Kevin Ray Underwood

"I hope they give him the death penalty."

Cannibalism. Fiction shows a bit of folklore. But what could possess a human being to do such a thing? Extreme hunger, I'm sure. Fetish, another. But these cases, on the outset, at least have a sort of consensuality applied to them.

Purcell, Oklahoma. A 10 (ten!) year old girl's body was found in a plastic tub on 4/14/2006. Good Friday. Other than the blunt injuries to the head, the only other external injury seemed to be an attempt at decapitation. Police say that other potential targets were a five year old boy as well as an adult woman. Premeditation was definitely at play; a hacksaw, a meat tenderizer as well as skewers for grilling, were found on the premises. As the FBI went through his apartment, Kevin reportedly told them, "Go ahead and arrest me. She is in there. I chopped her up."

Those around Kevin didn't seem to think that he would really be capable of such a thing. He was known as the "guy next door." More telling, a former coworker described him as melancholy.

"That's all I want in life, is to be able to live like a normal person."

Reading Kevin's blog reveals a bit more of his psyche. With posts dating back to 2002, we find that he has a history of depression, apathy, as well as social anxiety. He has an interesting relationship with alcohol: Drinking in a social setting, he would find himself frustrated with himself in that he couldn't properly socialize with those around him, and engage in destructive behavior; he complains of a lack of alcohol tolerance, and yet would relatively frequently drink various hard liquors. Digging deeper in the blog reveals a couple of relationships which seem to end in disappointment. A predilection for pornography and strippers. In all, we see a lonely man whose entire life outside of a frustrating and mundane job seems to be inside of the online world, often cut off from most 'normal' human interaction.

I think we have a tragedy here on two fronts. The obvious one, of course, is this little girl, who has been killed by this unstable individual. What I find to also be unsettling is that this individual blogs about his life, his feelings, his mental condition for so long, and in such detail (posts can run pages upon pages) and yet nobody seems to push him towards help. Some of the problem perhaps is that nobody took his posts seriously, more as twisted jokes than his actual thoughts. In any case, I would hope to think that the murder of this poor girl could have been prevented.

Please, if you see signs of depression in people you know, sit down and have a chat with them. They might just need somebody to talk to, or somebody to just listen to what they're going through.