Kevin Ray Underwood is behind bars for murdering his 10-year-old neighbor, Jamie Rose Bolin, inside his apartment in Purcell, Oklahoma.
At around 3:45 p.m. on April 14, 2006, the FBI stopped Underwood at a checkpoint near his home and questioned him about Jamie, who had disappeared two days earlier.
Underwood, who had just ended his shift at Griders Discount Foods in Oklahoma City, spoke with agents for about an hour, and it was during that time that they became suspicious of him, according to NBC News.
The then-26-year-old told detectives that he was stunned that they hadn’t questioned him before. He said he was “single, a loner, and had been hanging out outside for the past few weeks.”
But he assured them that during the time Jamie went missing, he was at home on the computer, chatting with a woman.
Underwood then allowed them to search his home in an effort to rule him out as a suspect.
He lived at the Purcell Park Apartments in unit 115.
While Agent Craig Overbee was in Underwood’s bedroom, he discovered a plastic tub inside the closet. There was a lid on top of it, but it was secured with duct tape.
Underwood said he could look inside, but he warned him that he would only find comic books.
After lifting the corner of the tub and looking inside, Overbee said, “There are no comic books in there. There are clothes.”
That’s when Underwood told Overbee to arrest him because Jamie’s body was inside the tub, and he “chopped her up.”
Underwood was immediately escorted outside the apartment, where he was placed in handcuffs and transported to the Purcell Police Department.
When Overbee realized that he never saw a body, he went back inside Underwood’s apartment, along with several officers, and opened the tub.
There was a trash bag inside, and when he tore it open, he saw Jamie’s face. And her bicycle, which had been disassembled, and her mug were found underneath Underwood’s bed.
In a videotaped confession, Underwood, who had fantasies involving human torture and cannibalism, told detectives that on April 12, 2006, Jamie returned home from school.
She was a fifth-grade student at Purcell Intermediate School, and she was living with her dad at the same apartment complex as Underwood.
Jamie went home and changed her clothes.
Before leaving, she grabbed a mug and filled it with ice milk. She had it with her when she asked Underwood if she could go inside his apartment and pet his rat, Freya.
He said yes.
She left her bicycle outside and went inside Underwood’s apartment, sat on the floor, and began petting Freya. A short while later, she and Underwood began watching an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.
As they were talking about the cartoon show, Underwood retrieved a wooden cutting board and hit Jamie on the head, which caused her to scream.
As she was crying and apologizing to Underwood over and over, he struck her several more times in an attempt to make her lose consciousness, but she didn’t.
He then put his hand over her mouth and nose and tried to suffocate her, but Jamie fought the entire time.
The struggle led to multiple injuries to his legs, but he continued until he thought she was dead.
As Jamie lay motionless on the floor, Underwood turned her over, and it was then that he noticed she was breathing.
He put duct tape over her mouth and nose and dragged her body to the bedroom before going outside and bringing her bicycle inside the apartment.
Underwood returned to the bedroom and undressed himself before removing Jamie’s clothing. He was attempting to have sex with her because he said the killing aroused him.
Due to the positioning of Jamie’s body, he was unable to have sexual intercourse with her, but he did, however, perform a brief sex act.
Afterward, he moved her body to the bathroom, which he said was a struggle because of how heavy she was.
Underwood wanted to quickly drain her blood before it coagulated, but by the time he got her into the bathtub, there were already blood clots.
Using a decorative dagger, Underwood proceeded to saw off her head, but the viscous blood was clogging the drain.
His plan was to have sex with her headless body, but when the process turned chaotic, he decided to stop what he was doing and clean up the mess, then get rid of Jamie’s body.
By that time, Jamie’s father had returned home from work, and he was looking for her. When Underwood stepped outside, he asked him if he had seen her, and Underwood said he hadn’t.
He told authorities that he tried to show that he was concerned about Jamie so that her father wouldn’t suspect him of anything. That’s why he helped Jamie’s family search for her until 8 p.m.
When Underwood went back inside his apartment, he continued cleaning Jamie’s blood, then he put her in the plastic tub. He said it wasn’t easy to do because Jamie’s body was already stiff at that point.
Using duct tape, Underwood was able to close the lid.
An autopsy revealed that Jamie’s cause of death was asphyxiation combined with direct blows to the head.
After the interrogation, Underwood was arrested on first-degree murder charges. He was booked into the McClain County Jail, where he was held without bond.
In February 2008, a jury deliberated for 23 minutes before returning with a guilty verdict. They also recommended the death penalty, which the judge later approved.
Two months later, Underwood was sentenced to death by lethal injection.
Underwood is currently on death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma.