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A former Oklahoma grocery store shelf stocker who murdered a 10-year-old neighbor in 2006 as part of an intended cannibalistic fantasy was put to death by lethal injection on Thursday — the killer’s 45th birthday.
After coaxing Jamie Rose Bolin into his apartment, Kevin Ray Underwood bludgeoned her over the head with a cutting board before suffocating her to death. He then placed the youngster in a plastic tub, where he nearly beheaded her, but wound up abandoning his plans to dine on her flesh.
In an email, Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokeswoman Kay Thompson told The Independent that Underwood requested a last meal of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, a cheeseburger with fries and ketchup, pinto beans, a hot roll and a cola from the prison canteen, which he received on Wednesday at 5:40 p.m. Underwood was remorseful for his actions and how they affected both the Bolin family and his own, according to Thompson.
“The decision to execute me on my birthday and six days before Christmas was a needlessly cruel thing to do to my family,” Underwood said in his final statement. “[B]ut I’m very sorry for what I did and I wish I could take it back.”
The execution process began at 10:04 a.m., using a three-chemical protocol: midazolam, for sedation; vecuronium bromide, to halt respiration; and potassium chloride, which stops the heart. Underwood slipped into unconsciousness at 10:09 a.m., and was pronounced dead at 10:14 a.m., according to data provided by the Oklahoma DOC. Underwood “elected not to have a chaplain present” in the death chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, a DOC fact sheet stated.
“As an agency, we carried out the court’s orders according to our high standards of professionalism and respect for those in our custody, ensuring dignity for everyone involved in the process,” the DOC said in a statement.
It was Oklahoma’s fourth execution of 2024, and the nation’s 25th and final execution of the year. Underwood’s mother, Connie, was on hand to witness her son’s death, according to the Associated Press.
Members of the Bolin family were also there to watch Underwood die, including the victim’s sister, who thanked prosecutors for their hard work over the past 18 years.
“This doesn’t bring our Jamie back but it does allow the space in our hearts to focus on her and allow the healing process to begin,” she said.
Underwood’s attorneys argued that his life should be spared due to a history of, among other things, autism, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, deviant sexual paraphilia and an addiction to pornography. But in a rebuttal opposing clemency, prosecutors said Underwood’s actions could not “be laid at the feet of” psychological issues, and that Underwood’s danger to society centered on the fact that he is “smart, organized and driven by deviant sexual desires rooted in the harm and abuse of others.”
Underwood maintained an online blog for several years before he was arrested for Bolin’s murder, describing himself as “single, bored, and lonely, but other than that, pretty happy.” One entry read, “If you were a cannibal, what would you wear to dinner? The skin of last night’s main course.”
In a hearing last week, the three members of Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board voted unanimously against staying Underwood’s execution.
“I am pleased the board voted to deny clemency for this deeply evil monster and ensured that justice will be delivered for Jamie Rose Bolin,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said in a statement following the decision. “Jamie’s family has waited 18 excruciating years for justice that finally will be carried out when this murderer is executed.”
There are presently 32 men and one woman on Oklahoma’s death row. Between 1915 and 2024, the state executed 209 people — 82 were electrocuted, 126 died by lethal injection, and one was hanged.
