A Killer's Touch. Michael Benson
another 911 call was received. Kathy Jackson, brand-new on the job, answered the phone at the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office. She had just passed the dispatcher-training course. Little did she know that the call she was about to handle would change her life, and not at all in a good way.
“911. What is your emergency?”
On the other end of the line was a frightened young woman, whose words seemed disconnected, not quite in response to the operator’s question.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just wanna go—”
“Hello?” the operator said.
There were unintelligible sounds on the other end, sounds of feminine anxiety and terror. The woman was speaking, but not into the phone, not to the operator.
The operator then heard words that could be understood, the words of a man saying, “Why’d you do that?”
“I’m sorry,” the woman could be heard to say. “I just want to see my family.”
It took the operator a moment to figure it out. The woman was speaking to her attacker, or abductor, or whatever he was.
“Hello? Hello?” the operator said.
A sound could be heard from the man, perhaps unintelligible words, perhaps just an animalistic growl.
The woman said, “Oh, please. I just want to see my family again. Let me go.”
The operator: “Hello?”
The man: “What the fuck is going on?”
The woman: “Please let me go. Please let me go. I just want to see my family again.”
The man: “No fuckin’ problem.”
The woman: “Okay.”
The operator: “Hello?”
The man’s accusatory tone could be heard, but his words couldn’t be understood.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said, her voiced reduced by terror into an infantile whine.
The man said, “I was gonna let you go, and then you go and fuck around.”
“I’m sorry,” the woman repeated. “Please let me go.”
The man: “Now we got to go in the next street because of him.”
The man was unaware that the phone had been connected to the emergency operator. He was scolding the woman for alerting people in their vicinity of her distress. Perhaps they were in a car.
“Now I want to bring you in there again,” the man said. “I didn’t want to do that.”
“Please let me go, please. Please—oh, God, please.”
The man could be heard scolding more. Only the end of the statement could be understood: “... in front of my cousin Harold!”
The operator tried again: “Hello?”
The man: “I told you I would.”
The operator: “Hello?”
The woman: “Help me!”
The operator: “What’s the address?”
“Please help me!”
“What’s the address where you’re at? Hello?”
“Please let me go. Help me. I don’t know.” Perhaps she was trying to answer the operator’s question without her attacker knowing it.
The man said, “Calm down.”
The operator: “Hello?”
The woman: “Please let me go.”
The operator: “What is the address that you’re at? Hello, ma’am?”
The woman, now talking to her attacker: “Where are we going?”
The man replied, “I got to go up and around now because of him.”
The woman asked, “Up and around where?”
The man answered incredulously, “Didn’t you see?” Then, after a phrase the operator couldn’t make out, the man added, “Exactly right four or five streets over from your house.”
“I couldn’t,” she said, meaning she hadn’t seen. “Tell me where?”
She was very clever, trying to get the man to state their location and destination while the 911 operator listened in.
The operator: “What’s your name, ma’am? Hello?”
The woman: “Please ...”
The operator: “What’s your name?”
“Please, my name is Denise. I’m married to a beautiful husband and I just want to see my kids again.”
The operator: “Your name is Denise?”
Denise, again talking to her attacker: “I’m sorry.”
By this time, the operator had things figured out. Denise had called 911, but her attacker didn’t know it. She was trying to give the information the operator requested without her attacker realizing what was going on.
“Please, God, please protect me.”
The operator: “Are you on I-75?”
Then the male on the other end of the line could be heard saying, “What did you do with my cell phone?”
Denise replied, “I don’t know. What do you mean?” There was an unintelligible phrase, followed by her saying, “Protect me.”
The operator: “Where are you at? Can you tell us if you’re on I-75?”
Denise said, “I don’t know where your phone is. I’m sorry.”
The man: “You be honest with me... .”
Denise: “Can’t you tell me where we are?”
The operator: “Are you blindfolded? If you are, press the button.”
Denise: “I don’t have your phone. Please, God.”
The man: “Look around and think. Well, not that ... that’s too little.”
Denise: “I don’t have it. Sorry.”
Operator: “Denise, do you know this guy?”
Denise: “I don’t. I don’t have it. I’m sorry. I don’t know where your phone is. I’m sorry.”
More words from the man, but the operator couldn’t understand what he was saying.
Operator: “Denise, do you know this guy?” Then, aside to someone at the dispatch center: “She might have the phone laid down and not hear a thing I’m saying, too. He keeps saying about the phone and she ...”
Denise: “I don’t know where it is. Maybe if I could see I could help you find it. No, sir.”
Operator: “Denise ...”
Denise: “I’m looking for it. Uh-huh.”
Operator: “How long have you been gone from your house?”
Denise: “I don’t know.”
Operator: “Do you know how long you’ve been gone from your house? What’s your last name?”
Denise: “Lee.”
Operator: “Lee?”
Denise: “Yeah.”
Operator: “Do you know what street?”
Denise: “I don’t know where your phone is.”
Operator: “Your name’s Denise Lee?”
Denise: