Viswa Vanapalli
When 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin went missing in Purcell, Oklahoma, in April 2006, the search efforts were massive. But nobody would have ever imagined what ended up happening to the little girl. Investigation Discovery’s ‘Signs of a Psychopath: Wolves’ deals with Jamie’s brutal torture slaying as one of the cases featured on the show. Kevin Underwood, a loner who lived in the same apartment complex, readily confessed to her murder. So, let’s find out what happened to Kevin since then, shall we?
Who is Kevin Underwood?
On April 12, 2006, Jamie Bolin, a fifth-grader, went to the local library to play with a friend after school. She was not seen or heard from again. The worried family reported her missing, and the authorities set up multiple roadblocks to find any information about her whereabouts. As part of the investigation, the police came across 26-year-old Kevin Ray Underwood. He was Jamie and her father’s neighbor. Kevin piqued the authorities’ interest after their initial conversation with him on April 14, and they decided to search his place.
In Kevin’s apartment, they noticed a large plastic tub inside his closet. Jamie’s naked body was found inside. At this point, Kevin told the authorities, “Go ahead and arrest me. She is in there. I chopped her up.” Jamie had been strangled, and there was a deep cut around her neck, suggesting a failed decapitation. The police also found Jamie’s dismantled bike at the apartment. Kevin was taken into custody, and he immediately confessed to what happened.
Kevin maintained an online blog that provided some insight into his mind. He talked of cannibalism on there and mentioned that he had been depressed. He also mentioned talked to the authorities about his fantasies and how they developed after watching cannibalism-related pornography on the internet. On April 12, Kevin lured Jamie into his apartment under the pretext of playing with his pet rat and watching cartoons on TV. Then, he hit her in the head repeatedly with a wooden cutting board.
Kevin also suffocated her, and according to him, it took about twenty minutes before she died. Jamie’s autopsy showed evidence of sexual assault as well. The authorities also found a hacksaw, a meat tenderizer, and some barbecue skewers at the apartment. These pointed to the possibility that Kevin was going to eat Jamie. His sexual fantasies involved torture, rape, and cannibalism.
Where is Kevin Underwood Now?
Given the confession and the overwhelming evidence, a jury took less than half an hour to convict Kevin of first-degree murder in February 2008. In April the same year, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Kevin’s defense did not dispute that he killed Jamie but hoped for a life sentence instead. They pointed to mitigating factors like his mental illness and the verbal and emotional abuse he faced as a child.
In August 2016, an appeal for overturning Kevin’s death penalty was rejected. His lawyers claimed that he was already diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder and had recently received an Asperger’s Syndrome diagnosis. As per prison records, Kevin remains on death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Pittsburg County.
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