Updated March 17, 2026, 8:07 p.m. ET
Florida has executed a death row inmate for the rape and homicide of a stay-at-home mom whose death uncovered the vulnerabilities of the 911 system nationwide and led to reform throughout the business.
Michael King, 54, was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday, March 17, for the kidnapping, rape and homicide of 21-year-old Denise Amber Lee. King kidnapped the married mom of two younger sons from her dwelling in broad daylight on Jan. 17, 2008, lower than an hour earlier than Lee’s husband returned from work.
Lee might have survived the ordeal if not for the 911 dispatchers who failed her.
A driver who heard Lee screaming for her life and noticed her struggling within the backseat of King’s automobile referred to as 911 and stayed on the road for nine minutes, giving dispatchers real-time updates on Lee’s location as police swarmed the area in search of her. But by way of a sequence of errors and obvious incompetence, the dispatchers by no means acquired the knowledge to police who have been seconds away.
Within a number of hours of the decision, King took Lee to a wooded space, fatally shot her within the face and left her physique in a shallow grave.
Now simply over 18 years later, King was pronounced useless in Florida’s execution chamber at 6:13 p.m. ET on Tuesday. As he died, Lee’s widower, dad and mom and siblings stood as witnesses.
King didn’t apologize or express regret as he spoke his final phrases, according to media witness The Associated Press.
“Since finding Jesus in prison, I have tried to live as his disciple obeying the two great commandments: To love God with all my heart, my mind and all my being, and to love my neighbor − to include everyone − my family, Denise Lee’s family, everyone in the gallery,” and the execution group, he mentioned in in what the AP mentioned have been almost inaudible phrases relayed by Gov. Ron DeSantis‘ workplace.
Here’s what you want to know concerning the execution, how 911 dispatchers botched Lee’s rescue and extra about who Denise Amber Lee was.
What occurred to Denise Amber Lee?
On the afternoon of Jan. 17, 2008, 21-year-old Denise Amber Lee was at dwelling in North Port, Florida, doing what she liked: taking care of her sons, 2-year-old Noah and 6-month-old Adam. Her husband, Nathan Lee, was working one of his three jobs that supported the household.
A person named Michael King was driving round their neighborhood, apparently in search of victims, when he noticed Lee on her entrance porch, trimming Noah’s hair.
No one noticed what occurred, however King was ready to kidnap Lee at gunpoint. When Nathan Lee arrived dwelling lower than an hour later round 3:20 p.m., he discovered the home locked. His sons have been inside, and so have been Denise Lee’s purse, keys and cellphone. Knowing one thing was terribly improper, he referred to as 911. Denise Lee’s father, a neighborhood sheriff’s sergeant, helped deploy an enormous police response.
Roughly 4 hours after the kidnapping − as police swarmed the world in search of her − Denise Lee was ready to use King’s cellphone to name 911. Unbeknownst to him for greater than six minutes, the road was open and the dispatcher might hear the whole lot. The recording of the decision is harrowing and gut-wrenching as Denise Lee sobs and begs for her life.
“I just want to see my family. Please let me go,” she screams. “God help me!”
For over six minutes, the dispatcher sounds at instances detached and at instances aggravated. She says “Hello” 13 instances amid Lee’s hysterical cries, and repeatedly asks for her identify, location, what her deal with is, and the way lengthy she’s been gone from her dwelling, although it is obvious that Lee can not converse freely and even after Lee offers her some of these solutions. The dispatcher doesn’t specific empathy or supply phrases of consolation and at one level, she asks Lee if the kidnapper can flip the radio down.
About quarter-hour later, one other 911 name is available in from a woman named Jane Kowalski, who sees Denise Lee slapping the again window of King’s automobile and hears her screaming for assist.
For many minutes, Kowalski relays the automobile’s exact location, data that might have led officers straight to her. But 911 dispatchers did not get the crucial data to the numerous officers frantically looking for Denise Lee. The dispatcher who took the decision wasn’t coming into the knowledge into a pc, which angered her fellow dispatchers, and a dispute among the many three is largely chargeable for the failure, mentioned Nathan Lee, who later filed a civil lawsuit over the matter that the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Department settled in 2012 for $1.2 million.
As half of the settlement, the sheriff’s workplace didn’t admit any wrongdoing. Two of the dispatchers have been suspended for a number of days, Nathan Lee mentioned.
Today, Nathan Lee runs the Denise Amber Lee Foundation, which is devoted to bettering 911 system throughout the nation. Lee travels all through the nation and tells his spouse’s story to dispatchers in hopes that nobody goes by way of what his spouse did.
