Oklahoma executes Kevin Underwood by lethal injection for brutal 2006 murder
Nearly two decades after Kevin Ray Underwood murdered his 10-year-old neighbor, he died by lethal injection Thursday morning at 10:14 a.m., according to media witnesses.
By coincidence, it was his 45th birthday.
Underwood was sentenced to death in 2008 for killing Jamie Bolin in Purcell two years earlier. He confessed to police that he lured Bolin into his house, beat her over the head, attempted to decapitate her and stashed her body in a plastic tub with hopes of later eating it.
After exhausting his standard opportunities to appeal, Underwood challenged the constitutionality of the state’s death penalty because it gave too many options for the method of killing.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court declined to hear oral arguments in the case.
Underwood was denied clemency earlier this month. His clemency hearing was delayed when one member of the Pardon and Parole Board resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
Source:
KOSU, Staff, December 19, 2024
Oklahoma executes man who killed 10-year-old girl
Oklahoma executes man who killed 10-year-old girl during cannibalistic fantasy
A death row inmate in Oklahoma received a lethal injection Thursday morning in the nation's 25th and final execution this year. Kevin Ray Underwood was sentenced to die for the killing of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Rolin in 2006 as part of a cannibalistic fantasy.
Underwood, a former grocery store worker, turned 45 on the day he was executed at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was pronounced dead at 10:14 a.m., state Department of Corrections spokesperson Lance West told the Associated Press. Underwood's death marked Oklahoma's fourth execution in 2024.
The state uses a lethal injection cocktail that contains three drugs. Its execution protocol begins with midazolam, a sedative, followed by a second drug, vecuronium bromide, which paralyzes the inmate. The third drug, potassium chloride, stops the heart. After the efficacy and humanity of the drugs it uses for lethal injections was called into question, Oklahoma also authorized the controversial new execution method nitrogen hypoxia to put inmates to death, although to date the state has never used it.
Underwood admitted to luring Jamie into his apartment and beating her over the head with a cutting board before suffocating and sexually assaulting her. He told investigators that he nearly beheaded the girl in his bathtub before abandoning his plans to eat her.
During a hearing last week before the state's Pardon and Parole Board, Underwood told the girl's family he was sorry.
"I would like to apologize to the victim's family, to my own family and to everyone in that room today that had to hear the horrible details of what I did," Underwood said to the board via a video feed from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.
The Oklahoman reported that during the hearing, Underwood tearfully apologized for his actions.
"I recognize that although I do not want to die ... I deserve to for what I did," he said via a video feed from the penitentiary. "And if my death could ... change what I did, I would gladly die."
"It is true that I have blocked out most memory of that day," he also said. "When I do think about it, it causes me great pain. I cannot believe that I did ... those things. The person that I was in the weeks leading up to that event is not who I am now or was before that."
According to the outlet, it was stated that the former grocery store stocker hit Bolin over the head with a cutting and then suffocated her. At the time of the crime, Underwood was 26. Days later, it was reported by the outlet that the FBI found the girl's decapitated body in a plastic tub in his closet.
During Underwood's confession, he admitted that he had been preparing to carry out his sexual and cannibalistic fantasies for months. In an excerpt that was allegedly played for the panel, Underwood stated that his original plan was to cut off his victim's head and set it on his desk "so it could like watch me."
Underwood further stated that he wanted to keep Bolin's body with him in bed so he could "sleep with it and have sex with it for a day or two," before butchering and cooking it. In the recording, Underwood stated that he did try to have intercourse with the corpse but decided against cooking and eating it.
Assistant Attorney General Aspen Layman allegedly told the board that Underwood chose Jamie because he thought she was "a latchkey kid that nobody would miss ... at least not right away."
"He underestimated just how much Jamie's family loved her, and would not rest until she was found," the assistant attorney general said. "He was trapped, surrounded by the constant vigil of her father and other family members right outside."
"If it wasn't for the vigilance and unfaltering love of Jamie's family, Mr. Underwood would have gotten away with this, and he would have done it again," he added. According to the report, Bolin's family had pleaded with the board to deny Underwood clemency. Jamie's father, Curtis Bolin, tried to address the board via video. "I just want to state that, you know, it's missing ... I'm sorry I can't. I can't," he said, putting his head in a hand.
The three board members in attendance at last week's meeting all voted against recommending clemency.
Underwood's attorneys had argued that he deserved to be spared from death because of his long history of abuse and serious mental health issues that included autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar and panic disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and various deviant sexual paraphilias.
His mother, Connie Underwood, tearfully asked the board to grant her son mercy.
"I can't imagine the heartache the family of that precious girl is living with every single day," Connie Underwood said. "I wish we understood his pain before it led to this tragedy."
But several members of Bolin's family asked the board to reject Underwood's clemency bid. The girl's father, Curtis Bolin, was scheduled to testify to the board but became choked up as he held his head in his hand.
"I'm sorry, I can't," he said.
Prosecutors wrote in opposing Underwood's clemency request that, "Whatever deviance of the mind led Underwood to abduct, beat, suffocate, sexually abuse and nearly decapitate Jamie cannot be laid at the feet of depression, anxiety or (autism).
"Underwood is dangerous because he is smart, organized and driven by deviant sexual desires rooted in the harm and abuse of others."
In a last-minute request seeking a stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court, Underwood's attorneys argued that he deserves a hearing before the full five-member parole board and that the panel violated state law and Underwood's rights by rescheduling its hearing at the last minute after two members of the board resigned.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is considering a bid by Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip to toss out his conviction and grant him a new trial. Glossip, 61, has faced nine execution dates in all and eaten his "last meal" three times.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 11 innocent people have been freed from Oklahoma's death row and seven clemencies have been granted in the state. After Underwood's execution, there are now 33 people on Oklahoma's death row, the center says
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde
