Deborah Roberts (3:11)

And for folks who may not have seen the episode, and I'm telling you, you're gonna want to go see the episode. But those of you who did, you'll remember that Denise, Amber lee, placed a 911 call from her captor's car. She was actually taken from her home. And she very cleverly was able to get his phone and to place a call to the police. Just sort of not obviously, signaling that she was calling the police, but giving enough information there. It's almost like something out of a. Out of a TV show. And, Jeff, what about you and your approach to this particular story? You knew the area.

Jeff Schneider (3:43)

Yeah, I mean, and I'm also a dad, so with two kids, and. And I immediately, when I read the story, when I learned about the story, I put myself in Nathan's shoes. And her husband, you know, I just. Yeah, her husband. And I just really wanted to capture kind of what he was going through and what he was feeling. And, you know, these locations were all so very important, like where their house was. You know, it was in the middle of nowhere. It was back on a tucked in, you know, street where it felt safe, you know, and so that was really something that was important for me to try to get across with the. With the visuals is just where everything took place, the relationship to each other and stuff like that. And then, you know, also the strength of this family. You know, sue, the mom, taking in the children in the middle of this nightmare. You know, like you mentioned having to go. She had to go get formula because Denise was still breastfeeding.

Deborah Roberts (4:44)

Yeah, there was something about that tender idea that she's still a breastfeeding mom and had to leave her children behind because she was kidnapped. And in the story, we learn a lot about the two of them. Denise and Nathan. They were very young when they got married. They had these children pretty quickly, and Nathan was a very devoted dad, working very hard. Comes home, and, you know, his wife's keys and her purse are there, but she's not to be found anywhere. He's the first person actually to call 911 in this story. So let's remind our listeners and let's take a listen. Northport Emergency.

Jeff Schneider (5:18)

Yes, I'm at Latour Avenue. 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 and I don't know.

Deborah Roberts (5:30)

How old are your kids, sir?

Jeff Schneider (5:32)

My oldest is 2 and my youngest is 6 months. I know, I don't know where mommy is.

Deborah Roberts (5:37)

Her vehicle in a driveway?

Jeff Schneider (5:38)

Yes.

Deborah Roberts (5:39)

Does she have any medical conditions?

Jeff Schneider (5:40)

No.

Deborah Roberts (5:42)

Her purse is here.

Jeff Schneider (5:44)

I don't.

Deborah Roberts (5:45)

Her cell phone is here.

Jeff Schneider (5:46)

I, I don't, I don't know. I don't know.

Deborah Roberts (5:50)

Okay, what is her name?

Jeff Schneider (5:51)

Denise.

Deborah Roberts (5:54)

That call is just so chilling because you can hear the desperation. You can also hear the panic in his voice. Jeff, you talked about being a dad and of course, Denise, you're a parent too. And I think for all of us, as, as we were going back and looking at this story and I had an opportunity to meet her two now older sons. Her father's a police officer and we'll talk about that and her parents. This was a hard one to report, Denise. And I mean, even your face now as I'm, as we're watching and talking to you about it, I mean, this was a hard one, wasn't it?

Denise Martinez Raimundo (6:23)

Yeah, definitely. I mean, in that 91 call, you hear even the son asking, where's mommy? You know, my little one is starting to talk, almost getting close to the two year old age. And you know, they realized and just hearing that, the panic on his voice, the little young son asking for his mom, you know, it was hard, you know, to report on it. So we had covered this story back in 2008, but we didn't have her 911 call. And even though it's heartbreaking and, you know, heart stopping, but it really shows how brave she was. And I think it was important for us to do this story and showing, making our viewers listen to that 911 call to show the impact that her case has had on the 911 system going forward.

Deborah Roberts (7:07)

Yeah. And that became kind of a theme for us, Jeff, in this story we're going to examine 911 calls and operators. And we went actually to a 911 office there to kind of find out how they work. Because this case would eventually change a lot in Florida when it comes to 911 cases. We have to dig through a lot of video file reporting. And as Denise said, this is the first time we had actually had an opportunity to broadcast this particular 911 call.

Jeff Schneider (7:35)

Yeah. Yeah. Both me and Denise, you know, go through all the case files that we can get our hands on. You know, we try to get everything. We listen to everything, we make notes on it all, you know, and we were listening to everything. And we're keeping all that in mind as we go out. And I think that makes us, you know, better in the field so that we can really know what to what, how to film certain things, you know, the locations and everything like that.

