Husband of murdered Florida woman pushes for 911 reform

SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) - There is no moving on for Nathan Lee.

Her name is stitched on his shirt breast. Her picture is the background image on his laptop. The final hours of Denise Amber Lee's life are still replaying for the husband she left behind.

Moving on was never an option for Lee after his wife was abducted from their North Port home, raped and murdered in one of the most sensational crimes in southwest Florida history. Lee always knew that he would continue to hold his wife close so he could pass on memories to their two young boys and use the story of her death as a way to save other lives.

For a long time, though, Lee, 30, also felt like he wasn't moving forward with his life. He jumped into a relationship he wasn't ready for. He held his grief at bay for too long. He spent years in an anxiety-inducing court battle over missed opportunities by public safety officials to thwart his wife's abductor.

But the court case is settled, the relationship over. And nearly seven years after his wife's death in January 2008, Lee is finding peace by constantly reliving the events that turned his life upside down.

He is one of the most-sought after speakers in the country on 911 reform, so much so that it is a full-time profession. After struggling to turn the Denise Amber Lee Foundation into a more effective tool for change, Lee in 2014 had his strongest year ever as a public safety advocate.

Most recently, Lee's focus has been turning to a new accreditation agency for Florida 911 call centers. Last month, his foundation joined the Florida Telecommunications Accreditation Commission's board of directors, and Lee is excited about the potential for raising 911 standards statewide.

Throwing himself into such work has helped Lee cope with his wife's death.

It hasn't been easy, though. He made mistakes. And there were times when he was very nearly overcome with despair.

By now, Lee is used to people crying when they hear his story.

It happens all the time, when he speaks at 911 conferences across the country.

Members of the audience are overcome with emotion. They wait in line to give him a hug. The details of the case are just so tragic and disturbing.

Pretty young wife. Abducted from her home by a stranger in broad daylight as her two young boys slept. Raped. Killed. Buried in a shallow grave.

Denise Lee's kidnapping and murder shocked the community like few crimes before or since. The search for her body drew in hundreds of people. The crowd at her funeral was so large, an overflow room was set up with a video feed.

The crime attracted national attention. There were prime-time television specials and appearances on network news programs.

The sadness many felt was mixed with outrage over the missed opportunities to save Lee's life.

There were five 911 calls, including one from Denise herself, placed from within her kidnapper's car. She can be heard begging for her life.

Another 911 call came from a driver who saw someone screaming for help in a vehicle that matched the description of the kidnapper's car. It turned out to be Lee struggling with Michael King, the man who ultimately killed her. The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office failed to send a deputy to investigate the report.

The death-penalty trial drew intense media attention. King was convicted and remains on death row. There was also a civil lawsuit over the 911 errors.

Just 23 at the time of his wife's death, Nathan Lee was thrust into the spotlight.

Lee told himself for years that he was doing just fine.

The widowed father felt he needed to be strong for his two young boys. He put on a brave face, staring down his wife's killer in court and pushing for more accountability in 911 centers.

A soft touch who cries at movies and adopts rescue cats, Lee refused to acknowledge how much pain he felt.

"I bottled it up," he said.

Terrified of being alone, he jumped into a relationship with another woman 18 months after his wife's death. They had a daughter together. He tried not to dwell on that terrible January night.

"My way of coping with it was just not letting myself think about it, wiping my mind clear of it," he said.

Looking back, Lee realizes he was not letting himself grieve properly. His relationship faltered.

"I was wanting Denise," he said. "I would expect her to do things like Denise would and it wasn't a healthy thing."

A few years ago, on his oldest boy's first day of school, it finally hit Lee how devastated he still was.

"I was so mad Denise wasn't there to see it," he said.

The emotions that Lee had been suppressing also began to flare up as his lawsuit against the Charlotte Sheriff's Office progressed. He sued the office for negligence over the 911 call for which a deputy was never dispatched.

North Port Police had been searching for a Chevrolet Camaro in connection with the abduction. The Sheriff's Office received a 911 call reporting screams coming from a Camaro on U.S. 41 near the North Port city limits. Dispatcher Mildred Stepp said in a deposition that she immediately connected the call with the North Port abduction and search.

Stepp stood up to tell two radio dispatchers about the call and passed them a note with the information. The dispatchers told her to enter the details into the computer dispatching system.

Stepp later typed the information in, but the dispatchers said the call was lost in a "chaotic" environment that included a shift change. They never alerted deputies who likely were just minutes away from that Camaro.

Lee describes the lawsuit as a "dark" and "ugly" period in his life. He hoped to force changes in the Charlotte 911 center - or at least an admission of responsibility - but eventually settled for $1.25 million in 2012. Supporting his family as a single parent was too difficult, and he felt Denise would have wanted her boys to have financial security. Half the money that was left over after paying nearly $500,000 in attorney's fees was set aside in a college fund.

Settling the lawsuit also has allowed Lee to focus on the Denise Amber Lee Foundation, and on leaving a mark on the 911 industry.

