A Killer's Touch. Michael Benson
archaeologist named Lewis “Skip” Wood, working for the SCSO, the excavation began at dawn. When Wood got there, he described the site as a shallow swale behind piles of palmetto root. For comparison purposes, Wood paced off fifty feet from the suspicious site and dug with a shovel a bit, overturning earth in a patch that measured two feet by two feet. He discovered that, as expected, the soil under the earth was similar in color to that found on the surface at the suspicious site. A quick visual analysis of the soil at the site revealed sand such as would be found at the beach; charcoal, the result of some past forest fire; and a brown soil that included degraded roots. The yellow sand found on the surface of the suspicious site had been twenty-two inches beneath the surface at the test patch that Wood had dug. What they had here was a hole that had been dug out, then filled back in.
Material was removed from the potential grave site a wafer-thin layer at a time.
With Wood was another archaeologist, Maxine Miller, who searched in vain for items that might yield a readable fingerprint. She took fresh photos of the site after each slice of earth was taken away. She placed measuring sticks on the ground before taking photos to provide a scale.
Both archaeologists avoided contaminating evidence by donning gloves, caps, booties, and white jumpsuits. Pine needles and pinecones were found beneath the surface, another indication of digging and refilling. The edges of the suspicious site were obvious. The soil was hard-packed all around, but it was looser and softer at the site itself.
As the digging continued, Wood and Miller could see “scallop marks” at the edges of the site, evidence of digging with a round-nosed shovel.
When the hole was still only inches deep, a human shoulder became visible.
As expected, it was the remains of Denise Amber Lee.
The medical examiner was called. Body found.
Wood and Miller used a variety of small shovels at first, but they switched to brushes once the body became visible. There would come a time when digging from the top of the hole was no longer practical. They would need a way to get at the earth at the sides of and underneath the body without hanging upside down. This, in essence, opened a door to the grave site and allowed them greater access to the soil under the body. The shallow grave ended up being four feet deep. Photos and videos were taken throughout the excavation. After a time, a plastic sheet was placed over it to prevent contamination from any trace evidence, possible wind-borne, that might blow into the hole.
The medical examiner was off duty, so his backup, Dr. Daniel Schultz, a competent forensic anthropologist in his own right, came to the scene and took charge. He officially pronounced the body dead, and the remains were wrapped in a plastic sheet, then lifted from the hole at 3:56 P.M.
There was soil still stuck to the body’s face, but Dr. Schultz didn’t remove it. He could see that there was also blood on the face, and he didn’t want to disrupt that.
The body had been packed in moist soil, a factor when he tried to determine time of death by taking the body temperature. The remains were wet for a while. The hands were a washerwoman’s hands. He’d seen hands like those before, on bodies pulled from swimming pools.
Once out of the hole, the cadaver was briefly unwrapped. Dr. Schultz noted fixed lividity—that is, a bruise-like discoloration—on the left side. With death, the blood stopped circulating and became subject to little else but gravity. Blood pooled on the bottom. Rigor mortis had set in. The woman had survived only a matter of hours after her abduction.
Dr. Schultz didn’t want to jump to conclusions as to cause of death, but the woman had suffered a potentially fatal gunshot wound to the head. He ordered her rewrapped and taken to the morgue. Everything he could see here, he could see better in the perfect light of the autopsy room.
After the body was photographed and removed, the archaeologists noted that some water seepage had gotten into the bottom of the grave site and the trench they’d dug.
Work continued at the grave site even after the body was gone. More layers of dirt were removed, sifted for hidden evidence, and bagged for laboratory analysis.
As soon as the victim’s body was found, and it was determined that a single gunshot most likely killed her, crime scene specialists examined the area with that in mind. They found a ring of dirty blond hair around an apparent bullet hole in a palmetto leaf only a few paces from the hole in the ground. Along that same path, police found a patch of shredded bark close to the ground, where the bullet apparently grazed a tree trunk. By running a string taut between the hole in the leaf and the groove in the trunk, they accurately determined the path of the bullet, which hit the ground just a couple of feet on the other side of the barbed-wire fence.
Well-wishers tied yellow ribbons around trees near the Lees’ home. Denise’s family was notified of the body’s discovery; they gathered at the Goff home for the grim wait, until the remains were positively identified.
Police, however, didn’t have to wait. They were allowed to assume. They theorized immediately that Michael King took Denise Lee to the remote location, dug the grave with a shovel he’d borrowed a few hours earlier, shot Denise to death, and then jumped into a pond or drainage ditch in an attempt to wash blood from his clothes and skin. The search continued for the victim’s clothes and the murder weapon.
The sad duty of telling the press of the discovery went to North Port police chief Terry Lewis, who said, “Today, forensics experts from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office and the medical examiner’s office did a very detailed, long search, and we’ve discovered the remains of an unidentified white female buried at that location. It will take several hours to make a positive identification of the remains.”
Still, the assumption was there, and everyone knew it.
Any connection between the suspect and the victim? No, Lewis said. “We have nothing to believe this was anything other than a random act of violence.”
When King’s neighbors heard about the murder, they almost exploded with frustration. Everyone knew there was something wrong in that house. Brian and Dana Lewis, King’s next-door neighbors, had called police on King twelve times since 2003, but police said they could never do anything because of lack of evidence. The Lewises complained that he’d thrown battery acid in their pool, pelted their car with eggs, and had slashed their tires, among other things. They said that until the previous year, Michael King, who was divorced, had been living with his grade-school-aged son. One neighbor complained that King had been stalking his daughter from the bus stop.
Sitting in his jail cell, Michael King was informed that a body had been found, more than likely that of the woman he’d been with.
“I’ll never go to prison,” he said. “I’ll kill myself first.”
In short order, the remains were identified as those of Denise Lee. Murder charges were added to those already filed against King.
Rick Goff tried to make a public statement but broke down. Nate Lee managed to say, “I’m going to miss her so much. And I don’t know how I’m going to go through the rest of my life without her.”
Investigation revealed that their suspect had been having financial troubles due to unemployment. He was under threat of foreclosure on his Sardinia Avenue home.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Crime Laboratory analyst Steve Balunan processed the Lee home in search of previously undiscovered evidence. The residence was freshly photographed, documented, searched, and sketched.
The living-room carpet was vacuumed for trace-type evidence, and carpet standards were obtained. The house was thoroughly dusted for fingerprints. Among others, three prints were lifted from the interior of the sliding glass doors at the rear of the house.
Collected as evidence from the home were three pillowcases and a sheet from the master bedroom. A feminine pad from the bedroom garbage can was also seized. Three toothbrushes were taken from the