BellaOnline Forums News and Politics Crime The girl cried, "I'm sorry"

Kevin Underwood was found guilty of first-degree murder on Friday, February 29, 2008. It was a crime committed in April 2006.

His victim was a 10 year old girl named Jamie Rose Bolin.

He had lured the child (his upstairs neighbor) into his paratment with his pet rat. As she was playing with the rat, he hit her over the head with a cutting board. He then assaulted her body. Afterwards, he started cutting on her neck and nearly decapitated her.

When police were investigating, he let them search his apartment and they found the victim in a plastic tub in his bedroom closet.

Underwood said that the girl had said, "I'm sorry" after he had hit her with the cutting board. He admitted that she had nothing to be sorry about - he was the one who should be sorry.

Why did he do it? It seems he had a fantasy that involved cannibalism and he just wanted to see what human meat tasted like.

Jurors will return on Monday to decide the penalty. Prosecutors want the death penalty. The defense would like to see his life spared.

This goes along with the articles in the Crime section.....How Do Children Get Abducted? and How to Keep Children Safe.

This man enticed a neighbor girl with his pet rat. Kids and animals seem to go together.....he knew that.... Her father said he taught her not to deal with strangers, and he thought she understood.

I read about this, and I am voting for the death penalty with this one.

There are definitely people that you simply do not want to be around society any more, that you could never trust. He seems like one of them.

I hadn't heard of this case before. Assuming the facts given above are true, I'd sure vote the death penalty on this one.

yes death penalty, i agree on that

Well and this also goes back to the thought of is it "worse" for a bad person to just be killed, or to have him live in "unhappiness" for 60 years. From what I hear, criminals like this are tortured by the others in jail ...

Yes, I thought of that. This type of criminal fares badly in prison and that plus the lack of any freedom would be, to me, worse than death. However there is no guarantee that this guy would stay locked up forever even if given life without parole. Laws change and can even change retroactively - look at the Mason case. Charlie, Tex and the girls all received death sentences which were commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole when the death penalty was declared unconstitutional a few years after they were convicted. They all come up for parole regularly now and there is a distinct possibility that at least one will be paroled in the future.

Some crimes are just so heinous that putting those that commit these acts to death is the only way to guarantee that society is forever rid of them.

That is VERY true. Even if the jury explicitly says they want this person locked away forever so they never have even the most remote chance of being loose in society, there is always the chance that they will get out and hurt someone else ...

I took a security guard course and the teacher was an ex-cop. He told us that he had not believed in the death penalty, until an incident in his life changed his mind.

He,his wife, and kids were eating at a local restaurant when the hackles on the back of his neck stood up. He turned around and saw a man he had helped put away for life + 36 years sitting at the next table grinning at them.

This [censored] just makes me want to scream!!! (I know i'm not alone.)

One thing i think we should be doing when we talk to kids is explaining to them what a "stranger" is. I know that is some weirdo walks up to a kid, says something like my name is Joe Smo and i need help finding my puppy Sammy the kid will say that the pervert isn't a stranger. And why should we expect anything different? I think a stranger whould be anyone who doesn't know the family's "secret word." (A secret word being a word which the "stranger" must know before the kid even talks to him.) Kids, especially young ones, just don't understand the concept of "stranger."

pat