Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle

by Michael Benson

  “Does the state have any rebuttal?” Judge Deno Economou inquired.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Lon Arend said.

  “All right. Let’s take a fifteen-minute break first.”

  When the break was over, Lon Arend explained to the jury that this was his opportunity to respond to what the defense had just said. He sympathized with their impatience. He knew they were eager to get on with their deliberations so they could be done with it and get on with their lives. He promised not to repeat himself. He also wanted to comment on things the defense attorney had not said. He didn’t talk about the kidnapping or the rape. That was because there was nothing he could say. All he could do was argue that the defendant would kidnap and rape a woman, but he drew the line at murder.

  “Does he expect us to believe that his client would kidnap and rape a woman, yet would never slip a bullet into his pocket when he had the opportunity?”

  The defense had said the items of clothing were not buried. Well, they were buried—and in separate holes. The defendant had done a lot of digging with that shovel he’d borrowed from his cousin.

  Jerry Meisner had implied that the evidence indicated that Michael King owned no gun. To the contrary, the evidence indicated that the defendant had a gun—a nine-millimeter one.

  He implied that the Camaro had been parked far away from the grave site, if it was there at all. But the evidence showed that the Camaro had been pulled right up to the grave site, headlights forward so the defendant could see what he was doing.

  The spot where the pool of blood was found—the pool of blood that someone had shoveled sand on top of—was the place where Denise stood when she was shot.

  The blood spattered toward the car. There was no evidence that any blood spattered back toward the gunman, so it was not inconsistent that no blood was found on the defendant’s clothes and shoes.

  They would never know whether or not King had gotten blood on his white shirt because he’d disposed of it and was wearing a camouflage shirt by the time of his arrest.

  Meisner had spoken about deception and lies, but it seemed to Arend that those deceptions and lies were not coming from Robert Salvador, but rather from Michael King.

  “He tried to evade Jane Kowalski. He tried to evade Harold Muxlow when Denise was trying to escape. He concealed Denise in his car. He concealed her in his home. He concealed her in a four-foot hole. He ultimately concealed his gun and his white shirt in a place where they were never found. Michael King was the one engaging in evasion, concealment, and lies. The defense wants you to think Robert Salvador murdered Denise Lee, but does that make any sense? Which do you believe—that the defendant’s sex with the victim was consensual, or that he raped her but didn’t murder her? I do not ask you to guess. I simply ask you this question—is there any evidence that would create a doubt that King committed the three crimes with which he has been charged? Thank you for your time and attention.”

  Rebuttal lasted ten minutes.

  The noon hour approached as Judge Economou gave the jury their instructions—which were long and repetitive. He explained that for each of the three charges, lesser charges were available to them, if they believed the prosecution had not proved the three charges. The alternate jurors were dismissed and thanked for their time. For the remaining twelve, the judge reminded them that they were to elect a foreperson who would supervise the deliberation, that all deliberation needed to take place in the jury room, and that a bailiff would be posted outside their door in the hallway at all times.

  “If you have any questions, you are to write them down on a piece of paper, knock on the door, and give the piece of paper to the bailiff. We’ll discuss whether or not we can answer it. If I can answer the question, I will do so. All of the evidence will be sent back to you. You have the right to see any and all of the evidence introduced.

  “You may retire now and consider your verdict,” the judge concluded. The jurors filed out of the courtroom. It was quarter after twelve in the afternoon.

  After only fifteen minutes, there was a question from the jury: Would they be able to listen to both of the 911 audiotapes; and if they did, would the bailiff have to stick around inside the room to watch the evidence while the tapes were being played? Same question regarding the twelve-minute video of King’s home.

  Judge Economou ordered the jurors back into the courtroom and explained to them that they were deliberating in their jury room, their room for deliberation. No one else was allowed to be in that room except the jurors. No cameras. Mounted cameras were turned off. No one was allowed to stand outside the windows and look in. Bailiffs would keep people away from the back window. They were assured complete and utter privacy—complete and utter secrecy. After deliberation, they were free to talk to the media if they chose to. Up until that time, it was their room and they had it to themselves.

  “One thing I should have mentioned earlier. Jurors and their bailiff should communicate by cell phone, exchange numbers. Do not bang on the jury room door. Bang on that door and an alarm goes off,” Judge Economou warned.

  With everything clear, the jury returned to their room. Just shy of two hours later, the jury’s chairperson called the bailiff. They had reached a verdict. Within five minutes, all of the principals had returned to their places. Everyone rose for Judge Economou’s entrance, and then sat again. The judge spoke to the entire courtroom with a warning tone. “The jury does have a verdict. If you cannot control your emotions, please leave now.” No one left. “Okay, when the jury comes in, the verdict will be read.”

  The jury filed in and stood solemnly.

  “You have a verdict. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Madam Foreperson, please hand the verdict to the bailiff,” the judge instructed.

