Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle (45 page)

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Authors: Michael Benson

BOOK: Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle
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Denise took a job at CVS; soon thereafter, she learned she was pregnant. That was a stressful time. Telling their parents that they were expecting was tough. But the stressful period didn’t last long. Once they decided to wed, everyone relaxed, although neither set of parents had pressured them.
Was she neat? Was she a slob? She was neat, but it wasn’t like she needed everything to be spotless, Nate explained. “Obviously, our house now is a mess, but that’s a different situation.” She liked things being clean, but she wasn’t obsessive-compulsive about it. The detectives asked if she had hobbies. That was a stumper. No, not really. They enjoyed going to the movies. She enjoyed TV shows—cop shows. One day, she wanted to be part of that world. Not the show business version, but in real life. She liked her cats. Before she had real kids, her cats were her kids.
Nate and Denise would go places, not often—the zoo, the aquarium, places like that. They didn’t have a lot of money, but she liked to shop, go to the mall.
What were Nate’s hobbies? Sports, playing them and watching them. Golf. He would like to play more often, but he couldn’t afford it. He played the trumpet. He played cards every Friday night. Someday he would like to build a model train set.
 
 
Nate and Denise had known from very early in their relationship that they wanted to get married someday, but their plans were to finish school first. Pregnancy just moved up the date. They wanted to be married when the baby was born; so they exchanged vows in August 2005.
Nate stopped going to classes and took a full-time job at a Best Buy that fall, and the baby, Noah, was born January 8, 2006. For a little more than a year, Denise and Nate lived with his in-laws, and he considered taking a job in the sheriff’s office. He wasn’t sure why the CCSO turned down his application, but it might have been because he lied during his polygraph exam about smoking pot as a kid. Denise never smoked anything. She hated smoking. Nate would have a cigar now and again while playing poker, and his wife hated it. So, instead of being a cop, he worked for a company that built docks and seawalls.
They lived with Denise’s parents for a year, and that was okay. They had their privacy; the house was big; the garage had been converted into a bedroom. But as soon as Nate was making enough money for them to rent their own place, they did.
Since March ’07, he’d been a meter reader for Florida Power and Light (FP&L). That same month, they began renting the house on Latour. Four months after that, Adam, another surprise, was born.
 
