00:00:05
JEFF UNDERWOOD: You,
with the tongue out, you got to say your name. Jeralee. JEFF UNDERWOOD: Jeralee what?
00:00:11
Jeralee nothing. JEFF UNDERWOOD: Jeralee
Nothing Underwood, right? [LAUGHTER] [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:28
JOYCE UNDERWOOD
(VOICEOVER): Jeralee was born January 9, 1982. She was the second child to us.
00:00:38
And she came five weeks early. I wonder sometimes
if she maybe knew her time here would be short.
00:00:48
And so she was
anxious to get here. JEFF UNDERWOOD
(VOICEOVER): Jeralee was always happy and always
had a smile on her face.
00:01:00
I want to go for a ride. The last time I saw Jeralee
was at the evening meal. I probably told her I
love her and that I'd
00:01:15
see her in a little bit. And that's the last
time we saw her. Joyce and I were
outside doing stuff.
00:01:27
Somebody had tried
to get a hold of us. She saw Jeralee get in a car. We immediately
called the police.
00:01:36
JAMES BENHAM: We dispatched
a patrol officer. We realized that we were
dealing with an abduction.
00:01:42
At least two witnesses
say they saw a man jump out of the car, grab Jeralee,
shove her back in the car,
00:01:48
and took off. As time went on,
the hours and days went on, we became
more concerned
00:01:54
that this would be
not just an abduction, but probably a murder. The police never
really told me they
00:02:02
were looking for a stranger. JEFF UNDERWOOD: He saw how
Jeralee carried herself,
00:02:09
how confident Jeralee was. And he took that total stranger. KIRK NELSON: He used
his handgun and shot
00:02:18
her twice in the
head, which caused her to die almost instantly. He was a sexual psychopath,
a sadistic rapist,
00:02:26
and a murderer. [MUSIC PLAYING] Jeralee was very loving,
loved to take care of people
00:02:50
and be kind. Yeah, she took care of
her siblings really well. Always had a
smile on her face.
00:02:58
Jeralee. I remember her doing that. JOYCE UNDERWOOD:
It was summertime, so Jeralee was out of school.
00:03:08
She was 11 years old. Jeralee and her brother, Jamen,
started a newspaper route in September of '92.
00:03:17
The route was real
close to our home, so her and her
brother could walk. We talked a lot about safety
and not talking to strangers.
00:03:27
And we knew a lot of the
people in the neighborhood. A lot of their customers,
we knew who they were.
00:03:35
JEFF UNDERWOOD:
Earlier that day, we had a little bit of a rain. But at 5:30 in the
evening, it was clear.
00:03:43
The sun was shining, nice and
warm, just a beautiful day. [MUSIC PLAYING] She had an orthodontist
appointment and then
00:03:54
after that appointment,
came home, and got ready to deliver their papers. They'd roll them and then put
an elastic band around them,
00:04:00
put them in their
newspaper bags. She expressed that she
wanted to take her bike.
00:04:09
I had a flat tire, so I went
outside to fix her tire, so that she could take her bike.
00:04:16
And when I came back in
to tell her it was ready, she had already left to
go deliver her papers.
00:04:23
Our neighbor came over. We were outside
working in the garden, and so she couldn't call us.
00:04:30
So she came over to
our house and told us that Jeralee had gotten
into a car with somebody.
00:04:37
Well, at first, we
thought that Jeralee maybe had gotten a ride home because
there was another neighbor
00:04:43
that would give her a ride. JOYCE UNDERWOOD (VOICEOVER):
Since she wasn't home, we went looking for
her, went around trying
00:04:49
to find out where she had been,
which houses she'd been to. When we found out that she
had been pushed into the car,
00:04:57
that's when we became really,
really concerned that, OK, well, if she got
pushed in the car,
00:05:03
then somebody's taken her. Immediately, we
called the police. [MUSIC PLAYING] We sent out two
detectives to respond
00:05:17
to the call because
it was called in, not as my kids missing. It was, we believe we've had
an abduction of a young girl.