Lee purchased a modest home in Englewood after the settlement; he lives there with his sons - Noah, 9, and Adam, 7 - and frequently cares for his 4-year-old daughter, Avery.

During a recent visit, toy trucks and Legos could be seen scattered around the house. There was a basket of laundry on the dining room floor. Lee sat down to talk at a kitchen table covered with a holiday diorama. He wore a shirt with "Denise Amber Lee Foundation" stitched on the left breast.

Lee's parents and in-laws often watch the children while he travels for days at a time. Last year, he visited nearly a dozen states through his work with the foundation, teaching 911 classes from Maine to Washington. He was in Texas six times.

The foundation was established shortly after the tragedy. Its mission: improving 911 operations across the country.

There were early successes.

Lee helped push through a law that set minimum training requirements for Florida's 911 workers. He traveled the country, giving occasional speeches about 911 reform.

But it took years, and a chance encounter with a leading 911 trainer, before Lee became one of the industry's most sought-after instructors.

Geoff Weiss remembers how it began. A 911 supervisor with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department in California, Weiss was watching television one day when he saw a promotion for a "Dateline NBC" special about Denise Lee.

The story horrified Weiss. He wrote Nathan Lee an email apologizing "on behalf of the entire industry." To his surprise, Lee responded and the two became friends.

They began teaching short classes together at 911 conferences around the country. The hourlong sessions eventually evolved into a full-day class, "A Victim's Plea: Meeting Expectations." The class includes a PowerPoint presentation with news clips about the case and lots of talk about what went wrong at the 911 center the night Denise died.

It ends with family pictures scrolling across the screen and the Lone Star song "Not a Day Goes By" playing in the background.

At first Lee had trouble connecting with the audiences. He had never taught before. Today, Weiss describes him as a dynamic presence who often moves people to tears and applause.

"He's engaging," Weiss said.

As demand for the class increased, Lee spent more and more time talking about his wife's death. He quit his job managing a Best Buy in April and started teaching the class full time across the U.S.

People often wonder how he can endure the emotional strain. But Weiss said Lee draws strength from talking about the tragedy and using it as a force for change.

Lee was very serious and formal when Weiss first met him, but he has loosened up. Weiss believes the classes have been "therapeutic" for his friend.

"He's different now, he's getting better," Weiss said. "This has been a healing experience for him."

Oddly, one place where Lee has never taught is his home state.

But the Denise Amber Lee Foundation is poised to have a significant influence on 911 standards throughout Florida as part of a new accreditation agency.

From hospitals to day care centers and universities, many industries have accrediting bodies that set standards for good performance.

But accreditation has long been an afterthought for 911 centers.

A 2009 Herald-Tribune investigation found that just 15 of the roughly 250 centers across Florida were accredited at the time.

Encouraging more standardization among 911 centers through accreditation and other means was one of the major recommendations that came out of an in-depth study of Florida's 911 system completed by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation in 2009.

The high prices charged by national accrediting agencies have been a deterrent for some Florida 911 centers, said Robert Brongel, executive director of the new Florida Telecommunications Accreditation Commission.

Public safety officials in Florida began talking about creating a state-based 911 accrediting body nearly a decade ago. The effort picked up momentum after Denise Lee's death.

"It was really in the embryonic stages," Brongel said, but after Lee's death "we got serious about it and said we can help improve the situation."

The idea is to offer a cheaper and more streamlined process that will allow even the smallest 911 center to become accredited.

It won't bring every agency up to the highest standards, but it creates a minimum level of competency that should improve Florida's patchwork 911 system. A half-dozen centers have been accredited so far.

"It will provide some standardization throughout the state," said Nathan Lee's father, Mark, who is deeply involved in the foundation and will help steer the new accrediting body.

Brongel, a former lieutenant with the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, said the Lees bring "a different level of expertise that no one else has" to the commission board.

"They've been more helpful than you can shake a stick at," he said.

The foundation's involvement with the Accreditation Commission is another example of how Nathan Lee has immersed himself in the 911 world.

"It's something else where my kids will be able to see where their mom made a difference," he said.

The public policy legacy Lee is trying to create consumes much of his time, but he also worries about how Denise will be remembered by her boys on a personal level.

They were too young when she died to have any memories of her.

Noah more closely resembles Denise. They have the same chin, cheekbones and book smarts. Adam is more like his sports junkie dad.

Both are "just the sweetest kids" and don't appear to have any lingering trauma from the murder, Lee said.

Lee sometimes plays home movies taken before Denise died and they often visit her grave.

Still, he wonders, should he be doing more?

"I feel like we don't talk about her enough because it's hard," he said.

Then there are the details of her death. The boys don't know much, but that can't last forever.

Lee is waiting for "some kind of sign that they're ready to grasp it."

It's not something Lee can fully grasp himself, the senseless loss of such a gentle, caring soul. But as he continues to tell her story, Lee feels more and more like he is moving in the right direction.

Not moving on, "because I'm never going to move on from Denise," he said.

But moving forward.

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Information from: Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, http://www.heraldtribune.com