On March 17th, 2026, after spending more than 16 years on death row, Michael Lee King was executed in Florida for the kidnapping and murder of 21-year-old Denise Amber Lee. Here’s what happened, his last meal, and his last words. Five 911 calls were made on January 17th, 2008. Her husband called when he found their two babies alone in a crib and Denise missing.

 Michael’s own cousin called after hearing a woman scream from the backseat. The cousin’s daughter called right after and gave police Michael’s name and address. Denise herself called from her kidnapper’s phone begging the dispatcher for help. And a stranger at a traffic light called after watching a hand bang against the car window while someone screamed inside.

 Five calls, five chances to save her, and not a single one brought help in time. But what makes this case unlike almost any other is what Denise did while no one was coming to help her. To understand that, we need to go back to the morning of January 17th, 2008. On that Thursday morning, 36-year-old Michael Lee King drove to a local firing range in North Port, Florida with a friend named Robert Salvador.

They signed in just before noon. Michael pulled a 9-mm handgun from under the passenger seat of his dark green 1994 Chevrolet Camaro. And the two men spent about an hour shooting. Michael didn’t bring any ammunition, so Robert let him use his. When they left, Robert believed Michael’s gun was empty.

 But there were moments when he wasn’t watching. Moments when Michael could have taken extra rounds. That same afternoon, between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m., a neighbor of Nathan and Denise Lee was watching television from a spot that gave her a clear view of the street. She noticed a green Camaro with a black car bra creeping up and down the road.

The car circled the block four or five times. And when she walked outside to check, the Camaro pulled into the Lees driveway. The neighbor made eye contact with the driver, assumed he had found who he was looking for, and went back inside. 10 to 15 minutes later, the Camaro was gone. And so was Denise. At around 3:30 p.m.

, Nathan Lee came home to check on his family. The doors were locked, so he used his key to get in. The windows Denise said she had opened that morning were now closed, but her keys, purse, and cell phone were all still in the house. Both boys were together in one crib, which felt kind of weird. And on top of it all, Denise was gone.

Nathan called 911 immediately. North Port Emergency. Uh, yes. Um, I’m at 7912 LaTour Avenue. Uh, I just got home from work and my wife, I can’t find her. My kids were in the house and I don’t know where she is. I’ve looked every single place. Everything looked normal. It’s just the only thing that wasn’t normal was the fact that, obviously, Denise wasn’t there.

Detective Chris Morales of the North Port Police Department responded to the home on LaTour Avenue. But there were no signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle. The children were unharmed, so there was not much to go off on. Only that Denise had vanished. Denise Amber Lee was 21 years old. She and Nathan had met at Lemon Bay High School in Englewood.

She was the shy and the studious one, while he was the popular athlete. She asked him out on their first date, and they had been inseparable ever since. For their first Valentine’s Day, Nathan gave her a $40 heart-shaped ring. Denise wore it every single day and never took it off. They married in August 2005 and settled in North Port.

 And by January 2008, they had two sons, Noah, who was two, and Adam, who was 6 months old. Denise’s father, Rick Goff, was a sergeant with the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office. Nathan worked three jobs to support their family. That morning, he had called Denise at around 11:00 a.m. during his lunch break. They talked about the weather.

Denise said she had opened the windows to let some fresh air in. It was a normal conversation. But it was the last one they would ever have. What Nathan didn’t know yet was that just hours later, Michael took Denise to his own home in North Port. Inside the master bedroom, prosecutors later described what they found as a pit room.

Mirrors had been taken off the dining room wall and hung against the bedroom wall. Duct tape, pillows, and blankets were on the floor. Michael had bound Denise’s wrists with duct tape and sexually assaulted her. DNA evidence later confirmed that bodily fluids found on a Winnie the Pooh blanket in the room matched Michael’s profile.

After assaulting her, Michael forced Denise into the backseat of his Camaro. He covered her with a blanket and drove to his cousin, Harold Muxlow’s house, arriving between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. Michael told Harold he needed a flashlight, a gas can, and a shovel. “My lawn mower is stuck in my front yard,” he said.

Harold handed over the tools, but as he walked back toward his house, Harold heard a female voice scream from the vehicle, “Call the cops!” Harold turned around and walked back to the car and asked Michael what was going on. Michael lifted his head from beside the passenger side and said, “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.

” But Harold wasn’t buying it. He walked closer and saw Michael crawling over the center console pushing the head of someone with shoulder-length hair down into the backseat. He also saw part of a knee rise up. Then Michael climbed into the driver’s seat and drove off. Harold went back inside and told his 17-year-old daughter Sabrina what he had just seen and Sabrina didn’t hesitate.

She called 911. I just got a call from my dad and his cousin came over his house with a girl in the car. He borrowed a shovel, a gas tank, and a lawn mower. What’s the cousin driving? A green Camaro. What’s the cousin’s name? Michael King. But Harold still wasn’t sure what to believe.

