TX TX - Daniel Underwood, 33, Sulphur Springs, 4 Sept 2008

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I would have had doubts just on the "riffle barrel bruise" she claimed she got when the gun went off. She said she mentioned it the night they interviewed her, but I went back and I don't hear her say anything about it hitting her leg. I thought she backed away and then he shot himself, now I read on the crime blog where she wasn't even near him. There are lots of red flags, and I can't believe this was not looked at further. The stop to see "Tony" after hitting the ATM; that is another red flag to me. Did she buy any drugs, or were any drugs involved that night? The blood spatter doesn't line up with the story she is telling. I am no expert so that should tell you something if I see it. Don't let this drop, please try to get it reopened.
 
yeah, the bruise was like it was no big deal to the LE...:banghead:

yes, she gave two different versions of what was going on or where they were at when the gun fired...on the tapes...one was he was supposedly NOT saying a word and bent over it, the other was they were standing face to face--6" apart....and at the hospital she told me he was talking AND she grabbed for the gun...then she lies on tape and said she never said that nor that she got his right hand and was holding it....supposedly the same hand that he had ahold of the gun with too...
And yes, that was a drug buy, I have a witness that stated it was AND the message is still on the cell phone that backs that up...I won't let it drop, Bern, thanks for the comment!
 
Welcome donnau,

I am so glad you are here, I just wish it weren't because of such tragic circumstances.

I need to apologize right here, because I haven't read any of the posts on this thread yet, except your first one, but I am in the middle of the part 2 interview video.

How in the world is it plausible that she has a bruise on her leg from the butt of the gun, while in the same sentence she states that they were face-to-face?

The audio is a bit difficult to hear. Are there written transcripts to these interviews?
 
donnau said:
yeah, the bruise was like it was no big deal to the LE...:banghead:

yes, she gave two different versions of what was going on or where they were at when the gun fired...on the tapes...one was he was supposedly NOT saying a word and bent over it, the other was they were standing face to face--6" apart....and at the hospital she told me he was talking AND she grabbed for the gun...then she lies on tape and said she never said that nor that she got his right hand and was holding it....supposedly the same hand that he had ahold of the gun with too...
And yes, that was a drug buy, I have a witness that stated it was AND the message is still on the cell phone that backs that up...I won't let it drop, Bern, thanks for the comment!
Click to expand...

You don't have to be a psychic to know that was a drug buy, and lots of things in her story and the crime scene and bank book, JUST DON'T ADD UP, Especially her math on the money. I just got done watching 20/20 (i taped it) about the Vidocq Society and them helping in the Lea Freedman case. It is on the main page of WS. Check it out. You have to have a cold case at least 2yrs old and LE has to work with them. Good luck, I will keep checking back and reading. I only watched the interviews and need to read the thread and all you posted.
 
That's what I'm a sayin'!!! Nothing has added up !! And I ask about her statements all along and LE kept saying they were consistent... then when I watched and listened to the interviews myself, I called back...and he says there wasn't any major inconsistencies ...TWO totally different stories on what happened at the actual time the gun fired....SERIOUSLY ???? you have got to be joking!!! (not counting all the other lies)

Hopefully there will be written transcripts made available before too long...lots of people, who are experts at what they do, are working on this ....
 
I may have to go back and listen to the second part of first interview, but here is what I got from the money conversation;