00:05:27
I was assigned as a lieutenant
in the detective division. I was immediately
very concerned.
00:05:33
My heart sank. It put me into panic
mode, basically, because I wondered if this is real.
00:05:38
This doesn't sound good. We've got in touch with the
chief of police, Jim Benham,
00:05:43
and explained what was going on. We got the location
where Jeralee was allegedly
abducted from, which
00:05:50
was on the west side of town. It's a residential area. As a parent, I
was always praying
00:05:56
that I could be guided and
directed where I needed to go to try to find Jeralee.
00:06:01
I had no idea of what to do. KIRK NELSON: We
had an elderly lady that lived on the corner
that had just paid Jeralee
00:06:13
for her newspaper subscription. And as she moved about
the inside of her house, she happened to look out the
window to the side of her home.
00:06:20
She observed the
male from the car suddenly grab
Jeralee and force her into the driver's side of the
car, to the passenger side.
00:06:29
Then he then quickly jumped in
the car and sped from the area. The detectives obtained the
description of the vehicle
00:06:39
and the partial description
of the individual, a white male approximately
5' 7" to 5 foot 8 wearing
00:06:47
a plaid shirt and a cap. KIRK NELSON: The detectives
found the information in the dispatch.
00:06:55
And that's what we put
out to the patrol units and immediately dispatched
it to area units.
00:07:02
We got a description from the
parents of what she was wearing and that she had
her newspaper bag,
00:07:07
a canvas newspaper bag that
fits over the shoulders, and a little bag that
she carried her money in.
00:07:15
JOYCE UNDERWOOD: Jeff
went looking for her. I stayed at home. I expected her to just come
around the corner anytime
00:07:21
and say, hey, mom. Look what tip I got. Look how much tip I
got today or whatever.
00:07:26
I just kind of stood out
the front window just kind of waiting or waiting
for a phone call,
00:07:32
hoping that she'd
be home quickly. [MUSIC PLAYING] KIRT HOWARD: I was
at a Boy Scout camp.
00:07:40
And I was contacted by
one of my counselors. I was horrified. I knew the Underwoods.
00:07:47
I Knew Jeralee. And my first thoughts were,
what can we do to help? We knew that the
sooner that we could
00:07:56
get the word out, the better. Everyone on that
department was looking in every corner we could
find, trying to find a car,
00:08:06
trying to find anything
that looked unusual, anybody or a car that
was out of place.
00:08:11
I mean, there were 80 sets
of eyes looking everywhere. KIRK NELSON: A few
hours later, we
00:08:16
ended up getting a
modified description from another witness. This gentleman was pretty
sure it was a General Motors
00:08:22
product, five or 10 years
old, medium-sized Sedan with a darker roof
and a yellowish,
00:08:29
or light beige, or
cream-colored body. And a typical abduction, if it's
a young girl that's involved,
00:08:37
usually, the
perpetrator, they're thinking something devious
involving the young lady.
00:08:42
And usually, they want to
go somewhere fairly close, but remote to do any
kind of a sexual attack
00:08:48
or anything like that. We covered those
areas outside of town 10 miles Southeast
and West of Pocatello
00:08:57
to see if we could
find anything. We didn't see any vehicles
anywhere near close
00:09:03
to matching that
description that we could stop and investigate further. We had no luck.
00:09:08
[MUSIC PLAYING] JEFF UNDERWOOD: That first
night was just so hard. Joyce and I held each other
crying, tears in our eyes.
00:09:24
It was just really, really hard. We worked through
the night strategizing and trying to come
up with a game plan
00:09:32
of what we were going to do
and how we were going to find her as quickly as we could.
00:09:36
Time was of the essence. JAMES BENHAM: The decision
to assign the investigation to Scott Shaw was made by
myself, Captain Lynn Harris,
00:09:48
and Lieutenant Kirk Nelson. KIRK NELSON: The
department had sent him to a number of specialized
training schools
00:09:54
dealing with violent crimes. And he took a great
interest in that. So it was decided that he
was to be the lead on this.