 So, he drove to Michael’s house to check whether a lawn mower was actually stuck in the yard. There was no lawn mower and no Camaro. So, he placed his own anonymous 911 call describing the vehicle and warning that someone might be held against her will inside. And then at 6:14 p.m. Denise made her move. While trapped in the backseat, she managed to get hold of Michael’s cell phone and dialed 911 herself.

And what followed was one of the most heartbreaking recordings in American criminal history. For several minutes, Denise spoke to the dispatcher while pretending to talk to her captor. She could be heard crying and begging for her life. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just want to go. The dispatcher said hello, but Denise couldn’t hear her.

 She just kept talking. I’m sorry. I just want to see my family. The dispatcher kept saying hello over and over, but Denise just continued. My name is Denise. I’m married to a beautiful husband and I just want to see my kids again. At some point, Michael’s voice could also be heard on the recording. “Why did you do that?” he said talking about Denise’s cry for help at his cousin’s house.

“I’m sorry.” Denise said, “I just want to see my family again. Please, let me go.” Then Michael’s tone shifted. “I was going to let you go and then you go around.” He was looking for his phone now, the one Denise was using to call 911. Meanwhile, Denise kept begging. “Please, let me go. Please.” And Michael responded, “I told you I would.

” At that point, the dispatcher finally got through. “What’s the address? Are you on I-75?” But Denise didn’t know where they were. She asked Michael, “Where are we going?” And Michael said, “I’ve got to go up and around now because of what you did.” For the next few minutes, the dispatcher tried to get any details she could.

Where was Denise? Could she see? Did she know this man? Denise answered what she could, giving her last name, her street name, Latour, and confirming she did not know her abductor. But Michael had realized his phone was missing and kept demanding it back. Denise was answering both of them at the same time, trying not to give away that she was on the line with 911.

At one point, the dispatcher asked if she could see or if she had a blindfold on. Denise said, “I can’t see. Where are we?” The dispatcher asked if they could turn off the radio or turn it down. Denise said, “I can’t hear you. It’s too loud. Where are we?” Then Denise asked the question every person listening to this recording remembers.

 “Are you going to hurt me?” Michael said, “Give me the phone.” Denise answered, “Are you going to let me out now?” Michael said, “As soon as I get the phone.” Then Denise said one final word to the dispatcher, “Help me.” And then the line went dead. But the calls didn’t stop there. Around the same time, a man named Shawn Johnson was stopped at at light when he heard screaming coming from a green Camaro.

He would later identify Michael from a photo lineup. Then, at approximately 6:30 p.m. Jane Kowalski pulled up at a traffic light on Highway 41 and heard something she would never forget. Screaming from the Camaro in the lane beside her. She made eye contact with the driver and she later described the sound as horrific, terrified.

 I’ve never ever heard anything like that in my life. She watched the driver turn and push something down in the backseat. Then, a hand rose up from behind and started banging on the passenger side window. When the light turned green, Jane hesitated hoping to get behind the car so she could read the license plate. But Michael refused to drive forward.

When Jane began to slowly roll forward, he changed lanes and pulled behind her. And when she realized he wouldn’t pass, she dialed 911 and described everything she was seeing. They kept banging on the window and screaming. And not a happy scream like get me out of here scream. Then she watched the Camaro turn onto Toledo Blade Boulevard heading toward Interstate 75.

Jane’s call should have been the break police needed. She gave a detailed description of the car, the driver, and the direction he was heading. But there was a catastrophic problem. Jane had crossed the county line into Charlotte County when she dialed 911, so her call was routed to the Charlotte County dispatch center, not the Sarasota County center coordinating the search for Denise just blocks away.

The call was never forwarded to the proper authorities and help never came. Nathan Lee later put it simply, she would still be here if the 911 system didn’t fail. All they had to do was just say one sentence over the radio and it would have been a totally different outcome. At 9:00 p.m. that evening, Deputy Christian Weimer and State Trooper Edward Pope were watching for a green Camaro near Interstate 75.

They had a description, a plate number, and photos of both Denise and Michael. Then at approximately 9:10 p.m., a green Camaro matching the description drove onto the I-75 southbound on-ramp. Trooper Edward initiated a felony stop. He drew his weapon and ordered the driver out. It took five commands, but when the door finally opened, Michael Lee King stepped out backward, leaning over the console toward the passenger seat. He was wet from the waist down.

His shoes were caked with mud. He had changed from the white shirt Harold saw earlier into a camouflage pattern. And in his pockets, they found his wallet, his ID, and a cell phone with the battery and SIM card removed. On the front of the Camaro, Edward found strands of hair and what appeared to be blood. A thick sap-like substance coated the carbra.

And inside the vehicle, he found a gas can, a cell phone battery, a blanket, and a ring in the backseat. A heart-shaped ring. The one Nathan had given Denise on their first Valentine’s Day. The one she never took off. But Denise was not in the car. After the Camaro was towed to the police station, investigators went through it piece by piece.