 
The couple hated the house on Latour. It was one of a bunch of North Port houses that had been built but had not sold, so they were put up for rent at $800 a month. It was a good location for him to get to and from work. However, trouble started right away. They’d only been living there for a couple of weeks when someone stole $600 worth of CDs and a pair of Oakley sunglasses out of Nate’s car, which he’d left unlocked in the driveway. They’d been there for two weeks and already they were trying to figure out how they were going to get out of their lease. They would have had to pay the rent there until they got someone else to move in, and nobody else was going to want to rent that house. They couldn’t put a security system in the house because it wasn’t theirs. He worried because Denise didn’t work and she was home alone with the babies every day.
Nate followed the same routine every morning, up at six-ten, out the door by six-twenty. He showered at night, had his clothes laid out—in the morning, he did nothing. Didn’t eat breakfast. Put his clothes on, grabbed his phone and wallet, then headed out the door. Monday through Friday, weekends off.
For a time, he had a second job at a Winn-Dixie. He dropped it just that past December because he never got to see his family. The boys would be asleep when he left, asleep when he got home.
They paid the bills—rent, car, insurance, phone, Internet—just barely each month. It always came down to the last penny.
This most recent Christmas season, he’d had a few gigs playing the trumpet with the Venice Symphony, in churches and things like that.
He admitted to a small amount of tension at home, just because Denise wanted to go out all the time—because she was stuck in the house—and he wanted to stay in, because he was out all the time. When they did go out, it was usually so the boys could see their grandparents, both sets, or to go to the mall or Walmart.
He knew her routine pretty well. He talked to her every day, several times throughout the day. He would put her on speakerphone and talk to her as he worked. Noah got up between seven and eight every morning. That’s when Denise would get up. Adam woke up not long after that. Adam could talk to himself in his crib for hours and be fine; but the second Noah woke up, he needed attention. She would breast-feed Adam and give Noah oatmeal and chocolate milk. She watched TV a lot, went on the Internet, talked with her friends on Myspace. She put pictures of the kids on there, but she only communicated with people she knew.
The boys napped in the early afternoon. They had lunch midafternoon. She’d make Noah a sandwich—grilled cheese. The only time she would leave the house was to go to the store—and only then when they actually needed something, if they were out of juice or something like that. She would have to take the boys with her. They did not use a sitter much.
“Nobody wanted to drive all the way out to North Port to watch them,” Nate said.
She didn’t go shopping for fun with the boys because Noah would want to run around, and it was too stressful. They’d gone to the park maybe once since they moved to North Port. Maybe once they went to Walmart to get a money order. She couldn’t even go to the gas station with the kids because she had to pay in cash, and it was a hassle. They did those things together. He drove a ’95 Dodge Avenger. Denise drove a Corolla.
One thing that made Nate nervous was that she would walk around the house wearing nothing but a shirt and underwear—and she didn’t necessarily always have the blinds closed. He would tell her to close the blinds and she would say, “No one can see,” because the house was so secluded. He said it was true that there were no neighbors who could look in, but a driver on the street could see “right in.”
For the past month, the weather was nice and Denise had been opening windows, and raising the blinds so they wouldn’t blow in the wind. There were screens, but that was it. He knew for a fact that the windows were open on Thursday because he’d talked to her that morning and she’d said so.
There were two locks on the front door—one on the handle and a dead bolt. They locked both at night; but during the day, usually just the handle was locked.
One potential security problem with the house was the garage door—the door from the garage into the house, which didn’t lock all the time. They’d had a problem with it since they moved in.
 
 
The detectives asked Nate about events of the recent past. Tuesday night, he’d had rehearsal. Wednesday night, they’d had dinner with his parents. During that night, she’d gotten up a couple of times in the middle of the night because she was having her period. He thought she was wearing a white shirt, but he couldn’t be sure.
On Thursday, he’d called Denise about 7:55
A.M.
, which was early, and he’d been afraid she would still be asleep. But she was up and they had a five-minute conversation.
He also talked to her around eleven o’clock. She said she’d taken a shower. He asked her what was for dinner. She said she had chicken out or they could have pasta, but they were out of ingredients for that. She also said they were out of milk and juice—and he had the money.
He talked to her less than normal that morning. It was raining and he wanted to get his route done as quickly as possible because he wasn’t enjoying getting wet. When he did finish, he called home to see if he still needed to go to the store and to let Denise know he’d be home by three-thirty.
No answer.
The phone was ringing all the way through, so he knew it was turned on. He called again, and again. Six, seven times. He figured she must have gone to the store and left her phone at home. When he got home, the first thing he noticed was that the windows were shut, garage door shut, Denise’s car in the driveway, and front door locked. He opened it with a key.
When he got inside, he saw Denise’s phone on the reclining chair near the front door. It was plugged into a charger and said: Seven missed calls. Then he heard Noah, who was in Adam’s crib with Adam. Very odd. Denise would never allow that. Noah was so much bigger than Adam, and he didn’t completely know how to be gentle. Nate picked up Noah; then he checked the bedroom and bathroom. No Denise. He began yelling her name. Checked the whole house, opened all the closets, pulled back the covers on the bed, went outside and checked all sides of the house, called 911, went to a neighbor’s house and knocked on the door. Seen my wife? They said no. Both kids had full diapers. He changed the diapers and asked Noah where Mommy was. Noah pointed in the bedroom, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. The windows were shut but not locked. That wasn’t right. They were either open or closed and locked. Nothing was broken. It was 82 degrees in the house, so Nate turned on the AC.
At some point, he tried calling his mother-in-law—no answer. Then he called Rick, who said he was on his way. It started hitting Nate then, and he began to cry. The next time he looked out the window, the first police car was pulling up. Two police cars came. A few minutes later, Rick arrived. Nate dressed the boys. Police kicked everyone out and shut down the house as a potential crime scene.
 
