Denise Amber Lee

I just finished watching Primetime on ABC, and I'm still reeling. Tonight's story was on the kidnapping and murder of Denise Lee. By itself this certainly qualifies as an act of sheer, subhuman evil, but isn't what has me stunned; if it was, I'd be reduced to a gibbering heap anytime I flipped through the news. Such things sadden me, but sooner or later you either go nuts or deaden your emotional nerve endings.

Not this time. This was not "just another" fatality, in the sense that police weren't even notified until long afterward, and had little to work with beyond some very old DNA traces and maybe a suspicious number on the victim's calls list - here the poor woman was taken from her home by Michael King, right in front of her two little boys and just a little before her husband was back from work, and yet within a short time she managed to quietly dial 911 on the kidnapper's own cell phone... and was then able to keep the line open for 6 minutes while she kept him distracted by pleading for her life.

Now, I'm no expert on tracing calls but just speaking as an average joe, I'd have thought 6 minutes would be enough time to trace a call; I can recall a company I used to work for where people would occasionally dial 911 while attempting to place outbound calls (the kind of phone network where you dial "9" ahead of the number to indicate that it's outside the company) - they would usually realize their mistake and hang up while the number was still dialing - and not more than a couple minutes later a cruiser would be out front. That's all it took.

In fact it got so prevalent that the local PD threatened to start billing the company for each accidental 911 call, which is how I first learned of it - through a company wide memo telling everyone they'd better be careful how they dial their calls or be prepared to pony up the $100 fine themself.

Needless to say the experience gave me the sense that dialing 911 was a serious act that got results - fast. So when I learned on Primetime that police were unable to get the phone's location during that time, I was kind of blown away. But, they at least managed to determine who the phone belonged to, so it wasn't a total loss - and maybe cell phones are much harder to trace, let's give the police the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Well, they checked the guy's house - recently gone, TV still on, pieces of duct tape lying around with Denise's hair on them, but the trail has gone cold.

Then apparently King's running low on gas but doesn't want to stop at a gas station with a screaming woman in his car, so instead he drives to his cousin Harold Muxlow's house and asks - with Denise in the car screaming and trying to get out - if he can borrow a can of gas and a shovel, because his mower is stuck in a ditch and is out of gas. Think it can't get more insane? Denise managed to get out of the car, at which point Muxton saw she was tied up, she says "call the police!" and King shoves her back in the car and drives away - with his shovel and fresh gas.

So, not having done anything to stop a self-evident atrocity in progress, can Muxlow manage to even pick up his phone and call 911?

Almost - he later picks up his phone but instead of calling 911, this waste of oxygen calls... his daughter. Who urges him to you know, call the police and stuff... but he still won't do it... so finally it is his DAUGHTER who makes the (latest) call to 911. By that time this call will only be useful after the fact when the DA is building a case against the murderer.

After this, Primetime reported that 2 different witnesses saw Denise crying, screaming and struggling in the back of King's green Camaro as the murderous dimwit drove around looking for a place to kill the girl. Did either of them call 911? Follow the car? Anything? Well, one guy said he thought it was a "domestic dispute" and "didn't want to get involved", and the other said he had dialed 911 and was about to click send but changed his mind because King drove off in a different direction.

Finally someone (whose head was not shoved up their ass, for a refreshing change) saw King and Denise, and called 911. They played the audio of that call on Primetime, and my jaw just slowly settled down into my lap; here is the caller Jane Kowalski telling them she's next to a blue Camaro with a screaming girl in the back seat... the driver is reaching back and pushing her down... the girl's hand is violently smashing against the window from below... there are patrol cars all over that very area looking for a Camaro with a screaming girl in it... but the operator keeps asking her to repeat herself and is then making Kowalski hold so she can repeat her words to someone offline; when Kowalski states the camaro is about to make a turn and should she follow it, the operator pauses to relay that too... and the opportunity is lost as the caller becomes separated from the kidnapper's car in the traffic while awaiting word whether she should follow or not.

A perfectly reasonable question for the caller to ask; after all she is speaking to a police dispatcher and should be able to expect some lawful instruction, but simple as the question is "should I follow him?", the operator makes her repeat the question and then has to consult, again, with whoever it is in the background.

That was the last chance these fools got - Denise's body was found a couple days later less than three miles from where the last witness saw her struggling, kicking, screaming and thrashing in the back of the killer's camaro.

You see, while every other last bit of the description was an exact match to the kidnapper and his victim that police were actively searching that very area for, Jane Kowalski said the camaro was "blue", and so the police wrote it off presumably as some other kidnapping-in-progress rather than the one they were looking for.

The dispatcher didn't even notify local officers of the call - because (get ready for it) she thought the "other dispatcher" had done it (this would eventually be admitted to be "a missed opportunity" by the police chief). If you were still capable of feeling surprise or shock by now, this should cinch it.

Watching these events unfold was beyond surreal - excluding the efforts of Jane Kowalski and Muxlow's daughter Sabrina, this was such a mind bending series of fuckups it was like something out of Monty Python, except with a horribly real outcome - seeing the reactions of Denise's husband and her father, and seeing the two small boys who now have no mother, made it all too real, and it has chilled me straight through.

In the couple hours I've been writing this, the source of that chill has finally become clear - it's from the combination not only of inhuman evil, but also of the fabulous stupidity that made it possible for this murder to even happen at all - here is an evil shitbag with no brains who nonetheless blunders his oafish way through a kidnapping and murder, even having to make a stop in broad daylight to borrow the shovel and flashlight, and gas just to keep his car running, and yet everything just still seems to somehow go his way; at every turn, people get a new chance to foil the crime in progress, and yet they somehow keep dropping the ball until finally poor Denise's chances run out.

Michael King was apprehended a few hours after if was too late for Denise, but hopefully the DA at least will possess the basic competence that seems to have eluded the police dispatchers - serving justice on this filth is the one thing the government can still do right by Denise and her family.

Well, they did also pass the Denise Amber Lee act which apparently requires police dispatchers to have an IQ in the triple digits before they are allowed to answer emergency calls... but of course that isn't mandatory yet, due to "budgetary constraints"... but it's something I guess.

The police dispatchers still have their jobs... and so does the police chief who stonewalled and played down their role. I'm not always a big fan of the Mainstream Media, but this is one of those times when I find myself very grateful for their coverage; I respect police officers a great deal, and always try to give them the benefit of the doubt when any questions arise in the news about their performance or integrity, but as far as I'm concerned the dispatchers involved (the last 2 anyway) are a public danger and should not - ever - be manning another emergency line. And the police chief just came off as an evasive, oily fuck with no sense of accountability (apparently he only even admitted to the "missed opportunity" thing after it blew up in the papers). Denise's husband is going to be suing that department and I hope he wins enough to make the state sit up and take notice in the very direct and personal way that a financial loss will do.

Well, I hope anyone reading this will consider going over to Denise's website-in-memoriam to learn more, and hopefully the Denise Lee act will get enough support to become mandatory - I don't know what sort of internal environments and policies made it possible for this to happen but I sure hope it gets looked at and fixed before someone else is allowed to fall through the cracks.