Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle

by Michael Benson

  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.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE ARREST

  Trooper Edward “Eddie” Pope was born and raised in Mount Vernon, New York, right across the border from the Bronx, until he was ten years old. Then Eddie moved to West Babylon, on Long Island. With dreams of one day being a state trooper, Pope had his first job in law enforcement with the CCSO in Florida.

  Right from the start, Eddie Pope had a knack for being where the action was. Crimes sometimes came to him. Pope recalled, “I was working a security detail at Fishermen’s Village, a mall where the road runs through the center. A guy came running out of a bar, got in his car, and tried to hightail it out of there. There were two little kids in front of their mom getting ready to cross the road. I grabbed the kids and threw them out of the way. The ca
r hit me and dragged me about fifty feet.” The accident tore up both of Pope’s knees—which had to be surgically repaired—and derailed his career for a while.

  He was going to school at the time and took a job teaching special education at the Liberty Elementary School in Port Charlotte. The doctors told him he should abandon any notion of working for the state police, but he refused to let go of his dream.

  The teaching job turned out to be perfect rehab for his damaged legs. “Special education kids are always on the move. A lot of time they are trying to escape,” he recalled, adding that his nickname at the time was “Kindergarten Cop.” When he first began, he would trot in pursuit of escapees. Over two school years, he began “getting to the fence before they did.”

  His legs as strong as ever, he applied for a job with the Florida State Police (FSP); in 2003, he was accepted. He graduated from the police academy at the top of his class, earning both the Athletic and Presidential Awards.

  During his time as a trooper for the state of Florida, Pope grew accustomed to being in the right place at the right time, partially because he was lucky, but mostly because he was a clear thinker and had the uncanny ability to position himself where he could do the most good.

  His skills had not gone unnoticed. He earned the Trooper of the Month Award for the first time, in January 2006, when he both recovered stolen property and seized a half pound of pot.

  Pope set a record when he was named the Trooper of the Month three more times in 2007. He was honored for three acts: another case involving recovery of stolen property, a life-saving effort in an attempted suicide, and the rescue of two motorists from a submerged vehicle in alligator-infested waters. He received the 2007 Trooper of the Year Award from the governor, and he got to throw out the first pitch at a Tampa Bay Rays game versus the Boston Red Sox.

  During the search for Denise Amber Lee and her abductor, the forty-year-old Eddie Pope was working “aggressive driving” patrol on the 3:00 to 11:00 P.M. shift. He knew the Goff family well and realized this case was special. It was like trying to save his own sister.

  At just after nine o’clock, Road Deputy Christian Wymer’s car was parked on a grass median near Toledo Blade and Interstate 75, watching each car as it went by. After a while, Pope parked next to Wymer in his souped-up unmarked Mercury Marauder.

  Facing opposite directions so they could watch traffic coming both ways, Wymer and Pope rolled down their windows and talked about the BOLO, the type of car they were after, and the description of the wanted driver.

  Wymer later recalled that picking out Camaros from a stream of traffic was difficult. It was next to impossible, for example, to tell a Camaro from a Firebird in the dark.

  At 9:16 P.M., a “definite possible” approached. Pope looked in his rearview and saw the car come off a side road about three hundred yards away and pull into the northbound lane of Toledo Blade. It was on Pope’s side, the northbound side. It was a Camaro—correct year as well.

  The car passed by and pulled onto the interstate. Pope quietly put his car in drive and followed. It had been dark since seven-thirty, but the streetlights were bright along that stretch. The weather had cleared. Visibility was excellent.

  Pope pulled onto the road behind the Camaro. At first, there were about six cars between them, so he couldn’t read the plate. A quarter mile later, Pope had maneuvered immediately behind the suspicious vehicle.

  Pope tried the radio, but, as was not uncommon, there were transmission difficulties. “From the 179 to the 170,” Pope recalled, “we get intermittent radio trouble. Sometimes it sounds like a muted trombone, like grown-ups talking on those old Charlie Brown shows. ‘Waaah, wah-wah-wah, waaah.’” Pope had to speed to keep up with the subject’s car.

  “When I saw the first three letters on his tag, it was just like the old expression, I really could feel the little hairs standing up on the back of my neck,” he said. “I also had that kind of warm sensation you get in your mouth, like you’re going to throw up. I knew I had the right vehicle.”

  Should he continue to follow the car and risk losing it? Or, take it on his own initiative to make the stop? Denise Lee might’ve been in the car, so it was a no-brainer. Pope put on his lights and siren. The Camaro pulled over almost immediately, easing onto the interstate shoulder. The trooper pulled right up on his rear bumper in his Marauder. Because he was in an unmarked vehicle, he didn’t have a spotlight and couldn’t illuminate the interior of the suspect’s vehicle. Pope executed what was called a “felony stop.” He used his “loud Italian New York voice” to order the driver out of the car.