He had 25,000 to start with. She said he had two lines of credit he had to pay back, I heard her say $5,000 for one. That leaves $20,000. I heard her say he owned someone $3,000 (maybe the other line?) so now he had $17,000. He owned $800 to somebody, his dad? but that leaves him with $16,200. He put $4000 in the bank and kept $9,000 in cash in a jar. So that leaves us with $3,200 he must have used for bills according to her. Did anyone ever check to see if he paid his bills in advance? First thing to me is, why do you keep such a huge amount of money in a jar, it had to be a big jar, in an apartment? Who does that? I would be putting most of it in the bank and leave a small amount in a jar. But in the interview she said she used his checking account and was depositing her money in his account and writing out checks, signing his name as her name wasn't on the account. So LE bought that.... I think he may have kept money out of that account because he didn't trust her not to steal from him. JMO But $2,000 came up missing anyway. So if there was drugs, drinking and an argument about missing money, I don't think suicide would be at the top of my list of things. He is upset about having $40 in the bank and the jar is empty, but should have had at least $2,000. So they knew each other 5 months and he went through $16,2000????? I looked at the crime scene photos and I don't see $16,2000 worth of items in that apartment. Do you? So where did the money go? So now I have to ask myself, did this man kill himself or did he get help? The money is gone and now so is he. I heard her say she lost a child. I know we can't discuss minors here on an open forum, but I would like to know what that was all about. It was in the first interview. Keep digging. You know we are not the only ones that read here.
 
Well, you've done pretty good, Bern! I'm really impressed....alot more with what you've said in 2 or 3 posts then what the LE has done the entire time up to this date! You do know we're talking about approx a 3 weeks time frame here, don't you? (not 5 months) on 25,000 + amount of money, (there was some credit cards too) They had not been together any where near the 5 or 6 months she claims! She had only moved in July 4th weekend and he had gotten his 401K (envelope was dated 8-4-2008) and then 8-25-2008 there was another bank loan for $1500.
The $800 was to us, Daniel's parents...I let him have $500 I got off of our checking acc overdraft and he had given us $800 back (an extra $300 so his dad had gas money to visit his dying Grandma) as soon as he got his retirement money. Later in the day...(same day Daniel was shot on)...she cusses me & Danny out and she started telling me all the money (or at least some of) she had taken from Daniel...$4000 for something ...sounded like she had said for her moma...not sure yet...$1000 for her daughter's school clothes and on & on...I couldn't stomach to listen to her...and told me she was his beneficary and owned everything he had...I have several sources that say Daniel had caught her...and was confronting her about the missing money...ha..INCLUDING herself when she SAYS it on tape to the LE...!!! What more did they want??? It never was anything about the money to us...OTHER THAN...HEY, here is yet another clear motive...don't know how many more motives they want...He had told us one day about her spending $200 on a vet bill and he was mad, Daniel didn't waste money. He was always cautious with his money. There was nothing new at Daniel's house, other than a TV he said he had bought, but she claimed it was the rental place's (and they did too, BUT, we are also talking about one of the guys that worked there....she left a bar with him the next night or two after Daniel had been shot ...) really grieving wasn't she?
 
Donna,

I went to the FB page, very nice. I didn't see a place to leave a comment, so I didn't. Is there a place to do that? I honesty don't think the cops have enough to make a murder conviction stick, at least not yet. If you listen to the interviews, they ask her about the bank account and signing his name. "Who all knew you were allowed to do this?" She says her mother and Daniel. So you can't prove she was stealing. There was another person in the home at the time this went down. But she didn't see enough or hear enough to say it was murder, not suicide or at the very least an accident. There may have been signs of bruises but you can't say who did it, when it happened, just he had been in a fight. You have to have solid proof of a crime. Or very significant circumstantial evidence.

Once you get 50 posts you can send private messages. :angel: I don't want to say anymore on an open thread.
 
Bern said:
Donna,

I went to the FB page, very nice. I didn't see a place to leave a comment, so I didn't. Is there a place to do that? I honesty don't think the cops have enough to make a murder conviction stick, at least not yet. If you listen to the interviews, they ask her about the bank account and signing his name. "Who all knew you were allowed to do this?" She says her mother and Daniel. So you can't prove she was stealing. There was another person in the home at the time this went down. But she didn't see enough or hear enough to say it was murder, not suicide or at the very least an accident. There may have been signs of bruises but you can't say who did it, when it happened, just he had been in a fight. You have to have solid proof of a crime. Or very significant circumstantial evidence.

Once you get 50 posts you can send private messages. :angel: I don't want to say anymore on an open thread.
Click to expand...