Deborah Roberts (8:02)

Yeah, especially when it's a case like this one that happened several years back, and then we try to see what we can do to bring something new to it. Fresh eyes. Well, there's so much more to this story to report and to tell you all about how we put it all together. Denise, Amberly and the case of the missing mom down in Florida. We're going to talk more about it in just a moment. We're going to take a break, so don't go anywhere. This episode is brought to you by cars.com on cars.com you can shop over 2 million cars. That means over 2 million new car possibilities, like making space for your growing family, becoming the type of person who takes spontaneous weekend camping trips or upgrading your commute wherever life takes you next or whoever you're looking to be. There's a car for that on cars.com visit cars.com to discover your next possibility. We are back now with Denise Martinez, Raimundo and Jeff Schneider, producers on this story with me for 2020. They covered the Denise Amber Lee case, and it was driven by consequential 911 calls. I want to get into all of them, but we heard that call from Nathan a little earlier. Now there was a call from Denise. I want to play for all of us a clip from that. Do you know this guy that's with you?

Denise Martinez Raimundo (9:25)

No.

Deborah Roberts (9:27)

You don't know him from anywhere? No, please. Oh, God, help me. What is the address that you're at? Where are we going? Up and around. Where?

Jeff Schneider (9:42)

Because it's loud.

Deborah Roberts (9:43)

Can you see this Everywhere? North Ford, L9 Sarasota. Just had Denise A. Lee on the phone, advised that she was taken by an unknown subject. That call was just so distressing. What were your thoughts about how much of it to play and whether even to play it?

Denise Martinez Raimundo (10:07)

We gave it a lot of thought to that in our previous reporting. We had her dad and ourselves describing the call. I mean, after Listening to the call, I think we felt it was important for us, for the viewer to hear how brave she was and how she handled herself in that situation. It was really important in her 911 call that she's relaying critical information about the person who has her. He's saying, I don't know you, Please take me back home. She says, take me back home to my house in Latour. Trying to give dispatchers to information about, you know, where her home is so she could identify her, they could identify, hopefully him. And that was really critical because they will eventually use that information and they will convict him later on.

Deborah Roberts (10:55)

Yeah, it was so amazing to me. I mean, this is a 21 year old woman. Her father was a police officer, so she had some smarts about, I guess, the law and maybe even just about, you know, trying to figure out a way to get herself out of this, but that she had the presence of mind, even in the middle of all that fear, to throw out these little breadcrumbs to police. And also too, of course, to try to plead with this abductor. But then another call came through that actually helped identify who her actual killer was. Let's take a listen to that call.

Jeff Schneider (11:25)

I just got a call from my.

Deborah Roberts (11:26)

Dad and his cousin came over his.

Jeff Schneider (11:28)

House with a girl in the car and she was tied up. He borrowed a shovel, a gas tank, and something else.

Deborah Roberts (11:35)

What's the cousin driving?

Jeff Schneider (11:37)

A green cousin Camaro.

Deborah Roberts (11:38)

What's your cousin's name?

Denise Martinez Raimundo (11:40)

Mikey King.

Deborah Roberts (11:42)

Put out a bowl of FHP2, please.

Jeff Schneider (11:44)

For dark green Camaro. Who's he saying is driving that Camaro? Michael King.

Deborah Roberts (11:52)

Oh, my gosh. I think for all of us, this, this was not only upsetting, but maybe even infuriating. When you think about this young woman is missing, every second counts. This young girl calls because her father didn't call, and she gives police a little bit of information. And this is the first time we actually hear a Michael King. And that was critical, Jeff. Right?

Jeff Schneider (12:13)

It was. And you know, when we talked with the police and the detectives, they had said that Denise's call, when they got the 911 call from Denise, they started to trace it. And then they got this other call from that girl that we just heard and that they had a name. And then they eventually got the name back from the phone that they were tracing from Denise's 911 call and it matched up. And both, you know, it was Michael King. So they knew they had their guy. And it was just, you know, you talk about the research that we were doing. When we first started this, you know, we tried to dig into who was this guy who is Michael King.

Deborah Roberts (12:54)

Yeah. What was her. What was his connection to Denise Amber Lee, which was nothing.

Jeff Schneider (12:58)

Which was nothing. And there was, you know, we couldn't find any criminal background with him. And so that randomness just made this even more chilling.

Deborah Roberts (13:07)

Yeah, Denise, I think that's what got me, the randomness. Because we do so many of these stories, and oftentimes we kind of see it coming, Right. It's either the spouse or a relative or some disgruntled, you know, employee or worker with someone. But in this case, it's just one of those things, those random crimes that all of us fear.

Denise Martinez Raimundo (13:26)

That's what makes it the. The. This case really, really scary, because it's somebody random, Somebody that had no connection whatsoever to her. And, you know, somebody who turned out to be a father. You know, he had a young son, and, you know, his most recent girlfriend had said that she was shocked as everybody else to hear that it was him and that she would never have imagined that he would be capable to do something like this.

