A Killer's Touch. Michael Benson
a while.
He was going to school at the time and took a job teaching special education at the Liberty Elementary School in Port Charlotte. The doctors told him he should abandon any notion of working for the state police, but he refused to let go of his dream.
The teaching job turned out to be perfect rehab for his damaged legs. “Special education kids are always on the move. A lot of time they are trying to escape,” he recalled, adding that his nickname at the time was “Kindergarten Cop.” When he first began, he would trot in pursuit of escapees. Over two school years, he began “getting to the fence before they did.”
His legs as strong as ever, he applied for a job with the Florida State Police (FSP); in 2003, he was accepted. He graduated from the police academy at the top of his class, earning both the Athletic and Presidential Awards.
During his time as a trooper for the state of Florida, Pope grew accustomed to being in the right place at the right time, partially because he was lucky, but mostly because he was a clear thinker and had the uncanny ability to position himself where he could do the most good.
His skills had not gone unnoticed. He earned the Trooper of the Month Award for the first time, in January 2006, when he both recovered stolen property and seized a half pound of pot.
Pope set a record when he was named the Trooper of the Month three more times in 2007. He was honored for three acts: another case involving recovery of stolen property, a life-saving effort in an attempted suicide, and the rescue of two motorists from a submerged vehicle in alligator-infested waters. He received the 2007 Trooper of the Year Award from the governor, and he got to throw out the first pitch at a Tampa Bay Rays game versus the Boston Red Sox.
During the search for Denise Amber Lee and her abductor, the forty-year-old Eddie Pope was working “aggressive driving” patrol on the 3:00 to 11:00 P.M. shift. He knew the Goff family well and realized this case was special. It was like trying to save his own sister.
At just after nine o’clock, Road Deputy Christian Wymer’s car was parked on a grass median near Toledo Blade and Interstate 75, watching each car as it went by. After a while, Pope parked next to Wymer in his souped-up unmarked Mercury Marauder.
Facing opposite directions so they could watch traffic coming both ways, Wymer and Pope rolled down their windows and talked about the BOLO, the type of car they were after, and the description of the wanted driver.
Wymer later recalled that picking out Camaros from a stream of traffic was difficult. It was next to impossible, for example, to tell a Camaro from a Firebird in the dark.
At 9:16 P.M., a “definite possible” approached. Pope looked in his rearview and saw the car come off a side road about three hundred yards away and pull into the northbound lane of Toledo Blade. It was on Pope’s side, the northbound side. It was a Camaro—correct year as well.
The car passed by and pulled onto the interstate. Pope quietly put his car in drive and followed. It had been dark since seven-thirty, but the streetlights were bright along that stretch. The weather had cleared. Visibility was excellent.
Pope pulled onto the road behind the Camaro. At first, there were about six cars between them, so he couldn’t read the plate. A quarter mile later, Pope had maneuvered immediately behind the suspicious vehicle.
Pope tried the radio, but, as was not uncommon, there were transmission difficulties. “From the 179 to the 170,” Pope recalled, “we get intermittent radio trouble. Sometimes it sounds like a muted trombone, like grown-ups talking on those old Charlie Brown shows. ‘Waaah, wah-wah-wah, waaah.’” Pope had to speed to keep up with the subject’s car.
“When I saw the first three letters on his tag, it was just like the old expression, I really could feel the little hairs standing up on the back of my neck,” he said. “I also had that kind of warm sensation you get in your mouth, like you’re going to throw up. I knew I had the right vehicle.”
Should he continue to follow the car and risk losing it? Or, take it on his own initiative to make the stop? Denise Lee might’ve been in the car, so it was a no-brainer. Pope put on his lights and siren. The Camaro pulled over almost immediately, easing onto the interstate shoulder. The trooper pulled right up on his rear bumper in his Marauder. Because he was in an unmarked vehicle, he didn’t have a spotlight and couldn’t illuminate the interior of the suspect’s vehicle. Pope executed what was called a “felony stop.” He used his “loud Italian New York voice” to order the driver out of the car.
No response.
The trooper could see the driver inside the car moving around a little bit. Was he trying to dispose of evidence? Was he arming himself for a shoot-out?
Pope commanded the suspect to get out of the car with his hands up. Typically, when a cop ordered a driver out of his vehicle, the driver’s-side door swung all the way open. Here, the driver’s-side door opened only a few inches and then stopped. No one got out.
“He was trying to manipulate the door so he could find me in the rearview mirror,” Pope said, possibly so he would know where to aim if he came out firing.
For his own safety, Pope had to assume he was armed, even though there wasn’t enough evidence at that point to tell if a weapon was in play.
“I had to change my location,” Pope said. During this sequence, no cars came down the southbound interstate, so it was easy for Pope to dash across the road, crossing four lanes. He took up a tactical position near a tree so he could look into the Camaro’s driver’s side.
Five times, Pope ordered the driver out of the car. “I shouted myself out” was how he later explained it. The Camaro had a high console between the front seats that stuck up. Pope knew this because he’d owned a ’94 Camaro.
The driver moved so that he was bent over that console, his head pointing toward the passenger seat.
The fifth time Pope barked the command, he said, “Get out of the car with your hands in the air, or I’ll fire!” That got a response. The driver’s door finally swung all the way open. The driver was kneeling on the driver’s seat, doing something on the passenger side. Then he started to back out, ass first. Pope didn’t like the notion that the driver was exiting so that his hands came out last.
But he emerged with his hands on his head, his back still turned to the trooper. Pope charged. The suspect didn’t have a weapon in his hands, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one in his waistband or something.
“Turn around slowly,” Pope ordered.
The suspect complied.
The guy had a goatee and was wearing a camouflage shirt and jeans. Pope heard him utter something. Pope noticed two things. First, no gun in the waistband. Second, from the waist down, the subject was soaking wet. A closer look revealed that his pants and shoes were muddy as well. Pope ordered the man to move to the rear of the vehicle, then to lie down on the asphalt.
“He was a little resistant about getting down on the ground,” Pope remembered. But eventually he obeyed.
“Where’s the girl?” Pope yelled. “I don’t care about anything else. I just want to know where the fucking girl is.”
“I was kidnapped, too,” the suspect said as the cuffs tightly snapped in place. “I was a hostage, too.”
“You’re full of shit,” Pope replied.
Only after the man was down and restrained did Trooper Pope call for backup, which arrived three or four minutes later.
Pope patted the suspect down and found a wallet in his left rear pocket. A quick look at the wallet’s contents and his photo ID verified that this was indeed Michael Lee King.
In King’s front pocket, Pope found a black phone, with a silver emblem on it, which had had the battery and SIM card pulled out. Also in his pants pockets were foam earplugs,