Eleven-year-old Jeralee Underwood talked about clogging and religion as James Edward Wood took her on a meandering journey through small southeast Idaho towns before killing her.
Pocatello police say that is the story Wood, 45, told on July 6, the night he was arrested in connection with the Pocatello girl's disappearance. Information Wood provided during the rambling interview led police to Jeralee's body, which was retrieved from the Snake River the next day.Wood was charged Monday with first-degree murder in the kidnap-slaying of the newspaper carrier, and Bannock County Prosecutor Mark Hiedeman said he likely will seek the death penalty. Wood was being held without bond.
Eleven other felony charges, including the kidnapping of other girls and two counts of rape, have also been lodged against Wood, and authorities in other states were checking possible links between Wood and crimes in their jurisdictions.
After promising several times through the night that he would take her back home, Wood told police he finally shot her in the head with a handgun and then covered her body with weeds.
According to the report of the police interview, Wood said that on at least three occasions Jeralee followed his orders to stay in the car - twice when he stopped along Interstate 15 for beer and gas and then when he passed out in a remote area.
On the night of his arrest, Wood initially told police he abducted Jeralee and took her to an area near the Utah border, where he left her unharmed after attempting to have intercourse with her. But he finally began detailing the series of events that ended in her death.
He told police he had been on a drinking binge for several weeks before he abducted Jeralee near the home of Wood's friend, Elizabeth Smith.
Wood was at Smith's home when Jeralee collected for her subscription, and when she left he told Smith he was going to buy beer.
Once outside, Wood said he approached Jeralee as she continued on her paper route, telling her that the check Smith had given her would bounce. He offered to pay in cash, waving a $20 bill, if she returned the check.
As Jeralee looked for change in her purse, Wood said he grabbed her by the back of the neck, threw her into the car and told her to stay down as he drove off.
Five minutes later, Wood said he pulled off a mountainous road and fondled Jeralee but removed his hands when she told him he was disgusting. As he drank beer, he apologized to the girl for kidnapping her and said he would take her home.
But as he drove south instead, Wood said, Jeralee refused to drink beer, saying she came from a religious family.
It was then she talked of clogging, the group she danced with and religion. When she asked what religion Wood followed, he said he told her none.
During the night, he said Jeralee did not try to escape the two times he stopped for beer or gas, and when he stopped near Utah and locked the doors so he could sleep, she stayed in the car after he promised to take her home in the morning.
But instead, he said, he tried to have intercourse with Jeralee during the early morning of June 30 in rural Franklin County, finally stopping and making her perform a manual sex act instead.
He said he then turned back north, and when he heard on the radio that roadblocks were up in the Pocatello area as part of the search for Jeralee, he drove to Idaho Falls.
There he stopped the car alongside the Snake River, and when Jeralee got out to go to the bathroom, Wood said, he followed her into the bushes and shot her in the head with a .22-caliber handgun.
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(Additional story)
Bountiful robbery
James Edward Wood has admitted to holding up a restaurant in Davis County in June and is being looked at by other police agencies along the Wasatch Front in connection with similar crimes, according to Woods Cross Police Chief Paul Howard.
Howard said Wood has admitted he pulled a gun on a cashier in the Sizzler restaurant just off I-15 around 10:30 p.m. June 19. Wood grabbed a handful of cash out of the register and ran out the door, then jumped in his car and took off at a high speed, Howard said.
"We really had no leads we could use until the Pocatello police called us," Howard said.