00:10:03
Over the years,
we've learned that, unfortunately, one of the
first things you always look at
00:10:08
is family. KIRK NELSON:
Statistically, nationwide, abductions in this manner, the
perpetrator knows the victim.
00:10:15
And you always want to look
closely at the family dynamic and see if anything sticks
out there that we need
00:10:21
to pay additional attention to. That was really disheartening
to think that, you know,
00:10:29
that we would be the ones
that would try and hurt her or do something to her. It's not a pleasant experience.
00:10:37
You are very special. So may I say, have a truly
wonderful happy birthday. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:10:47
JAMES BENHAM: Everybody
knew that Jeff and Joyce Underwood were very,
very involved in their church.
00:10:52
Members of the church
began to appear from nowhere to assist them. It becomes fairly obvious that
they're pretty well respected.
00:11:03
We kept looking. We interviewed neighbors. We interviewed
everybody we could find that knew anything
about the family,
00:11:09
what the relationship was. And a decision was made that
the family was not involved.
00:11:18
JOYCE UNDERWOOD: The
police had to rule out that she didn't have a
boyfriend or that she
00:11:23
hadn't run away from
home because of trouble here at home. Jeralee didn't have a boyfriend.
00:11:28
She was 11 years old. You know, not many
11-year-olds have boyfriends, so that was not
even a possibility.
00:11:40
School, church, and home. OK. And in each of
them [INAUDIBLE].. OK. Which one is probably the
most important of the three?
00:11:51
Church or home. Home. Everything that you're going
to be when you get older is in the home.
00:11:59
Yeah. She had no grief with the
family, no discipline issues, had done well in
the school year.
00:12:06
She was excited about
going on this family picnic that they were going
to go on that weekend.
00:12:10
There was just nothing that
led us to believe that it was anything other than probably
a stranger abduction
00:12:15
or an extended acquaintance. BRYANNA FOX: They
were really looking for a needle in a haystack.
00:12:21
Particularly with a
child, every single minute that passes, the odds of the
police safely finding them
00:12:27
go down. So within a few hours,
they could be local or still within the state. Within a day, they could be
anywhere within the country.
00:12:35
And within two or
three days, they could be anywhere in the world. So it makes searching for that
young person that much harder.
00:12:43
We thought, oh,
she'll be back, whoever took her will let her
go and let her come back home.
00:12:50
We still had hope that
she would come back home. [MUSIC PLAYING] I want to hold him.
00:13:03
Can I hold him? Let's let Jeralee hold
him for a few minutes. Whoa.
Whoa. Don't sneeze on him.
00:13:09
Is he heavy? Whoa. Don't cough on him, OK? Look at that [INAUDIBLE]. I always wanted a large family
so that when we went places,
00:13:22
we could always have
somebody to be with. There wasn't somebody left out. So I wanted even
number of children.
00:13:29
So that's why we
had six children. Jeff wanted 12. And six was enough. [LAUGHS] [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:13:52
She was so little. JEFF UNDERWOOD: What was
it, 4 pounds, 9 ounces? JOYCE UNDERWOOD: 4
pounds, 12 ounces.
00:13:59
Oh, look. [INAUDIBLE] the day
we brought her home. Jeralee was born
five weeks early
00:14:09
and so ended up
spending nine days or 10 days in the hospital. JOYCE UNDERWOOD: Because she
came early, she is very small.
00:14:18
But she caught up really quick
when she was probably three and her brother was four.
00:14:22
[MUSIC PLAYING] Jeralee really loved to dance. She developed the
talent of clogging.
00:14:37
She loved to
read, and just loved being outdoors and
very active, and just being with her friends.
00:14:50
She was never-- could stay mad for very long,
always had a great smile. Every picture you see, there
was a big smile on her face.
00:14:58
[MUSIC PLAYING] We've always had a
strong belief in God. And we've taught
our children that.
00:15:13
You know, we always continued
being an example to them, the importance of having faith.
00:15:17
[MUSIC PLAYING] (SINGING) This is my
day, my baptism day. Life in God's kingdom
begins in this way.
