The sentencing hearing for confessed rapist and murderer James Edward Wood provided an emotional release for his victims and a city traumatized by the grisly death of an 11-year-old newspaper carrier.
Sixth District Judge Lynn Winmill will announce on Jan. 14 whether Wood gets life in prison or the death penalty for kidnapping and killing Jeralee Underwood of Pocatello last June. But testimony the judge heard this week helped begin the recovery even before Wood is sentenced."He's a part of my past now, something I can put behind me," a Pocatello teenager raped by Wood last year said after Wednesday's hearing. "Now I don't have to be afraid anymore."
The girl, who was 15 at the time of the Nov. 28, 1992, attack, called for Wood's execution. So did 19-year-old Jamie Masengill of Hazelwood, Mo., who has publicly discussed her case since Wood admitted abducting, raping, shooting and leaving her for dead on Oct. 25, 1992, near St. Louis.
But both also said they felt better after testifying about their ordeals, and they rejected the career criminal's professed religious conversion since being arrested for Jeralee's murder.
"It makes me very angry, but we're not going to let him get away with it," the Pocatello teenager said.
Wood, 45, confessed to kidnapping Jeralee on June 29 while she collected on her newspaper route. He told authorities he shot her twice in the head the next day and returned to Jeralee's body along the Snake River in Idaho Falls seven days later.
He was arrested the same day and eventually confessed to 10 rapes, 10 robberies, four attempted homicides and one murder besides Jeralee's during the past 30 years. In a 34-minute tape-recorded confession played Wednesday, Wood said he "felt like it was an offering to Satan" when he threw a piece of the girl's body into the river.
Dr. Vicky Gregory, a Salt Lake City psychologist who evaluated Wood, testified that he was a sexual sadist aroused by the humiliation, degradation and physical suffering of his victims.
Gregory also said Wood was a necrophiliac and a pedophile with an antisocial personality disorder who is dependent on alcohol and drugs.
Bannock County Prosecutor Mark Hiedeman said simply that Wood was "a blackhearted monster who murdered a child and mutilated her body."