Convicted murderer of Jamie Rose Bolin seeks mercy as execution looms

Convicted child murderer Kevin Ray Underwood is hoping for an afterlife where “your every fantasy comes true.”

“If you want to torture your childhood bully, you can,” he wrote from Oklahoma’s death row in 2022 to a female acquaintance. “Basically, my hope is that there’s sex in heaven and I can indulge my every sexual fantasy.”

Underwood, 44, is set to be executed by lethal injection Dec. 19 at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for the murder of a 10-year-old girl whose nickname was “Coppertop.”

On Wednesday, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board will consider his longshot request for clemency. Attorney General Gentner Drummond and his assistants included his remarks about the afterlife in a detailed packet of information about the murder.

“The crimes committed by Kevin Ray Underwood remain some of the most depraved and notorious in Oklahoma history,” they told the board. “No mercy is warranted here.”

What to know about the case

Underwood was sentenced to death for acting on his cannibalistic fantasies and suffocating Jamie Rose Bolin on April 12, 2006, in his Purcell apartment. He was 26 at the time of the crime.

The grocery store stocker confessed in a videotaped interview after his arrest that he invited Jamie, a neighbor, into his apartment to play with his pet white rat.

He described in the interview “how he had recently developed a desire to abduct a person, sexually molest them, eat their flesh, and dispose of their remains,” the Court of Criminal Appeals wrote in its 2011 opinion upholding his conviction and punishment.

“He explains in considerable detail how he attempted to carry out this plan on Jamie Bolin, whom he had decided was a convenient victim,” the court noted.

In the interview, Underwood said he hit the girl on the back of the head several times with a wooden cutting board and then suffocated her. She had been watching the cartoon, “SpongeBob SquarePants,” on his TV.

He said he tried to have sex with her body and used a dagger to try to remove her head. He said he became disgusted with himself and did not eat any of her body.

An Amber Alert was issued the next day. The search for the girl ended on April 14, 2006, when an FBI agent found a plastic tub in a closet at Underwood’s apartment. “Go ahead and arrest me,” Underwood said. “She’s in there. I hit her and chopped her up. I’m going to burn in hell.”

Jurors at a 2008 trial quickly found him guilty of first-degree murder. They were split 10-2 on punishment at first but reached a unanimous decision on a death sentence after eight hours.

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“Truly, Underwood’s crimes represent the worst of the worst of the worst,” the attorney general and his assistants wrote in the packet given to the parole board.

“Jamie’s murder was both organized and ruthless, planned out over the course of months as Underwood continued feeding his fantasies of rape, pedophilia, sadism, cannibalism, and necrophilia,” they wrote.

The attorneys included photos of barbecue skewers that Underwood bought intending to torture his victim. They also included a photo of the head of a Barbie doll that had been stuck with needles. “Kind of illustrates what … was in my fantasy,” he said in his interview.

In an impact statement for the board, the victim’s sister, Lori Pate, directly addressed Underwood. “You showed me at the age of 14 that monsters are not just something made up from story books,” she wrote. “They wear our same clothing and walk on our same streets.

“You, Kevin Underwood, do not deserve clemency and we as a family deserve closure that the monster that ended a precious life can no longer walk this earth and hurt others, but will suffer in the eternal fires.”

Gov. Kevin Stitt will make the final decision on clemency if the parole board recommends it. He could change the death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He has done so only once.

Stitt cannot act if the board does not recommend clemency.

Underwood’s attorneys told the parole board he is severely mentally ill, not evil. They also blamed abuse and his addiction to pornography for his actions.

“After a lifetime of abuse, Kevin realized he was slipping away, but he could not find himself help,” they wrote. “Kevin ultimately cracked, and he decided to act on his worst fantasies, which were developed by spending the bulk of his life on the worst parts of the internet.

“No one knows who Kevin could have been. But with a little help, we know he wouldn’t be who he is today.”

In a video prepared for the parole board, two childhood friends said the abuse came from his parents and students at schools.

Before trial, Underwood was diagnosed as having schizotypal personality disorder. For his appeal, he was re-diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.

His attorneys now say he has autism spectrum disorder, since Asperger’s is no longer recognized in the United States as a formal diagnosis.

In the video, his attorneys claimed he always has been deeply remorseful. In tears, his mother, Connie Underwood, said in the video, “I am so sorry for what Kevin did. I can’t tell you how sorry that I am for that. … I think of her everyday. … And I know what he took away. And Kevin knows what he took away. He’s so very aware of it. It haunts him.”

His hopes for the afterlife came from the Church of the SubGenius, he explained to his female acquaintance in 2022. He joined the church after high school. The attorney general and his assistants described the Church of the SubGenius as “a satirical religion that mocks the beliefs of traditional religions.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Pardon and Parole Board to vote on Kevin Underwood’s clemency request

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