  The bailiff did the reading: “‘In this Circuit Court, State of Florida, versus Michael King, we, the jury, find the defendant guilty in count one, guilty of count two, guilty of count three. So say us all on this August 27, 2009.’”

  Rick Goff breathed a visible sigh of relief. Denise’s family quietly wiped away tears.

  The judge polled the jury, asking them each if they agreed with the verdict on all three counts, to verify that the verdict was, indeed, by consensus. Because all of the charges had to be repeated by the judge verbatim for each juror, the polling took eight minutes—a very long eight minutes.

  “Have I skipped anyone?” he said when the process was complete. “Shall I discharge the jury?” After a moment of silence, Judge Economou reminded the jurors that the first part of their task was complete, but there was still the penalty phase to come, and he ordered them to return to the courtroom the next Tuesday at nine-thirty in the morning. That gave them the required “cooling-off ” period between the guilt and penalty phases of the murder trial. Plus, the judge emphasized, it gave the jurors a much-needed opportunity to spend time with their families and friends. They had to be extremely careful, however. They were going to be in contact with people who, in turn, had been in touch with the media, and it was essential that they not discuss the case in any way, shape, or form. Of course, they should watch no TV. Such a mistake could be grounds for a mistrial, and all of their work would have been for naught.

  “Have a safe weekend,” he concluded. The jury left. Judge Economou adjudicated the verdict, making it official. Beginning his life as a convicted murderer, Michael King was freshly fingerprinted, then led out. There was a brief moment of celebration as the friends and family of Nate and Denise Lee hugged—hugs muted with tears. That was one hurdle cleared, but the ordeal was still not through.

  Outside court, Nate Lee told a reporter that he felt good. Justice was being served. He felt tremendous pride in Denise, who had been so brave and resourceful during her last minutes. “She got this guy caught and convicted,” he said. She’d successfully protected her boys and had seen to it—absolutely seen to it—that this creep would never be able to hurt anyone ever again.

  Nate felt Deni
se’s presence throughout the trial. He believed she was in that jury room with the jurors, that she was sitting next to all of her loved ones who were wondering if they had the strength to get through this, and she had lifted them up and carried them through.

  Any words for her killer?

  “I believe he deserves a lot worse than he’s going to get.”

  Did he send any messages to Denise in there?

  Yes, just before the verdict. He told her he wished she were there so he could hold her hand, that he just missed her so much, and he was anxious to get home to the boys so he could give them big hugs and play trucks with them because that was what they liked to do.

  Rick Goff also fielded media questions. He said the verdict had been “emotional—to say the least.” They were a third of the way home. They’d gotten their conviction. Next the death penalty. Then the needle. He could envision the day they’d go to watch that needle enter Michael King’s arm, sending him to the “place where he belongs,” quite different—opposite, in fact—from where Denise was. Couldn’t send him there fast enough.

  Rick thanked the press for giving the family space during the ordeal, thanked the members of law enforcement who’d helped along the way. He singled out Chief Terry Lewis and Detective Christopher Morales. Regarding Morales, Goff said, “We love him. He’s one of my best friends now. He’s part of the family.” He thanked the community for rallying around the cause, thanked the state attorney’s office for giving the family rooms to stay in during the trial so they wouldn’t have to drive the long commute every day.

  He called Denise “our hero, our angel.” She’d done things he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do if put in that place.

  Rick said he wasn’t convinced Denise was King’s first victim. A guy like that—it seemed extremely possible that he’d hurt women before. He was acting crazy now, hoping the act would make things better for him, but he could keep up the nutcase act right up until the needle penetrated his vein for all Goff was concerned.

  If Goff was in the same room with him, what would he do?

  “Good thing I didn’t get a hold of him—simple as that. He is a coward, trash.”

  Did the kids know what was going on?

  No, they’d done a good job of keeping the boys isolated, so they would only have good memories of their mommy. In fact, that was what he was doing right then, going to see the boys.

  To combat an expected psychiatric defense during the penalty phase of the trial, the state had requested, and been granted, permission to evaluate Michael King’s mental condition freshly. At a hearing on August 31, Carolyn Schlemmer tried to prevent that exam. She told Judge Economou that the evidence the defense planned to present during the penalty phase was narrow in scope. They planned to establish that King’s IQ was very low, in double digits, and that he’d suffered a severe brain injury when he was younger. She added that the defense intended to demonstrate that “the capacity of this defendant to appreciate the criminality of his conduct, to the requirements of law, was substantially impaired.”

  After consideration, Judge Economou ruled that the prosecution’s mental-health experts would be allowed to examine King that day, because those examinations were necessary for the prosecution to rebut King’s defense.

  At the same hearing, the defense noted as well that two victims were scheduled to give “victim impact statements” during the penalty phase, Rick Goff and Nate Lee. The defense had reviewed the written versions of those statements and asked the judge that some of the husband’s statement not be read before the jury. Specifically, they wanted struck that he would be “haunted forever” by the fact that his children were to grow up without a mother, and that telling those children why their mother was gone was “a lesson that no father should have to teach his children.”