 
The search for Denise Lee utilized the combined strength of the areas’ multiple law enforcement agencies. Canine search-and-rescue were active. Sheriff’s deputies from two counties, North Port cops, Fish & Wildlife agents, Animal Services, and Florida Highway Patrol all had people searching.
There were even civilian volunteers; some working in coordination with officials, some out on their own. All off-duty officers reported for duty.
Trooper Eddie Pope, the arresting officer, appreciated the numbers. It was a hell of a search team, but the game plan missed the mark. The evidence on the car was
still wet.
They should just draw a circle around the point of the arrest—or better yet, three or four hundred feet south on Toledo Blade, where he first saw the Camaro.
The trooper joined up with a corporal and went to a search command center at Sumter. He talked to some bigwigs he hadn’t seen before. They had it wrong.
Three hundred searchers all over the grid. No disrespect, but Pope was pretty sure Denise was close to the arrest site. They should concentrate on that region.
“Hey, we appreciate what you did. Good job—but we’ve got it from here,” they told Pope, who felt dissed. He was invited to join a new search team being put together just outside the trailer. The trooper and the corporal opted out of that detail and forged off on their own. Pope pointed his Marauder toward the corner of Cranberry and Toledo Blade. At that site was the staging area for the canine units, Fish & Wildlife, and the Sarasota Response Team.
Pope talked to a captain and told him his story. Turned out the search teams had not been told where the arrest was made, nor had they heard about the evidence found on the car. Pope and a team, which included dogs, headed for the spot he had in mind.
 
 
The initial reports in the local papers befuddled residents. One typical comment from a North Port woman was “Maybe I need more coffee, but this story doesn’t make sense. Surely, no one would give him a shovel after seeing her in that situation.” She wasn’t the last person to question Harold Muxlow’s actions.
Harold Muxlow had not been quick to act, but his daughter had. She, too, seemed confused about her dad’s hesitance when she said, “It’s common sense. The woman needed help. She was yelling, ‘Help!’ If someone needs help, then you get help. You don’t stop and think about it.”
CHAPTER 3
JANUARY 18, 2008
At 1:38
A.M.
, police officers in South Venice knocked on the door of Robert Salvador and woke him up. When was the last time he’d seen Michael King? Did he know the whereabouts of Denise Lee? Robert said he knew no Lees and hadn’t seen King lately.
He talked to the officers for about five minutes and then they left. He and his wife went on the Internet and found out what it was all about. Robert thought about it, and decided he might be deeply involved in this. His best bet was to tell the law everything he knew.
In the morning, he called the Venice police, the agency closest to him. They said the case was not in their jurisdiction and was being handled by the North Port Police Department. They gave him the number to call.
So Robert Salvador went to see Detective Morales, and Salvador had a very interesting story to tell about the captured suspect. He apologized for the delay, but he’d been a little slow on the uptake as to the importance of events. It took a while to sink in that anything quite this horrible could be real.
Robert was a married man with six kids, a self-employed construction worker. He knew King as a plumber. They’d worked jobs at the same site. Robert remodeled or renovated. King did the pipes. Sometimes King tore up a wall to get at the pipes and Salvador came in immediately after to patch up the holes. He’d known King for a couple of years, and really got to know him when he did a job at King’s house on Sardinia. After that, Salvador and King hung out.
Once King asked him to go deep-sea fishing with him, and Robert took his wife with him. King was with an older couple, whom he introduced as his girlfriend’s parents.
There was a period of time when Robert didn’t hear from Michael King. He thought maybe King had lost his job. He heard from a third party that King had moved back to Michigan, where he was from. Then King called him, said he was back in Florida, and was wondering if Salvador knew of work. He claimed he was “trying to get his house back in order.” He needed furniture. His place was empty. Robert offered an old TV he could have.
That was the last he heard from King until the day before. At 11:00
A.M.
, King called him and asked if he could pick up the TV. Robert told King it was raining, so he didn’t have to work—he’d been doing a lot of outside work lately. He was on his way to a gun range, where he enjoyed target shooting.
“I went two, three times a month, usually on days when I had no job—or there was no work because of weather,” Robert told police.
He had to admit, he was becoming addicted to target shooting. His wife knew that he went to the gun range on occasion, sure—but she had no idea how often. He had four guns: a nine millimeter, two small twenty-two pistols, and a Russian pistol.
Salvador politely asked King to shoot with him. Surprisingly, King said yes. Robert asked him if he still had his .357 and King said no. Now King had a nine—but no nine ammunition.
No problem. Robert had plenty of nine ammo, in the box where he kept all his ammo, a sealed plastic box, a dry box, important for when he went boating.
So they went to Knight Trail Park & Gun Range in Nokomis. Salvador could tell that King had never been to this range before because he didn’t know where it was. After trying to give King directions, without success, Robert suggested that they meet at a nearby gas station and then go to the range together. King said fine.
Robert drove his white minivan. King his green Camaro. Later, Robert wondered if King had ever been to
any
gun range. He didn’t know the rules. When they got to the range, King was wearing a black T-shirt, memorable in that its sleeves were longer than normal.
Robert had given King ammo for his gun. Salvador said to police, “He could have pocketed one or two more.”
He handed over all four guns that had been used at the firing range the previous day. No, he didn’t have King’s gun. As far as he knew, King had King’s gun.
 