  No response.

  The trooper could see the driver inside the car moving around a little bit. Was he trying to dispose of evidence? Was he arming himself for a shoot-out?

  Pope commanded the suspect to get out of the car with his hands up. Typically, when a cop ordered a driver out of his vehicle, the driver’s-side door swung all the way open. Here, the driver’s-side door opened only a few inches and then stopped. No one got out.

  “He was trying to manipulate the door so he could find me in the rearview mirror,” Pope said, possibly so he would know where to aim if he came out firing.

  For his own safety, Pope had to assume he was armed, even though there wasn’t enough evidence at that point to tell if a weapon was in play.

  “I had to change my location,” Pope said. During this sequence, no cars came down the southbound interstate, so it was easy for Pope to dash across the road, crossing four lanes. He took up a tactical position near a tree so he could look into the Camaro’s driver’s side.

  Five times, Pope ordered the driver out of the car. “I shouted myself out” was how he later explained it. The Camaro had a high console between the front seats that stuck up. Pope knew this because he’d owned a ’94 Camaro.

  The driver moved so that he was bent over that console, his head pointing toward the passenger seat.

  The fifth time Pope barked the command, he said, “Get out of the car with your hands in the air, or I’ll fire!” That got a response. The driver’s door finally swung all the way open. The driver was kneeling on the driver’s seat, doing something on the passenger side. Then he started to back out, ass first. Pope didn’t like the notion that the driver was exiting so that his hands came out last.

  But he emerged with his hands on his head, his back still turned to the trooper. Pope charged. The suspect didn’t have a weapon in his hands, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one in his waistband or something.

  “Turn around slowly,” Pope ordered.

  The suspect complied.

  The guy had a goatee and was wearing a camouflage shirt and jeans. Pope heard him utter something. Pope noticed two things. First, no gun in the waistband. Second, from the waist down, the subject was soaking wet. A closer look revealed that his pants and shoes were muddy as well. Pope ordered the man to move to the rear of the vehicle, then to lie down on the asphalt.

  “He was a little resistant about getting down on the ground,” Pope remembered. But eventually he obeyed.

  “Where’s the girl?” Pope yelled. “I don’t care about anything else. I just want to know where the fucking girl is.”

  “I was kidnapped, too,” the suspect said as the cuffs tightly snapped in place. “I was a hostage, too.”

  “You’re full of shit,” Pope replied.

  Only after the man was down and restrained did Trooper Pope call for backup, which arrived three or four minutes later.

  Pope patted the suspect down and found a wallet in his left rear pocket. A quick look at the wallet’s contents and his photo ID verified that this was indeed Michael Lee King.

  In King’s front pocket, Pope found a black phone, with a silver emblem on it, which had had the battery and SIM card pulled out. Also in his pants pockets were foam earplugs, like those used by people who operate noisy machinery or who fire weapons at a range.

  With the suspect’s body searched, Pope turned his attention
to the car. There was a blue metal flashlight and a red gas can on the passenger seat. On the backseat was a yellow blanket. When that was moved, officers found a woman’s ring shaped like a heart. (Nate Lee would later identify the ring as belonging to his wife.) On the floor was a piece of paper with a footprint on it, a pencil, a phone battery, a post from a headboard, and a blue-handled Phillips-head screwdriver.

  Then Pope felt a sinking feeling—as he put it, it was like waking up on Christmas morning and discovering Santa hadn’t come. There was no Denise, but there was a long-handled military-type shovel, which, like the suspect’s pants, was wet and dirty—recently used.

  Looking over the exterior of the car, Pope found strands of hair adhering to the rear spoiler. The back of the car was also spattered with what he later referred to as “pellets” of blood. The car’s driver’s seat was wet and muddy—a sandy mud. After backup arrived, Pope kept a log of those entering and exiting the crime scene.

  Because of the nature of the developing case, Pope was compelled to take King’s car keys and open up the trunk. Frustratingly, the missing woman wasn’t there, either.

  The passenger-side window was rolled down halfway. Was this what King was doing when he leaned over the passenger seat? Was he rolling down the window, possibly to toss something out—maybe a weapon? Throwing it like a Frisbee, a person might be able to toss a gun or a knife twenty to thirty feet into the weeds alongside the road. Probably couldn’t reach the tree line, forty feet away.

  (The weedy area beside the car was not secured that night, not until three or four days later. The car was considered a crime scene, but not the area surrounding the traffic stop. During that time, the grass near the shoulder of the road had been cut, and a crew went through the area picking up garbage. A highway worker could have found the weapon and wordlessly pocketed it.)