00:15:29
Father, I'm honored
to walk in thy ways on this, my baptism day. On the 30, we,
as a department,
00:15:42
including the
investigators, all felt that we were still
looking for a live victim,
00:15:48
that Jeralee was still alive. At the beginning of
this investigation, the biggest thing that Scott
Shaw was wanting to push
00:15:58
was media attention because
he felt with enough media attention on this
situation, that somebody
00:16:06
would come forward. The media plays
a critical role in getting the word out and
being an amplifier for what
00:16:14
police are doing, what the
family of the missing person is doing. And if the media is not
sufficiently covering a case,
00:16:22
it actually has a
lower likelihood of being successfully
resolved where that child
00:16:26
is found and found safely. [MUSIC PLAYING] Within just about a day,
we had as many of our people
00:16:33
going door to door,
particularly on the newspaper route that Jeralee had and other
neighboring newspaper routes
00:16:39
to see if there had been
any potential witnesses or sightings of suspicious
persons or the vehicle.
00:16:46
JAMES BENHAM: The
city of Pocatello had, at that time,
roughly speaking, 80 trained police personnel that
were available to do searches.
00:16:55
We needed three times that many. So we took advantage of what was
offered to us by the community.
00:17:01
[MUSIC PLAYING] JOYCE UNDERWOOD: The
police organized a search. A lot of people got involved.
00:17:10
People met at the church and
then were given assignments of where to go look. When we gathered
at the church house,
00:17:17
Shaw looked over the parking lot
of the vehicles of people that showed up in the event
that our suspect may show
00:17:23
up with the suspect vehicle. This is something that a
lot of narcissistic killers
00:17:28
love to see. When they show up at a scene,
whether it's a funeral, a search party--
00:17:34
and they're thinking,
all of these people are here because of me. And they feel the
sense of pride.
00:17:39
For them, seeing newspaper
reports, people coming out-- and they think in their minds,
it's because of their work.
00:17:47
We looked to people
over very closely that were helping
us with the search. And we didn't really
see anybody that matched
00:17:52
the description or profile. And we didn't see any
vehicles that matched closely.
00:17:56
[MUSIC PLAYING] JAMES BENHAM: We received
information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation
stating this
00:18:06
is the individual that
you're probably looking for. The FBI believed he would
plan his steps and his moves,
00:18:13
and he was an
organized offender. As it turned out, Sergeant
Shaw did not agree with that.
00:18:24
Shaw believed that
the fact that it was in the middle of the
afternoon, broad daylight,
00:18:28
busy street, people
out in their yards, and so forth, that was more
likely a stranger abduction
00:18:34
than someone that knew her. Both of our witnesses have
observed Jeralee interacting
00:18:44
with the man near the car
indicated that she appeared to be comfortable,
not on edge, or scared
00:18:50
or anything like that. That was a little
confusing to us. Shaw was able to come
up with the hypothesis
00:18:57
that maybe it was
someone that she briefly knew or had briefly met. That was why she
appeared so calm.
00:19:05
At this point, we were
looking more likely towards this being a
stranger and that somehow,
00:19:10
this individual had
tricked her into feeling like she wasn't in
immediate danger
00:19:14
when he was talking to her. We came to the
conclusion that this was a member of our own community.
00:19:23
[MUSIC PLAYING] November of '92 on the
opposite end of town, we had a stranger abduction of a
young lady, a middle-aged teen,
00:19:39
where she was taken from
a restaurant parking lot by a stranger and was
taken up into the outskirts
00:19:46
on the west side of town
and sexually assaulted. She was released. And she got a good
look at the individual.
00:19:55
And she gave us a
good description that allowed us to get what's
called a Compusketch of what
00:20:00
the individual would look like. Shaw began to see
some similarities and the possibility that
this crime and the abduction
00:20:06
of Jeralee Underwood
could possibly have been done by the same individual. KERRY DAYNES: All offenses are
pre-planned to some degree.
00:20:15
They are rehearsed
in somebody's mind. They are fantasized about. But nevertheless,
somebody needs to have
00:20:24
an opportunity to offend. They need to have
access to a victim. And they can either
plan to do this.