Deborah Roberts (13:49)

Yeah. As I said, the 911 calls played such a role. Denise makes a call. This young woman makes a call. And then there's another call that comes in that could have changed everything. A woman named Jane Kowalski, who you had me meet. Denise. And I drove along with her so she could point out to me where she was driving. She happened to be in town on her way to go visit a relative, and she saw a car with someone banging on the back window in the car. And. And she said she was on the phone with her sister, and she could hear this screaming. It was almost like a kid's voice. She couldn't make it out, and she knew something was wrong. She could see that this guy was driving, and this person was banging very, very frantically. Let's take a listen to this one.

Jeff Schneider (14:32)

They kept banging on the window and.

Deborah Roberts (14:34)

Screaming, and not a happy scream, like, get me out of here.

Jeff Schneider (14:38)

Scream. He just turned on Toledo Bright.

Deborah Roberts (14:40)

I don't know if I can catch up. There's a bunch of traffic, and I can't get over. Oh, boy. You can't get more specific than that. This woman is giving all this detail in real time. She's telling them where she is. I mean, I think all of our jaws just dropped. Denise, let's talk about how you found Jane. You brought her to Florida. I got a chance to get in the car. Jeff, you were shooting to talk to her about how this all played out for her. And she was a very interesting woman, very strong woman who felt very strongly about trying to do the right thing. She even wanted to follow the car, but they lost her after a while. She was, like, trying to do her part as a citizen.

Denise Martinez Raimundo (15:16)

Yeah, I mean, I mean, it was. It's always really important for us to be able to go back and find those people that are so key to the story. I mean, obviously Jane saw something that in her mind looked like a kidnapping. And, you know, I think it was really important for. To have you write with her so she can really point. You know, I'm in this lane. He's crossing over. I mean, I think to be able to really capture that and understand it from herself. I mean, I mean, you saw. She even showed you how loud the banging on the window was. I mean, that was. It was quite something. So that she really knew somebody was in trouble. And so, I mean, I think it's really, you know, unfortunately, you know, you know, her call comes to the dispatch center where actually her, you know, the agency where Denise's father works for. So it was people there that obviously really care about Denise.

Deborah Roberts (16:04)

And of course, you know, what was so upsetting was that we learned that there was a snafu in the 911 call center, which just complicated this story all the more. Ultimately, sadly, very sadly, in this case, Denise's body was found. Well, we talked about Denise's sons, who are now young men, almost grown men, and we had a chance to meet them and to talk with them. They're very, very amazing young men. We're going to share some extended moments from my interview with them. We come back, so stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Rakuten. If you're shopping while working, eating, or even listening to this podcast, then you know and love the thrill of a deal. But are you getting the deal and cash back? Rakuten shoppers, do they get the brands they love? Savings and cash back. And you can get it, too. Stack sales on top of cash back and feel what it's like to know you're maximizing savings. It's easy to use and you get cash back sent to you through paypal or check. The idea is simple. The brands you love pay Rakuten for sending them shoppers, and Rakuten shares the money with you as cash back. Download the free Rakuten app or go to rakuten.com to start saving today. It's the most rewarding way to shop. That's R a k u t e n rakuten.com this episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this, adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes, us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives. But are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treat start prioritizing their financial education and future today with a risk free trial@greenlight.com Spotify greenlight.com Spotify we are back now with producers Jeff Schneider and Denise Martinez Raimundo talking about our recent 2020 life on the a heartbreaking and chilling story about a 21 year old young mom of two who went missing and was later found dead. And we kind of take you through all the twists and turns of this story, but also the 911 calls that played such a key role in this case and sadly led to a delay in police being able to track down Denise. We also went to those detectives who were on this case and Chris Morales was one of them. He was the lead detective on the Denise Amberly case. Jeff, talk to us a little bit about that because we had to only track him down but take him back to these locations of where this all played out. And it's a story that he hasn't forgotten either.

Jeff Schneider (18:43)

No. And you know, after this case he wanted to figure out what they could do better, how they could improve, how they could not have this happen again. And they he spearheaded this real time intelligence center. And when we went and talked with him and sat him down to interview him, you know, he took us into the intelligence center and we just felt like this is where we need to talk to him.

Deborah Roberts (19:06)

Well, let's take a listen to what he told us.

Jeff Schneider (19:09)

What's behind me here is our real time intelligence center. There's over 150 pieces of intelligent equipment that's placed throughout our city. I can tell you right now if we were able to take all of this behind me and go back in time and implement it into 2008, I strongly believe in my heart that we would have had Denise Amberly.

Deborah Roberts (19:33)

I also had an opportunity which was pretty amazing, was to talk to her sons, Adam and Noah. One of them had just graduated from high school, the other one is a chef. And they were really pretty amazing to talk to Denise.

