a barn, an injury that caused him to hear buzzing noises in his head at night even as an adult, King’s family told the newspaper.
Dr. King’s lawyers recently petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, citing concerns about how the state carried out lethal injections. The state attorney general’s office dismissed their claims as “merely buying time.”
His last meal before his execution was pizza, ice cream, and soda.
Among the witnesses to the execution were Dennis Lee’s husband, parents, and brother.
“The word ‘closure’ is thrown around so casually. You don’t get closure in a situation like this,” Nathan Lee told USA TODAY before his execution. “We all stood in front of the courthouse the day he was sentenced, and we all knew we needed to be there when this day came. We needed to come together and be there for Dennis.”
Florida’s rapid execution rate continues
Michael King will be the seventh person executed this year in the United States, and the fourth in Florida alone, as the Sunshine State continues its rapid pace of executions.
Last year, 47 inmates were executed in the United States, a number not seen since 2009. Of those, a state record 19 were executed in Florida, accounting for about 40%. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis began signing more death warrants last year than any governor in Florida history, and the increase remains steady.
DeSantis said the inmates being executed are the worst of the worst, and he wants to bring closure to victims who have waited, sometimes for decades, for justice.
The next execution in the United States will be that of James Duckett on March 31st in Florida. Duckett was convicted in 1987 of raping and killing 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee, a 30-year-old rookie police officer in Mascot, about 30 miles west of Orlando.
Contributor: Kim Luciani Sarasota Herald Tribune, part of the USA TODAY Network
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter covering cold case investigations and capital punishment for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