00:20:31
So you can lure a victim to you. Or you can be very
opportunistic. And you can see an opportunity,
such as a little girl
00:20:39
on a paper round and seize it. And the people who are
more likely to do that are far more impulsive.
00:20:47
And also, they are far
more likely to be people who have done it in the past. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:20:58
[PHONE RINGING] It's just so happened
that about the third day after the abduction, we got
a call from an individual who
00:21:07
indicated that we
needed to look more closely at someone she knew. She indicated he was a relative.
00:21:15
He closely matched
the description. She also indicated
that he looked quite similar to the
Compusketch image that we
00:21:23
had obtained from the young
lady that had been abducted. She believed that he drove a
vehicle that closely matched
00:21:30
the description that we'd
put out through the media and in the flyers, that it
was possible that he also had
00:21:35
some friends that he
spent time with down on the south main
area in the same block
00:21:40
that Jeralee had come up
missing from three days earlier. [MUSIC PLAYING] They relative [INAUDIBLE] this
man as James or Jimmy Wood.
00:21:53
[MUSIC PLAYING] JAMES BENHAM: Three days
in the disappearance of 11-year-old Jeralee
Underwood, an individual made
00:22:04
a phone call and gave the
department some information, which we considered
to be critical.
00:22:11
An individual named James
Wood, he was staying with relatives at that point. He and this relative,
sometime between the third
00:22:20
and the fifth day after
Jeralee disappeared, went on a camping trip. She believed that the vehicle
that we may be looking for that
00:22:27
was owned and driven
by this individual would have possibly been
out on the property,
00:22:32
which is in a rural
area, several miles north of Pocatello. We were able to send
a couple of people out
00:22:39
and looked over the property. And they were able
to find a vehicle that closely matched
the description
00:22:45
that we were looking for. We got a hold of our witness
and showed it to him. And he indicated that
looked very close,
00:22:54
but he couldn't give
us an exact definite, yes, this is the vehicle. By that Monday, we were
contacted at the police station
00:23:04
by the man who was
a relative of James and had been putting
him up in his basement
00:23:09
for the previous eight months
roughly, came to the department and indicated he wanted to
report what information he had,
00:23:18
the fact that he was suspicious
because James didn't come home that night of the abduction,
that he had shaved
00:23:24
his mustache, that he no
longer wore any of the clothing that he was wearing when he
came back that morning of the 30
00:23:32
of June. He also knew that
James owned a handgun. He knew that he was
a convicted felon,
00:23:37
had served time in prison. When this information
was received, it was determined that it was
credible from the standpoint of
00:23:47
there were specifics involved. He came extremely close
to matching the profile that Sergeant Shaw
had developed.
00:23:56
He became our primary suspect. [MUSIC PLAYING] We were trying to determine
more accurately who he was
00:24:05
and what his past
involved to see if he had any kind of possible alibi. We went out and did some more
interviews with the people that
00:24:13
lived on the route where
Jeralee had been just moments before she was abducted. And we learned that Wood had
actually been at the house
00:24:21
at the time Jeralee had come
to collect for the newspaper. He left the home
almost immediately
00:24:28
after Jeralee walked
out of the house, and had indicated he was going
to the store to buy beer,
00:24:34
and that he would
be back shortly, and that he never came back. [MUSIC PLAYING] On July 6, James Wood was
arrested by the Pocatello
00:24:49
Police Department. When we knocked on the
door, we advised him that we had a warrant
for his arrest
00:24:55
for first-degree kidnapping
and to turn around and place his hands behind his back,
which was hesitant to do,
00:25:01
which means I placed
him on the ground, and we handcuffed him and
removed him from the residence.
00:25:07
And there was a
degree of psychology involved in the arrest. Shaw suggested that we have
a number of personnel there
00:25:14
that would look him in
the eye and file past him as he was sitting in the
police car handcuffed.
