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Law

Lewis-McChord Officer Charged With Threatening Wife, Girlfriend, Boss

OLYMPIA, Wash. – A Lieutenant Colonel from Joint Base Lewis-McChord has been charged with threatening to kill his girlfriend, his estranged wife and his Army boss. The allegations come just days after another Lewis-McChord soldier was accused of a murderous attack on Afghan civilians.

Lt. Col Robert Underwood is charged with three counts of felony harassment. According to court documents, he recently told his daughter he was “going to do something crazy and it would be on the news.”

Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist charged Underwood, age 46, with making death threats against his immediate supervisor at Lewis-McChord, his girlfriend and his wife. Lindquist says Underwood is in the midst of a “nasty” divorce.

“They all reasonably believed he meant it and further there were allegations that he had hired a hit man," Lindquist says. "But we don’t have many details on how many steps he took, if any, toward that end.”

Court records show Underwood has deployed multiple times. His boss sent him for an involuntary mental health evaluation. But the Army says Underwood does not suffer from PTSD.

Charging documents also include this horrific footnote. As a child, Underwood was apparently shot multiple times by his mother and left for dead. That attack killed two of his siblings.

Lindquist says there is third-hand information that Underwood may have made threats about an attack on the state capitol. The Washington State Patrol confirms it was made aware of that. But Underwood is not charged with doing so at this point.

Copyright 2012 Northwest News Network

Copyright 2012 Northwest News Network

Since January 2004, Austin Jenkins has been the Olympia-based political reporter for the Northwest News Network. In that position, Austin covers Northwest politics and public policy as well as the Washington State legislature. You can also see Austin on television as host of TVW's (the C–SPAN of Washington State) Emmy-nominated public affairs program "Inside Olympia." Prior to joining the Northwest News Network, Austin worked as a television reporter in Seattle, Portland and Boise. Austin is a graduate of Garfield High School in Seattle and Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. Austin’s reporting has been recognized with awards from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, Public Radio News Directors Incorporated and the Society of Professional Journalists.