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Abductor destined to live life in a cell
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD, Times Staff Writer
TAMPA -- To his family, Jimm Underwood is an even-tempered man, a loving husband and a dedicated father. They pleaded with a judge Wednesday to show him mercy for a crime they say makes no sense. To Eddie and Cheryl Gomez, Underwood is the face of terror, the dangerously unhinged man who forced his way into their house at gunpoint after stalking them for months. They urged that he never walk the streets again. Hillsborough Circuit Judge Chet Tharpe expressed sympathy for Underwood's children. But he noted that Underwood's scheme to kidnap Eddie Gomez for ransom last April had been painstakingly planned. The crime could not be written off as aberration, a good person having a bad day. "Truly, it wasn't," Tharpe said. The judge imposed three consecutive life prison terms on Underwood, 36, for kidnapping, robbery and armed burglary, the charges to which Underwood pleaded guilty last month. The crimes stemmed from a bitter grudge. Underwood, a disgruntled ex-employee of Ferman Chevrolet in Brandon, blamed Eddie Gomez, his boss, for the loss of his job as manager of the detail department. Underwood spent months meticulously planning to kidnap Gomez, even posing as a jogger in Gomez's gated community in northwest Hillsborough to determine exactly where he lived. Underwood penned a suicide note saying he planned to kill Gomez and himself if the plan went awry. In a videotaped farewell he made for his wife, played in court Wednesday, Underwood told her to call immediately about his three life insurance policies after his death. "If you don't have money, you got to do what you got to do to get money," Underwood said on the tape. After scaling the wall outside the Gomez home, Underwood confronted Eddie Gomez and his wife at gunpoint. He forced Gomez into a car. He took him to a Largo storage shed, where Gomez was "chained like an animal," according to prosecutor Pam Bondi. He also tried to force Gomez's wife to withdraw $100,000 from their bank account. Gomez escaped to notify police, who quickly caught Underwood. Underwood's friends and family said the crime did not jibe with his personality. They called him a family man who participated in the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts with his kids. Since his arrest, said Underwood's wife, Jodi, "It's like a big chunk is just torn away" from her life. "He is not a mean, uncaring, hateful man," she said. She said the crime seemed unreal to her. Underwood apologized to the Gomez family and told them he hadn't planned to hurt them. He wasn't a violent man, he explained. "I never even really yell," he said. Cheryl Gomez told the judge that Underwood stayed in her home for more than an hour and a half, terrorizing her and her husband. Since the experience, she said, her health has deteriorated. Eddie Gomez said the family's dream home in northwest Hillsborough, which they had saved for years to afford, had become "the centerpiece of a nightmare." It was where they had been tied up. They have trouble getting a good night's sleep anymore. "He is a monster, and he is a very evil man. Our lives are damaged forever," Gomez told the judge. "If there is ever a chance that he will be free, then we will forever not be free." Prosecutor Bondi said the Gomez incident was not the first time Underwood turned on a supervisor. She said Gomez stole cash and lingerie from an adult store where he worked in the mid 1990s, after a spat with his boss. Bondi said he also threatened the boss. "He is about greed and money and taking what is not his," Bondi told the judge. She read from a list Underwood had prepared. It enumerated what Underwood planned to buy with money from the Gomez kidnapping: new cell phones, a Durango, clothes, computers, tattoos and a Harley-Davidson or two.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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