OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
12:40 PM – Friday, December 20, 2024
In the country’s 25th and last execution of the year, a 45-year-old death row inmate in Oklahoma was given a fatal injection on Thursday morning for the 2006 murder of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin.
The planned murder was reportedly part of a “cannibalistic fantasy,” according to the perpetrator, Kevin Ray Underwood, 45, who received a death sentence following his conviction.
On Thursday, the day of Underwood’s execution at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, he turned 45.
Lance West, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections, told the Associated Press that he was declared dead at 10:14 a.m.
Underwood’s execution started at 10:04 a.m. He turned to face his family, including his mother, and his legal team. A few minutes later, his eyes closed, and his breathing became labored. At 10:09 a.m., a physician entered the execution chamber, gave him a few shakes, and pronounced him unconscious. Around five minutes later, his death was officially declared.
Three medications were used in Oklahoma’s deadly injection mix. The sedative midazolam was used first in the execution process, and then the inmate was paralyzed by vecuronium bromide. Potassium chloride, the third medication, stopped his heart from beating.
Oklahoma also recently approved the use of nitrogen hypoxia to execute prisoners after the effectiveness and humaneness of the other medicines it uses for fatal injections were “ethically” questioned by the public and mainstream media outlets.
Inside the death chamber, strapped to a gurney, Underwood expressed regret to both his own family and Bolin’s family “for all the terrible things [he] did.”
Nevertheless, the 45-year-old pedophilic rapist killer still attempted to paint himself as a victim while guilting the state, calling the authorities “cruel.”
“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, “but I’m very sorry for what I did, and I wish I could take it back.”
The innocent and now-deceased 10-year-old girl, Jamie Bolin, had been lured inside Underwood’s flat in 2006. Her family lived next door to him.
Underwood told FBI agents that it was his fantasy “to abduct a person, sexually molest them, eat their flesh, and dispose of their remains.”
As soon as he lured Jamie in, she was quickly beaten over the head with a large chopping board before being tortured, suffocated to death, and then sexually assaulted. He admits that he had also planned to “eat” the young girl after killing her, as he had “cannibalistic tendencies,” but Underwood says that he gave up on those “preparations.” However, he still admitted to “mutilating” her body after killing her.
Underwood also informed detectives that he almost decapitated her in his bathtub.
“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,” said Lori Pate, Jamie Bolin’s sister.
Last week, Underwood first apologized to the girl’s family during a hearing before the state’s Pardon and Parole Board.
“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.
Underwood’s lawyers previously argued that Underwood should not be put to death, given his “lengthy history of abuse and severe mental health conditions,” including autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar and panic disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and other deviant sexual paraphilias.
Connie Underwood, his mother, also begged the board to show 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.”
In their letter, prosecutors opposed Underwood’s bid for mercy.
“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.”
They also highlighted that many Americans grow up having been severely abused, both sexually and physically, having developed certain disorders or mental illnesses later on, without going to any lengths of assaulting, raping, or murdering others, especially children.
Underwood’s lawyers later claimed in a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution that he should be given a hearing before the entire five-member parole board and that the panel had violated both state law and Underwood’s rights by postponing the hearing after two board members resigned. They were unsuccessful in their attempts.
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