00:25:20
It was carefully staged. Shaw wanted to use the
psychology of the community, this very tight-knit community,
against him and show that there
00:25:29
were so many people that were
disappointed and so upset at what James would have done,
that one of the only ways he
00:25:36
could find redemption was by
telling the truth and letting the community know
what really happened,
00:25:42
so they could find some peace. KIRK NELSON: Once he got
into the police station,
00:25:48
Shaw took Wood into his
office and closed the door. He didn't want any
other personnel in there
00:25:52
with him as a distraction. We just didn't know at the
time where Jeralee was. And he needed to establish
a connection with Wood
00:26:00
to convince him to tell us
what had happened with her, where he'd taken her. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:26:09
He told Shaw that
he had driven her down towards the Utah-Idaho
border after abducting her.
00:26:16
And they had slept
the night in the car. He'd attempted to
sexually assault her.
00:26:24
But Jeralee chastised him for
that, told him to knock it off, and so he claimed he did.
00:26:30
After they slept the
night in the car, he led her out
outside of the town. We didn't believe that, so
Shaw kept working on him.
00:26:39
And within an hour or
two, Wood finally said, there's more to the story. I lied to you.
00:26:48
He driven back through
Pocatello and decided to take her to Idaho Falls about
40 miles north of Pocatello.
00:26:58
Eventually, Wood
described to Sergeant Shaw how he had told Jeralee
she could go to some bushes
00:27:06
to go to the bathroom. Then he walked up and shot
her in the back of the head. Wood dismembered her
and threw the remains
00:27:19
into the Snake River. James Wood confessed. And he didn't need to
confess at that time
00:27:33
because there was very
little evidence at that point in the inquiry to link him.
00:27:38
But yet, he told
them everything. And I think that offenders do
this because sometimes it's
00:27:45
a relief. It feels like an unburdening. But for other people,
it's about bragging
00:27:51
about what they've done. Or even it's about
reliving what they've done. Pretty much as soon
as I opened the door,
00:28:02
I knew what the news was,
that the person in custody had admitted to killing Jeralee,
that she was no longer with us.
00:28:14
[MUSIC PLAYING] It was very hard to hear that
our daughter had been killed. I just remember Joyce and I--
00:28:34
just the tears rolling
down on our face, knowing that we would
never see Jeralee
00:28:43
again, that she would not
be here with us in this life anymore. We were grateful
to know that--
00:28:58
finally have an answer and
know what had happened instead of wondering all our
lives where she was
00:29:04
or if she was still
alive because I cannot even imagine not knowing. As hard as it was to
know that she was killed,
00:29:17
the not knowing would
have been so much harder. Tears and the sobs
from our children
00:29:29
when we brought them
here in this room and told them that
they would never see their sister
again because her life
00:29:48
had been taken by James Wood. [INAUDIBLE] JAMES BENHAM: We felt that
it was necessary for them
00:29:58
to understand the
totality of what happened to their daughter. And we did in fact
go back to them
00:30:06
and tell them that
she had been shot, and that she'd been dismembered,
and that the body had been
00:30:11
thrown in the river, and
that we were going to do our darndest to get her back. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:30:25
KIRK NELSON: We're at the
north end of Idaho Falls on the west bank of
Snake River where James
00:30:30
Wood brought Jeralee Underwood. Once we learned this was
the scene of the murder,
00:30:38
we notified the sheriff's
office and the Idaho Falls Police
Department because it
00:30:43
then became their crime scene. And they brought in a dive
team with the intention
00:30:49
of trying to recover her
remains and any evidence. He showed us where
he had killed her.
00:30:58
And he showed us
where he had cut her up with a hatchet and a knife. We were able to
see what appeared
00:31:04
to be remnants of blood
in the tamped down grass. BRYANNA FOX: There's a lot
of reasons why offenders will
00:31:12
sometimes bring police
to the scene of a crime when it was otherwise not known. And in this case, it
could be that this
00:31:19
was one of the last chances
he would ever have to relive the crime he committed.
