The “frantic” search for Jamie ended on April 14, 2006, two days after her father realized she was gone and 24 hours after local authorities issued an Amber Alert for the 10-year-old girl.
Jamie’s remains were located inside a storage container stashed in Underwood’s bedroom closet after he was questioned by police regarding the little girl’s whereabouts. He was taken into custody, where he confessed to Jamie’s murder on tape.
Jamie’s mother Jennifer Fox was dazed by news of her daughter’s death, crashed the tractor-trailer rig she was driving when she learned what happened, The Oklahoman reported.
“It felt like I stepped outside myself,” Fox said of finding out about her daughter’s death in an April 2007 interview with The Oklahoman. “I freaked out, I think.”
Jamie and her mother had made plans to go Easter egg hunting that weekend after months of not seeing each other, The Oklahoman reported.
“I was just going to spend time with her,” Fox shared with The Oklahoman at the time. “I think about her all the time to be honest. There’s not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t think about her.”
Fox remembered her daughter as a fighter, someone who always “did her best in everything.”
“She never gave up. She had to adjust to a lot of different situations in life, but she’s stubborn,” Fox said in a statement recorded in clemency documents.
The family struggled to navigate life after her passing but turned to one another for support, growing closer with every phone call.
Curtis Bolin is sure one day he will reunite with his daughter in heaven, telling The Oklahoman at the time that he’ll “probably just give her a big ol’ hug and tell her I miss her.”
Tennia Lieb, Jamie’s aunt, has sat down for countless interviews about Jamie and collected newspaper clippings in a scrapbook over the years in an effort to keep the memory of her niece from “fading away.”
Jamie’s mother and father, too, have hung onto other mementos like pictures, dolls and the checkerboard used to play games with her father.
“She is part of history, and I want people to know that she really did exist,” Lieb told The Oklahoman.
Kevin Underwood faces execution
Underwood was convicted of murder in 2008 and later sentenced to death. He is set to be executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on Thursday. If the execution proceeds as scheduled, Underwood will be the fourth person executed in the state this year and the 25th in the nation, pending Joseph Corcoran’s execution in Indiana.
Jamie’s family will receive the closure they “deserve” after Underwood’s death sentence is carried out, with relatives writing in various victim statements that she never got the chance to experience life or make new memories with family or friends.
Instead, she’s buried in a cemetery with her mother, her grandmothers, her great grandmothers and so many others who have passed.
“She didn’t get to have those firsts, make those memories, go to those celebrations, try new food, go on vacations, make mistakes and learn lessons, have laughs and tears and all that is in between,” Jamie’s aunt Jessica Stegner wrote. “Those were taken from her and her family and her friends.”
The only just punishment, in the eyes of Jamie’s family, is death for Underwood.
“I feel justice would be served by his serving his sentence including execution. He did not consider the impact this has had for all the families involved, the local people, and even his own family,” Don Fox, Jamie’s grandfather, wrote in his victim impact statement. “Many have been forever changed by this murder and how many are still affected today.
Contributing: Chad Previch, Bryan Dean and Nolan Clay; The Oklahoman
