By Emilia Benton
Most people are aware of the sad reality that kidnapping cases rarely have happy endings. However, North Port, Fla. resident Denise Lee’s life was tragically cut short after one false move by the police department. Her murder could have-SHOULD have-been prevented.
On the afternoon of Thursday, Jan. 17, Lee was abducted from her home at gunpoint, resulting in her two young children being left home alone. Tied up in the backseat of her kidnapper’s dark green Camaro, Lee desperately fought for her life, screaming for help and pounding on the window as hard as she could. In an effort to ensure that her abductor wouldn’t get away with this, she went as far as pulling her own hair out so that the police would find her DNA in the car.
When her abductor stopped at an acquaintance’s home, Lee tried to escape from the vehicle and yelled for someone to call the cops. The two witnesses at this home saw her in distress, but waited an hour before calling the police. Back on the road, Lee herself managed to dial 911 from her kidnapper’s cell phone and described the vehicle in which she was trapped. Minutes later, witness Janet Kowalski dialed 911 as well, telling them that she saw someone kicking and screaming in the backseat of a car with the same description on I-75 in North Port. She told the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office (CCSD) 911 emergency dispatchers the exact location of the vehicle and where it was headed. Later that night, police arrested unemployed plumber Michael King after DNA evidence was found in his home and car. Two days after she was abducted, Lee’s body was found buried in a shallow grave half a mile away from where Kowalski placed her call. She died from a gunshot wound to the head.
The deputies that were already out searching for Lee never got the information provided by Kowalski because the 911 dispatchers “forgot” to pass it along-the one move that could have saved her life. Their punishment? One was suspended for a mere two days and the other for a month.
The main reason I am so blown away by this particular story is because my own mother was murdered when I was 11 years old. The fact that the two dispatchers (described by Lee’s husband, Nathan, as having shown “severe incompetence”) still have their jobs absolutely infuriates me. If being briefly suspended is all that comes out of mishandling such vital information, I don’t even want to know what it would take to get fired at the CCSD. My heart broke as I watched Mr. Lee speak last week on NBC’s Today show about how he dreads the day he will have to tell their two sons, ages two and eight months, how their mother died needlessly. It is extremely saddening to know that their kids will have very few, if any, memories of their mother. Mr. Lee also stated that he can’t bring himself to listen to the 911 tape of his wife’s call and is fighting to make sure that it is not released to the media.
Ironically, Mrs. Lee’s father is a CCSD sergeant as well. He and Mr. Lee are currently working to pass a bill that would create standards in Florida related to the training and certification of emergency police dispatchers. They, along with various lawmakers, are fighting to make it a requirement for every 911 dispatcher in Florida to have this training.
Additionally, Mr. Lee is filing a lawsuit against the CCSD, claiming that the dispatcher’s negligence contributed to his wife’s death. He has stated that his goal is to make sure that no one else has to tell their kids that their mother could have been saved if the proper training had been administered. He doesn’t want anyone else to have to face this heart-rending task-and neither do I.
Emilia Benton is a junior print journalism student. You may e-mail her at [email protected].