- April 24, 2024
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A Palm Coast man deputies say sexually battered at least four children over the course of several years — beginning in 1996, when he was 15 — pleaded no contest Monday to eight charges against him.
Thomas Underwood, now 32, faces up to life in prison.
His victims, according to Flagler County Sheriff’s Office reports, were boys and girls he’d been tasked with babysitting.
One of them provided investigators with an important piece of physical evidence after deputies interviewed her in October 2012.
She told deputies the abuse began when she was 5 and continued, on a near-daily basis, until she was 8 or 9. Underwood would lure her into a bedroom or bathroom, she said, make her strip, and rub his genitalia against her until he climaxed.
Once, he grabbed her favorite doll — handmade by her mother — and used it to wipe up his mess.
She didn’t tell anyone about the abuse then, according to a deputy’s report, because Underwood repeatedly told her to “not tell anyone or he would hurt or kill her family,” sometimes brandishing a knife or pellet gun as he made the threat.
She tried to tell her mother when she was 10, according to the report, but didn’t think her mother believed her because her mother still let Underwood babysit her and her brother.
But in 2012, she found that doll and submitted it to the Sheriff’s Office, along with a full statement detailing the years of abuse. The doll was placed into evidence, according to the report.
Another victim told deputies Underwood began assaulting her when she was 8 and he was 15. She said he “made her watch pornographic movies” and that he penetrated her mouth with his penis, telling her “that if she didn’t perform oral sex on him, he would put ‘wolf spiders’ that lived in the closet in her mouth," according to a Sheriff's Office report.
After she "hurt him" once with her mouth, according to the report, Underwood started attempting to penetrate her anally.
She told deputies that Underwood’s family was aware of his serial abuse of children, but that “because of their religious beliefs they never reported the abuse because they were worried that he would ‘go to hell,’” according to the report.
One man who said Underwood had abused him sometime around the year 2000 told deputies that a family friend once walked into a room and saw Underwood penetrating him anally.
The visitor told the victim’s father, who “beat up” Underwood, according to a deputy's report.
More than one victim told deputies that, at some point after Underwood’s parents became aware of the abuse, he was “kicked out” of his parents’ home and sent to live with a grandmother.
Victims told deputies they knew of other people Underwood had assaulted who were not willing to come forward.
Underwood is charged with seven counts of sexual battery on a person less than 12 years of age by a person under 18 years of age, and one count of lewd or lascivious molestation by a person 18 or older on a person under 12 years of age, according to a search warrant affidavit.
His sentence will be determined by a judge at a later date, Seventh Judicial Circuit representative Klare Ly said.