Denise Martinez Raimundo (19:45)

Yeah. I mean one thing when I started working on the story, I mean I realized the 6 month old and the 2 year old are probably Teenagers.

Deborah Roberts (19:53)

Now.

Denise Martinez Raimundo (19:54)

I want to hear from them. I want to know how this, you know, what. What life has been for them. You know, obviously, their mom was taken away from them when they were so young. And, you know, and, you know, we'll talk about again how their dad has gone on to speak about her mom's story. But I wanted to hear from them, and I think it was very moving, and I think they were very eloquent. And they say themselves, they say you never. You usually don't get to hear about, you know, like, the kids, you know, from, like, kind of the impact that it has on them. And I think that was really, really moving to hear what they have to say.

Deborah Roberts (20:30)

Adam and Noah were talking to us for the first time publicly about this case. And we have a bonus clip from our interview. So let's take a listen. When you think about the two of you now having grown up, you had each other. Did that create a special bond between the two of you?

Jeff Schneider (20:47)

Yeah. You know, even as we take our separate paths in life, that keeps us bonded forever. You know, knowing that he was going through the same thing definitely helped help me.

Deborah Roberts (21:00)

There's a monument in the park that is basically a tribute to your mom. Do you spend any time there?

Jeff Schneider (21:07)

I still make an effort to visit and to kind of say my piece, you know, almost like she's there. If I don't go there, I go to the cemetery.

Deborah Roberts (21:18)

So you feel some connection to her.

Jeff Schneider (21:21)

I used to wear a cross on.

Deborah Roberts (21:24)

One of my necklaces. I left it there with her at the cemetery.

Jeff Schneider (21:31)

Stood part of me with her because I'll always have a part of her with me. I do my best to carry her with me everywhere I go.

Deborah Roberts (21:41)

Do you feel on some level that you kind of know her, even though you don't remember her?

Jeff Schneider (21:47)

All these stories and, you know, everything I hear, you know, she's still been a perfect mother despite her not being here. I always try to dedicate a part.

Deborah Roberts (21:57)

Of my success to her.

Jeff Schneider (22:00)

Without her, you know, what would I be?

Deborah Roberts (22:04)

You know, I have to tell you, this was very hard for me, sitting across from these two young men. I mean, you could hear Noah weeping there and just. Oh, my. Even just listening to it again now. Powerful words from these two. And it was interesting to hear them talking about, you know, visiting her and the jewelry and, of course, having talked to Denise's husband, who now has been remarried, Nathan, but who still so clearly carries a lot of pain having lost Denise. Nathan, though, one of the things that I just thought was so remarkable. Denise was that Nathan had given Denise when they first started dating. Not a very expensive ring, but it was like a little heart. It was for Valentine's Day. She was wearing that ring when she was abducted. And smartly, she left the ring behind in the car to give police a clue. And he actually got that ring back not long before we did this interview. And Denise, that was really pretty remarkable.

Denise Martinez Raimundo (23:01)

Yeah. When I reached out to him about doing the story, he had mentioned to me that just a few months ago he had gotten that ring back. Michael Keane's appeals had all been exhausted, so he was able to get this piece of jewelry back, which, again, it was so special, he says, that it wasn't expensive, but it became one of her priceless possessions. And she left it in that car because she knew that Nathan would be able to identify it. So getting it back was very special for him.

Deborah Roberts (23:36)

Yeah. And just a remarkable man himself, Jeff. I mean, he has dedicated his life now to speaking out about 911 and how laws changed in Florida and other parts of the country where they've strengthened the protocol for 911 calls.

Jeff Schneider (23:51)

You know, I actually attended one of the events where Nathan was telling Denise's story to a bunch of people that work in the 911 field. And I talked with the people after the people that were attending. And her story, him telling her story really made a difference, really impacted them.

Deborah Roberts (24:08)

And.

Jeff Schneider (24:09)

And, you know, it also impacted me, you know, I'm not going to forget this, you know, and I think that it's just really amazing. Again, I think I said the strength of this family was so important, and just the way that they've turned their tragedy, you know, into action is just. It's. I. Remarkable.

Deborah Roberts (24:25)

Yeah. Pain into purpose, as we see in so many of these episodes. Well, guys, you brought it home in such a remarkable way, in such a powerful way. Denise and Jeff, so well done on the piece, and thank you so much for being with us today.

Denise Martinez Raimundo (24:38)

Thank you, Deborah.

Jeff Schneider (24:39)

Thanks, Deborah.

Deborah Roberts (24:39)

We'll see you soon. I'm sure.

Jeff Schneider (24:48)

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Jeff Schneider (25:33)

That's too ridiculous.

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The search goes on for months.

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Denise Martinez Raimundo (25:53)

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