 And what they found told a story. A shovel with dirt caked on the underside was in the backseat. The same shovel Harold had lent to Michael hours earlier. A palm print on the driver’s side window matched Denise. Hair strands found on the outside of the car matched her DNA. Blood on the blanket in the backseat did, too. And the sap-like substance on the carbra, the thick residue Trooper Edward had noticed during the stop, would later be identified as something far worse.

But the car wasn’t the only place Denise left her mark. When investigators searched Michael’s home, they found duct tape in the garbage with strands of hair attached. The hair matched Denise. Bodily fluids found on a Winnie the Pooh blanket in the room matched Michael’s profile. And blood on that same blanket matched Denise.

Everything prosecutors would later describe about the room had been there all along. Michael hadn’t cleaned up a thing. And Denise had made sure there was plenty to find. But none of it told them where she was. On January 18th, during the search for Denise, someone noticed an area of disturbed earth near Plantation Boulevard in North Port.

Two small piles of sand looked out of place and it appeared blood had been on the ground before the sand was placed over it. On the morning of January 19th, a forensics team began digging. The scallop marks in the soil matched the round nose shovel Harold had lent to Michael. And at a depth of 3 ft 1 in, they found Denise naked, lying on her side in a fetal position with a single gunshot wound to the head.

A 9-mm shell casing was found in the grass nearby which matched three of the 47 casings collected from the firing range where Michael had been shooting just hours before abducting Denise. The medical examiner determined the gun had been placed against the right side of Denise’s head just above her eyebrow when it was fired.

 The shot destroyed her right eye on impact. The sap-like substance found on the car bra was likely her ocular fluid. There was aspirated blood in her lungs, meaning Denise continued to breathe for some time after the shot. She also had anal bruising and anal tearing consistent with anal assault. Recovered from her body matched Michael’s DNA.

For the prosecution, it was clear. Michael was their guy. But, during questioning, Michael tried to claim he was a victim, too. “I got hijacked,” he told detectives. “I tried to put 911 on the phone and everything.” But, the police didn’t believe a word of it. There was one thing, however, no one could explain.

Michael had no connection to Denise. He had never met her. The Leaf family had never heard his name. And to this day, no one knows why he chose her. Michael went to trial in August 2009. There, he pleaded not guilty. But, the evidence was overwhelming. On August 28th, after just over 2 hours of deliberation, the jury found Michael Lee King guilty of first-degree murder, sexual battery, and kidnapping.

 And during the penalty phase, the jury learned that Michael’s violent behavior didn’t start with Denise. After a sledding accident at the age of 6, a brain injury changed his behavior permanently. At 13, while acting out a scene from a cartoon, he nearly killed his own brother with a bow and arrow. And at 17, after watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, he grabbed a real chainsaw and chased his family members with it.

No expression on his face. His IQ was tested in the borderline range. But, the jury didn’t see that as an excuse. And just a week later, they unanimously recommended death with 12 to 0 votes. As for Denise, her husband may have put it best. “Michael King took the wrong person,” Nathan said.

 “Because Denise made sure that not only was he going to be caught, but that he wasn’t going to be able to do this again to anybody else.” At the end of the day, Denise really came out victorious because she was able to wipe him off the earth. After her murder, Nathan Lee could have retreated into grief, but instead he founded the Denise Amber Lee Foundation and dedicated his life to making sure no other family would go through what his did.

He has traveled to 48 states training 911 dispatchers and the Florida legislature passed the Denise Amber Lee Act requiring at least 208 hours of mandatory training for all 911 dispatchers in the state. “I wanted her to be the face of change,” Nathan said, “because 911 wasn’t good enough and we needed to make it better.

I wanted Noah and Adam to look back on it and see how important their mom was.” The heart-shaped ring Nathan gave Denise still sits in a display case in his office. As for Michael, he spent the next 16 years on death row. He worked as a plumber and maintenance worker inside the prison, the same trade he had before the crime.

He converted to Catholicism, attended confession, received the Eucharist regularly, and studied scripture. A spiritual advisor visited him weekly for years. His defense team would later describe him as a model inmate and a devout Catholic and argued that his transformation should spare him from execution. But the Florida Supreme Court disagreed.

And on February 13th, 2026, Governor Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant. His execution was scheduled for March 17th, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. That morning, Michael woke up at 3:50 a.m. According to prison officials, he was calm and compliant throughout the day.

 He had one visitor and spent time with his spiritual advisor. For his final meal, Michael requested a pizza, ice cream, and a soda. At 6:00 p.m., the curtain to the execution chamber went up. A clergy member stood at the foot of the gurney beside him. About a minute later, Michael gave his final statement. His words were barely audible. He said, “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 team.” He did not apologize, and he did not ask for forgiveness. Then the drugs began to flow. Michael started breathing heavily.

 His arms began to shake, and his body twitched. A few minutes later, all movement stopped. The warden walked over, shook him, and yelled his name. But there was no response. A medic was called in. He was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. Michael Lee King was 54 years old. What do you think? Has justice been served?