As a end result of the inspiration’s work and classes realized from Denise Lee’s homicide, he mentioned a quantity of states have handed laws beefing up coaching necessities for dispatchers, together with Florida. His spouse’s case is so notorious within the business, he mentioned that “trainers and dispatch centers all over the country tell all new hires about Denise.”
“She mattered and she’s making a difference,” Nathan Lee mentioned. “And that’s all you can do after this. Just hope that she didn’t die in vain.”
More about who Denise Amber Lee was
Denise Amber Lee was the daughter of a sergeant with the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Department, and grew up with a brother and sister Englewood, Florida, simply south of Sarasota on the Gulf Coast.
She began relationship her future husband once they related whereas in the identical calculus class at a area people faculty. Nathan Lee not too long ago instructed USA TODAY that he knew fairly shortly that Denise was the one for him.
“Obviously she was beautiful … She was intelligent, she was really smart, and I could tell she was a little bit goofy, which I really liked,” he instructed USA TODAY. “Once we started dating, I knew really quickly very early. I was pretty sure I met my future wife.”
He mentioned it was the way in which she checked out him. “Like I was the most important person on the planet to her,” he recalled.
When Denise turned pregnant, each the couple’s dad and mom wished them to get married, he mentioned. His proposal wasn’t all that romantic but it surely says the whole lot about how Denise and Nathan have been excellent for one another.
“We were just sitting on our couch in our apartment and I pretty much asked her, ‘What are you thinking about the whole marriage thing?'” he recalled. “She was like, ‘I’m fine getting married.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m fine getting married. So we went down to Walmart and got her engagement ring.”
He mentioned that “it sounds really cheesy, but we didn’t care.”
“She just wanted to marry me and I wanted to marry her,” he mentioned. “We didn’t care how fancy it was. She just loved me.”
Though Denise had wished to grow to be a lawyer, that took a again burner after the couple married when she was 19 and had their first son, Noah. Their second son, Adam, happened 18 months later. Denise wished a daughter after that, and was contemplating a profession as a youngsters’s speech therapist, one thing she had grow to be obsessed with as she researched why her oldest son was taking a bit longer to begin speaking.
“She loved kids. I don’t think she realized how much she loved kids until she had them,” Nathan Lee mentioned. “As soon as she held Noah in her arms for the first time, she fell in love. The same with Adam. She was definitely made for it.”
Who was Michael King?
Michael King was a 36-year-old, out-of-work plumber who had no critical prison historical past on the time of Denise Lee’s homicide. He grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, with three brothers, and had moved to North Port, Florida simply days earlier than earlier than he killed Lee.
King’s relationships with ladies have been troubled, along with his personal spouse strolling out on him and calling him meek and deceitful, in accordance to an archived information story within the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, half of the USA TODAY Network.
King had confronted allegations of sexual harassment from numerous ladies, and one lady mentioned he had raped her, however none of the accusations have been reported to police, the Herald-Tribune reported.
Family members reported that King might inform tall tales, was considerably dim-witted and acted like an “oddball” at instances. They attributed his habits to a childhood sledding accident through which King’s head crashed right into a steel barn help − an damage that induced buzzing in his head at night time whilst an grownup, his household instructed the newspaper.
King’s attorneys had not too long ago argued for a stay of execution to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing considerations over how the state is carrying out lethal injections. The state’s Attorney General’s Office dismissed their claims as “nothing more than stalling for time.”
His final meal earlier than being executed included pizza, ice cream and soda.
Among the witnesses to the execution have been Denise Lee’s husband, dad and mom and siblings.
“The word ‘closure’ is thrown around so loosely. You don’t get closure in these situations,” Nathan Lee instructed USA TODAY forward of the execution. “The day he was sentenced we were all standing out in front of the courthouse, and we all knew that when this day comes we need to be there. We need to be there for Denise in solidarity.”
Florida’s fast execution charge continues
Michael King’s execution is the seventh within the U.S. this 12 months and the fourth in Florida alone because the Sunshine State continues a fast charge of finishing up executions.
Last 12 months, 47 inmates have been executed within the U.S., a quantity that hadn’t been seen since 2009. Of these executions, a state file 19 have been in Florida, or about 40 p.c. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis started signing extra death warrants than another governor in Florida historical past final 12 months, and the uptick stays regular.
DeSantis has mentioned that the inmates being executed are the worst of the worst and that he desires to carry closure to sufferer who’ve waited generally a long time for justice.
The subsequent execution within the U.S. is that of James Duckett in Florida on March 31. Duckett was convicted of raping and murdering 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee in 1987 whereas he was a 30-year-old rookie police officer in Mascotte, about 30 miles west of Orlando.
Contributing: The Sarasota Herald-Tribune, half of theUSA TODAY Network
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers chilly case investigations and the death penalty for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
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