00:31:24
This is like a vacation for us. We love to look at photo albums
and think about it again,
00:31:30
go through our cell
phone, pictures, and relive happy times. And in the mind of James Wood,
going back to the crime scene,
00:31:38
even though it was horrific,
for him, it was a happy moment. He received a lot of
pleasure out of it.
00:31:45
And so while he was able
to get something out of it, obviously, the police
gained a lot more.
00:31:51
[MUSIC PLAYING] Some of her remains were
not located until close to a week later.
00:32:00
A couple of miles downstream,
some city workers located her torso near a power plant.
00:32:06
[MUSIC PLAYING] Because of circumstances
of Jeralee's murder, we weren't able to view
her after her death.
00:32:20
And that was very difficult.
And I wondered many times, OK, is that really her? How do you know it was her?
00:32:29
They had dental records that
were able to identify her, and so there's no question.
00:32:33
But it still was hard not
seeing her to know in my heart that that really was her.
00:32:40
Maybe more-- because
as her mother, I wanted a different outcome. You know? I wanted her to come home.
00:32:56
I wanted her to be with me. So it was hard to accept. (SINGING) Happy
birthday, dear Jeralee.
00:33:04
We love you. We do. [MUSIC PLAYING] I can tell you that in 48
years of law enforcement,
00:33:21
I have never seen another
case of a absolute stranger abduction and murder as the
one of Jeralee Underwood.
00:33:34
When we interviewed the people
who were potential witnesses, we got two sides
of James Wood, one
00:33:41
that we treat him like a
relative, and the other one, he's kind of a leech. These are notes to myself.
00:33:50
This was details of other
crimes that had been committed that Mr. Wood would
admit to, everything
00:33:57
from first-degree murder to
kidnapping, two counts of rape, two counts of crimes against
nature, one aggravated assault,
00:34:05
two counts of robbery,
one of attempted robbery. James Wood had a long
history of other types
00:34:12
of interpersonal and
violent offenses. These were escalating gradually,
but really hit a crescendo
00:34:20
right before he committed
the abduction and murder of Jeralee Underwood. This is something that
was not initially known.
00:34:29
But through this
investigation, police found out that he was
responsible for these other
00:34:34
types of offenses that
were so similar to what he had done to Jeralee. As far back as
the late 1960s, he
00:34:45
had befriended a
couple of ladies that he thought had cheated him
or caused his car to be stolen.
00:34:52
And he ended up
cutting their throats and then raping
one of the women, thinking he had killed them
both, but they both survived.
00:34:59
And then later on
in the '70s, he admitted he approached a woman
that was gassing her car up
00:35:05
near a grocery store, grabbed
her, stuck a gun in her ribs, sexually assaulted
her, and shot her
00:35:11
in the head matter of
factly, leaving her for dead. But she ended up surviving. In early fall of
1992, he had molested
00:35:24
his 14 or 15-year-old
stepdaughter with his second
wife and raped her. He was afraid after doing
this because it was probably
00:35:34
an impulsive act because that's
the kind of person he was and that the law would
be looking for him.
00:35:38
So he stole his wife's credit
card and one of her handguns, which ended up
being, we believe,
00:35:44
the same handgun that
he used to threaten or other rape victim
and to kill Jeralee.
00:35:56
I think that
violence towards women had become such an ingrained
pattern in James Wood,
00:36:03
so he knew that he would
never be safe around women. He gave an interview. And he said, if you let me out
of prison, I will kill again.
00:36:13
It's a guarantee. He knew that he
had this very, very strong compulsion,
that he didn't
00:36:19
have the willpower to fight. And the number of offenses
that he's committed are huge.
00:36:25
This is a part of his life
now, a part of his life that he can't imagine
living without.
00:36:31
[MUSIC PLAYING] Jeralee's funeral was a
very spiritual experience. As I walked into the chapel that
day, it was completely full.
00:36:54
Kurt Howard, the
comments that he made-- just amazing at how
many people were there.