I want to clarify this post, I have a bad habit of saying "you" and I don't mean that you personally can't prove something, but more that LE needs proof that something criminal has taken place. I know when you look at all the facts and interviews and listen to what people say, things point to something other than suicide at least to me, but I should say LE can't prove this or that, therefore she is not being held responsible for his death.
 
http://www.realcrimes.com/
http://www.realcrimes.com/Underwood/Underwood.htm
Our son, Daniel Ray Underwood, 33, died of a shotgun wound to the head on September 4, 2008, while engaged in an altercation with his girlfriend, Rebecca Nelson, in a home they shared in Sulphur Springs, Texas.

Earlier that evening, Daniel, Rebecca, and a couple of friends, Robin and Maria, had been at a bar together. Maria had accompanied the couple back to Daniel’s house, where Rebecca was living. According to Maria, once there, Daniel and Rebecca got into a heated argument, and Maria fled the room. A short time later, she returned and saw Daniel in the hallway between the bedrooms.

He was holding a shotgun in his right hand and confronting and accusing Rebecca of taking a large sum of his cash that he had discovered missing from a jar he kept on the mantle. Actually, Rebecca confirms this part when she states in her own words, during a police interview that “there was a big sum of money that was gone.” According to the police reports, someone had been logged into Daniel’s bank account which showed he only had a balance of $42 in it. This was all the money Daniel had left after receiving $25,000 from his 401K retirement fund and a bank loan on his truck for $1,500 in less than a month’s time. Maria stated that, after he discovered this, Daniel seemed to be trying to scare Rebecca into confessing that she was responsible for “cleaning him out” and putting him in debt.

Rebecca grabbed the gun again, and the two started struggling. Maria again ran from the room, and a few seconds later heard the gun go off as she was stepping back into the hallway. She saw Daniel fall to the floor, where he landed on his side, curled into a fetal position.

Maria immediately wanted to call 911. Rebecca cried, “No, no wait! No! Hold on! Wait!” as if giving herself additional time to get things sorted out before the authorities were called. Later, she told Maria she didn’t want to open the door for the rescue personnel because her cats might get out. She snatched up the gun from the hallway, where it had fallen, and shoved it into the bedroom. She, then, after two or more strenuous attempts, managed to turn Daniel over onto his back, (which is the position in which she told police he landed), and positioned him so that his feet protruded into the bedroom and were on top of the gun. Before finally calling 911, she told Maria that she was not to tell the police that Rebecca and Daniel had been fighting.

Although they had been together for only two months and Rebecca was still married when she moved in with Daniel, she was already telling friends that she was tired of him, was going to get as much money from him as possible, and then would leave him and get back with one of her old boyfriends. Also, a few weeks prior to the shooting, Rebecca was telling people that Daniel had made her the beneficiary of his life insurance.

Even before Daniel took his last breath, Rebecca considered everything he owned to be hers. She was making statements to this effect to Maria and others whom she called from Daniel’s cell phone while he lay dying in the hallway of his home. The first question she asked when interviewed at the police station was if they would give her Daniel’s wallet before she left. When I called her later in the morning of the same day Daniel was shot to ask if we could get his truck and his cell phone while we were in town, she went into a rage, cussing and insisting that they belonged to her now and that she had already consulted with the police and her attorneys about this. The following evening she went to a bar and attempted to sell Daniel’s wedding ring from his recent marriage and some of his favorite pool cues. She left the bar with a man with whom she spent the night.

The first investigators at the scene were members of the Sulphur Springs Police Department. Because they classified the shooting as a questionable death, based on the fact that the gun was broken open as if someone had attempted to eject the spent shell casing and the victim was lying on the weapon, the Texas Rangers were called in to assist.

Later, after interviewing Rebecca two more times, police closed the case as a suicide. This was before they had even sent Rebecca’s gun shot residue kit to a lab for testing. (They did not do that until nearly four months later, despite having Daniel tested and discovering there was no GSR found on his right hand, the very hand in which he had allegedly been holding the gun at the time it fired.)

