Eye of the Beast

In July of 1993 an eleven year old girl in Pocatello, Jeralee Underwood, was collecting for her paper route when she was kidnapped and murdered by James Wood. Earlier that year  a friend of Heather's, Rachel (and her baby sister Victoria), whose family lived in our ward and whose sister would babysit Christopher one night a week, had been kidnapped and raped. At the time we knew someone had been kidnapped and raped, but didn't know the identity of the victim. When Mr. Wood was arrested and Rachel saw him on the news she was able to identify him and decided she would release her name to the public.

It as a very difficult time for the community and for Rachel and her family. Mr. Wood had been living across the street from the school where Roger was working as a custodian and people were sick that he had been so  close to those children. Security had to be very tight when they took him to the courthouse because there was concern citizens would try to kill him.

As a result of this, the local paper no longer has their paper carriers collect door-to-door. Everyone has to pay the paper directly.

The whole story is told in the book, Eye of the Beast. Mr. Wood died a natural death in prison.