 
Jane Kowalski woke up at her grandmother’s house and had a cup of coffee in her hand when she turned on the TV. There, full screen, was a picture of Michael King.
“Oh, my God, that’s the guy in the car,” she exclaimed. “Holy crap!”
A picture of Denise Lee came on the TV. She realized that it hadn’t been a child whom she had heard screaming and pounding on the glass, but rather a young woman.
She called the hotline number that flashed on the screen and explained, “You guys probably want to talk to me. I’m the one who made that 911 call.”
“Okay, we’ll get someone to get back with you,” they said.
No one called back.
 
 
On the afternoon of January 18, Channel 10 News in Tampa Bay located Michael King’s parents, James and Patsy, in their mobile home in the Tidevue Estates, just north of U.S. 301, in the town of Ellenton, Florida.
James said that he was “worried and scared” for his son. He had not seen Mike in twenty-four hours, and didn’t fully understand what was going on. The entire family had just returned from Michigan on Tuesday afternoon, January 15.
He was asked how the arrest was affecting the family and responded, “We are still trying to figure this out. It has been hard.”
“What is the relationship between your son and the missing woman?” a reporter asked.
“I don’t know. I only hope she is found alive and in good health.”
Patsy chimed in that she heard about it on the TV news. “It is totally out of character for Mike,” she said.
 
 
At around that same time, only a few miles to the north from the Kings’ mobile home, the search for Denise had moved to Manatee County after a woman’s sandal was found. Police dogs, officers on foot, and a helicopter were called to the site south of U.S. 301. False alarm.
A pile of women’s clothing was found on the north end of Salford Boulevard, south of Interstate 75, not far from Michael King’s home, but police dogs determined that these did not belong to the victim.
The search team of Trooper Pope was in the woods in the vicinity of King’s arrest; it was tough going because of the thickness of the brush. There were many areas where searchers could barely see the ground.
Among those actively searching for Denise was her father. Rick Goff told Chief Deputy Bill Cameron that he wanted to “stay involved,” and was allowed to do so.
For North Port police, there was an eerie and grim sense of déjà vu. Less than a year and a half before, six-year-old Coralrose Fullwood was abducted from her North Port home in the middle of the night. She was discovered several hours later, raped and murdered, behind a construction site only a few doors down from her home.
Now a new search was under way. Some specialists boarded kayaks and johnboats to navigate canals and survey large ponds. Nothing. Police chased down twenty-five leads. The first twenty-four were false alarms.
Then came number twenty-five.

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