  Judge Economou ruled that those two portions of the husband’s statement would be deleted. The judge also agreed that the word “murder” in one statement be changed to “death.” These edits, he felt, prevented the statements from being unfairly inflammatory. It was a ruling that irritated friends of the victim, but it was made to ease the appeals process down the road.

  CHAPTER 20

  SEPTEMBER 1, 2009

  The penalty phase began with the jury out of the room as the state accused the defense of discovery violations. Both sides were obligated to present the opposing side with all evidence they planned to introduce—witness statements, for example. Lon Arend complained to Judge Economou that transcripts of interviews the defense had done months before had been supplied to the prosecution only the day before, just after five o’clock. The defense, Arend maintained, would try to show that Michael King lived in a chronic catatonic state—and it was true, he couldn’t have looked more dead-eyed during the course of the trial. Yet, there were interviews with doctors who examined him that stated he was acting normally. Arend suggested that the judge impose upon the defense an admonishment or a fine for their violation of the discovery rules. Arend criticized the defense’s strategy, saying he had solid proof—the 911 tape, for example—that King was not catatonic.

  In her own defense, Carolyn Schlemmer said she had been working “to get that stuff ” to the prosecution, and added that the state had had plenty of opportunity to depose defense witnesses scheduled for the penalty phase. They had chosen not to do so.

  Perhaps sensing that the prosecution was on solid ground, the judge told the defense to try harder in the future to obey the discovery laws but rendered no punishment. There followed some discussion on technology that was going to need to be in place because one witness was testifying remotely, from Michigan. A teleconference would need to be set up. There was a chance that, while the audio was solid, they might lose the video.

  Judge Economou said they’d cross that bridge when they came to it and ordered the jury brought in. The judge explained to the panel that this part of the trial was solely to determine what punishment the state would give King. There were two choices: life in prison without chance of parole, or death. They were to include the testimony that they had heard during this part of the trial and combine it with the evidence they heard in the first part, to make their decision. Just as with the first phase, there would be opening statements; each side would be given a chance to make its case, and there would be closing statements. He explained the concept of mitigating and aggravating factors, and how they should make their decision based on the weighing of these factors on a scale of justice. Aggravating factors were those that leaned toward death, mitigating toward life.

  Lon Arend gave the opening statement for the state. The prosecution, Arend explained, intended to prove four aggravating factors: 1) The murder was especially “heinous, atrocious, or cruel.” This factor focused on the murder from the unique perspective of the defendant. 2) The murder was “cold, calculated, and premeditated,” without any pretense of moral justification. This factor focused on the manner in which Michael King killed Denise Lee. 3) The murder was committed for the purpose of avoiding a lawful arrest. This factor focused on King’s icy motive, which was to eliminate a witness who could have testified against him at a kidnapping and rape trial. 4) The murder was committed while King was committing a felony. This factor focused on the relationship between the murder and the commission of the other felonies.

  Arend concluded his four-minute statement by saying he was certain the jury would find that the aggravating factors vastly outweighed the mitigating factors and that King should “forfeit his life” for the murder of Denise Lee.

  Speaking for the defense, Carolyn Schlemmer reintroduced herself to the jury, explaining that she’d had the pleasure of speaking to them during voir dire, but not during the previous week’s trial. It was her job to present the case supporting the mitigating factors.

  Despite the fact that the defense was going to argue for the more lenient of the two possible sentences, that did not mean that they were not respectful of the jury’s verdict, nor were they arguing in any way that the guilt
y verdict was wrong.

  By arguing for the sparing of Michael King’s life, they were not downplaying the terrible loss of a human being in this case. They were not making excuses.

  She reminded them that they were about to make a decision of life and death, what might be the most important decision they made in their lives. The defense was going to be presenting evidence about King’s life; but in doing that, they were not minimizing anything. She asked them to weigh and sift the evidence realizing that King’s life was at stake.

  She tried to force the jury to think of Michael King as a person. She gave his birth date, she spoke of his siblings—then she got to the crux of the matter: King was a guy with mental problems, stemming from an accident he’d had as a child. The defendant took a direct blow on his “frontal lobe and top of his head.” Experts would testify about the physical proof that King’s brain injury existed, and about certain behaviors that could be caused by a damaged frontal lobe. They would explain how injury left King with a diminished capacity for distinguishing right from wrong, and that King possessed slow mental function (a two-digit IQ) and paranoia.

  He had a loud ringing in his ears and suffered from chronic, unexpected nosebleeds.

  In addition to the physical and mental problems King suffered, Schlemmer explained that there were elements of his circumstance that comprised mitigating factors. There were observable causes for King to be on edge. In fact, his life was spiraling downward and out of control.

  “His only wife left him for another man that she met on the Internet,” she said. After that, King was granted sole custody of his son, Matt, who was now thirteen.