00:37:04
It brought us a lot of comfort. The name Jeralee has been
a byword, a rallying word,
00:37:14
a word, a name that
has stirred emotions within the whole of us. And today, we come
to reverence her name
00:37:28
and express our love and
respect for her one more time. Many of us from
the department,
00:37:40
we wanted to attend the
service to show support to the Underwoods
and express our grief
00:37:45
and condolences to them for
what they'd have to undergo. It was tough on the
whole department.
00:37:51
We all needed some closure. The details of what
had happened and then the details of other things
they had done earlier
00:37:57
in his life that were
similarly heinous kind of sticks with you. And we all needed some closure.
00:38:04
And that service helped-- helped me, at least. This past week, we've
seen a mom and a dad.
00:38:14
They have taught us so much
about love, compassion, understanding, and forgiving.
00:38:26
[MUSIC PLAYING] KIRK NELSON: Wood negotiated
through his attorney a plea agreement where he
would plead to the abduction,
00:38:38
rape, and murder of Jeralee. The other charges, the
court agreed to dismiss them
00:38:44
without prejudice, which meant
they could, at a later time, file those charges. But there was an agreement
that they would not
00:38:52
do so if he pled
to those charges related to Jeralee Underwood. JOYCE UNDERWOOD: We didn't
go to the initial hearings.
00:39:01
They encouraged us
not to just because of all the graphic things
that would be brought up.
00:39:06
And that was really-- it
would be hard for us to hear. At the end, he was
sentenced to the death
00:39:14
penalty in the state of Idaho. When we do something wrong,
we need to pay for that.
00:39:21
There needs to be
a restitution made. I don't know-- in this case-- I mean, nothing can
bring Jeralee back.
00:39:30
I felt like a death
sentence was appropriate since he murdered our daughter. I did know if it never really
happened because it seems
00:39:42
like with the system,
it takes a long time for that to be carried out. But I knew that once
he died, that he
00:39:51
would receive his just reward. JAMES BENHAM: The judge
sentenced Wood to be put to death by lethal injection.
00:40:03
Since that time, he had been in
the penitentiary and in 2004, died of natural causes.
00:40:10
And my understanding is
it was a heart attack. He wasn't an organized
perpetrator at all.
00:40:20
Almost all of his crimes
weren't really thought out or planned out in advance. He was impulsive.
00:40:25
He was compulsive. He made snap decisions,
and he was good enough at what he did that
he had more or less
00:40:30
a false sense of confidence
that he could get away with it. Wood didn't know Jeralee
prior to her coming
00:40:38
to collect at the
house of the friend that he was at that
evening for dinner, but that he took
an interest in her.
00:40:45
He conversed with
her a little bit. And he hatched this scheme to
assault her and then ultimately
00:40:49
end her life violently. BRYANNA FOX: He is at
the worst of the worst end of the spectrum in
terms of dangerousness.
00:40:59
This is a man that is both
sadistic, impulsive, reckless, has low empathy for
others and very little
00:41:07
remorse for the actions
that he commits. He probably would have
committed more offenses
00:41:13
and just would have kept on
the commission of violence that he was going on if he
did not get stopped by police.
00:41:25
JOYCE UNDERWOOD: The
area where Jeralee was taken is the path to
go anywhere into town,
00:41:30
and so we pass that daily. Now I don't think
about it near as much. But sometimes I'd drive by
it, and I just would scream.
00:41:40
It was hard to pass by at first. JEFF UNDERWOOD: Most of
our memories of Jeralee
00:41:47
is here in our home. Once in a while, we'll
go over to the cemetery because there's a nice
headstone on her grave.
00:42:00
There's a plaque in front
of the church by a tree that was planted in her memory.
00:42:08
She just was this
soulful energy and just wanted to accomplish so much. We'll have lots of
cake for everyone.
00:42:19
And when it's over, you will
say, gee, I had a happy day. [MUSIC PLAYING] Jeralee's faith was very
important to her, always
00:42:39
teaching other
people about Christ and how to forgive, and
to be kind, to be honest.
00:42:51
Now I can't stop crying. I'd just like to say to Jeralee,
I love you, and I miss you.
00:43:17
[PIANO PLAYING] [INTERPOSING VOICES] [MUSIC PLAYING]