During one of her interviews, Rebecca made reference to the fact that she “helped” the police “with tips on cases,” and Detective Lenwood “Bo” Fox acknowledged that she had “talked to him a couple of times on a couple of different cases.” She also referred to Det. Fox as her “good friend Bo”, and he treated her as such. This suggests to me that she may have been a confidential informant and had a reciprocal relationship with Det. Fox and the police department which kept her out of trouble with the law. She, herself, had been arrested on several occasions, at which times she had been handled with kid gloves.

Our family does not believe that Daniel’s death was a suicide. Much of the content of the Medical Examiner’s report appears to have come from erroneous statements by Det. "Bo” Fox. Det. Fox told the ME that Daniel had no children. That’s a total lie. Daniel had two sons as well as a stepson, Jonathan, whom he had raised since he was a little more and a year old and whom he considered to be his own. He also had two other stepchildren, Ashlyn and Dylan, from his latest marriage and had grown to love them very much as well. He was a devoted father to all of them. He referred to his youngest son, Zane, as his “mini-me,” because they looked and acted so much alike, and from the time of Zane’s birth took almost total care of him. He was thrilled because his oldest son, Damien, who had just turned twelve, was talking about moving in with him.

Rebecca liked to pretend those children didn’t exist.

Det. Fox also stated that Daniel had a history of alcoholism and depression. While it’s true that in younger days Daniel did party with friends and had acquired several DUIs, he was not an alcoholic, and those days of irresponsible youth were behind him. Until his divorce, which had just been finalized, (his wife had fallen in love with another man), he had been a dedicated family man whose life revolved around his wife and children. He had no history of depression. At the time of his death, he had made plans for the coming weekend that included four of those children. Rebecca herself, in an apparent slip-up during one of her interviews, stated that Daniel’s personality was even and moderate and he never seemed depressed.

Even statements in the autopsy report raise question. According to that report, the bullet wound was slightly left to right, which would not have been a natural angle for a right-handed person to assume if he was committing suicide. The person who wrote that report was not given the information that Daniel was right handed. There were also bruises all over Daniel’s body, suggestive of domestic abuse, which were not mentioned in the autopsy report or police reports, although they were evident in crime scene photos and in photographs taken at the autopsy.

The police investigation was far from competent or complete. They collected virtually nothing from the scene, and the gun was not dusted for prints. The police did not secure the house, or allow our family time to inspect it before leaving it open for unauthorized people to enter and take Daniel’s belongings. Rebecca deleted information from his laptop and cell phone which she took from his house before we were allowed to see them. Police did not question the conflicting versions of Rebecca’s story, although she continually contradicted herself. When first interviewed by police, Rebecca said that Daniel, without speaking, bent his head over the barrel of the gun and pulled the trigger. In her second interview, she said she and Daniel were standing six inches apart, facing each other, when the gun fired. Maria stated Daniel was in mid-sentence when the gun went off. Det. Fox, (“good friend Bo”), had no interest in the version given by Maria, the witness at the scene, who had no reason to fabricate what she saw and heard and directly refuted Rebecca’s statements.

Rebecca agreed to take a polygraph test about the facts of that evening but backed out after consulting with her attorney. However she told numerous people that she did take the test and passed it with flying colors.

Daniel was a good person – a loving son – a devoted father – a hard worker. Despite the fact that the ME report states that his occupation was “unknown,” suggesting that he was a vagrant, he had worked seven years at Hydro Aluminum on a rotating shift, working twelve hour days and nights and every other weekend. He had recently quit that job in order to search for one with a regulated schedule that would allow him more time with his children.

What our family is requesting is not that any particular person be charged with murder. We want the cause of death on Daniel’s death certificate to be officially changed from “suicide” to “undermined.” That would make it possible for Daniel’s case to be reopened.

Then, we want the investigation turned over to an outside agency at which the investigators have no personal relationship with Rebecca or anyone else involved with the case.


Donna Underwood (Daniel’s mother)
 
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