If you ask his halfway house bunkmate, the man who’s been accused of murdering his love interest and driving her body 13 hours north to dispose of it in rural Wyoming was not insane.
Joseph C. Underwood, 50, has pleaded both “not guilty” and “not guilty by reason of mental illness,” to the charge of disposing of a dead body to conceal a felony, among other charges.
It was “real disturbing” when Underwood would talk about ways he’d dodged accountability or beaten charges against him, his one-time roommate Kevin Pacheco, 47, told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.
Pacheco’s accounts of Underwood contrast with the pleas Underwood has given while claiming his innocence. To Pacheco, Underwood is just gaming the system again, he said.
“I think he’s played the system too many times,” said Pacheco, who cast Underwood as a cunning actor. “He’s been let out too many times, and he doesn’t need to be out. He needs to be locked down in a prison system — not a mental institution.”
It’s been more than five years since the original, alleged crimes.
Court documents say Underwood picked up his romantic interest, Angela Elizondo, and took her to his home Nov. 1, 2019. They fought. He blacked out and came back to consciousness to find himself sitting on her chest while she lay on her back in the bathroom area, Underwood later told authorities, according to the case affidavit.
Court documents also allege that Underwood committed a sex act with her body.
He bought a rope and red handcart, loaded the body into his truck and drove toward rural Park County, where he put the woman’s body into a ravine, the affidavit says.
Then he led law enforcement agents on a wild road chase that ended with a standoff and an agent tasing him, the document adds.
Last Time
Pacheco said he spent time with Underwood at a halfway house in about 2018.
Court documents in both their cases support that claim: Pacheco had been sentenced around that time to supervised probation and treatment after a strangulation conviction. Underwood was sentenced to prison time on an assault charge in 2015, after allegations that he’d abused his wife and child.
“When I was in the halfway house he was bragging about that,” said Pacheco. “I didn’t pay no mind to it, because I’m not new to the law. I (was) just trying to do my thing and get away from him.”
Both men ended up working in Cheyenne when they got out. Pacheco worked for a construction company; when it closed down he did some cooking and dishwashing at a little restaurant, he said.
“There was a manager there – her name was Angela,” he said. “She was a sweet girl; she took care of business.”
Once when Underwood came into the restaurant, Pacheco sat and talked with him for about five minutes.
Underwood came in repeatedly after that, Pacheco recalled.
Meanwhile, Angela Elizondo got nervous, he said.
“She started asking me to start walking her out at night because we both closed the restaurant down together,” he said. The third time she asked Pacheco to walk her out to her car, he demanded to know what was going on.
But she wouldn’t tell him, he said.
Pacheco now theorizes that she wouldn’t tell him because she didn’t want him to attack Underwood and risk his own freedom again.
“I think that’s how good of a person she (was),” he said.
Though court documents indicate Elizondo was Underwood’s on-and-off girlfriend, Pacheco said he doesn’t buy it. It seemed more to him like she had a brief fling with him, regretted it and spent the next few months trying to get him to leave her alone, he said.
“She did not like this guy,” he said. “She was getting more and more worried about what this guy is capable of doing.”
Notions of what could have happened in Underwood’s home in Cheyenne still haunt Pacheco, he said. He said he doesn’t know at what point Elizondo died, and what she had to endure.
It’s a nearly six-hour drive from Cheyenne to Cody, and that disturbs Pacheco too, he said.
“That’s a very, very long drive for somebody who is supposedly insane to take somebody somewhere,” he said. “He was a sick man, but I’m not sure if he’s exactly insane.”
Pacheco, who fought back tears during his interview, said he wishes he could “get face to face” with Underwood and have a come-to-truth moment “so that he knows what he did, and he knows someone else (knows).”
More Than Five Years
Pacheco voiced frustration with the slow wheels of justice.
Underwood has been through five different courts on this one alleged crime spree: two in Cheyenne, two in Park County, and part of his case was heard in the Wyoming Supreme Court.
While he won the incompetency finding on his murder charge in Cheyenne, Park County authorities wasted no time in taking him into custody for the disposal of a dead body allegation after that.
A prosecutor asked the Wyoming Supreme Court if the Cody Circuit Court could pause Underwood’s case to check his sanity and the high court eventually ruled, in 2023, that it could.
The case then trundled over competency arguments until it was sent to the Park County District Court in 2024, where it is pending.
The Wyoming State Hospital submitted a finding Feb. 24 regarding Underwood’s mental competency. That document is not publicly available.
And on Feb. 28, District Court Judge Bill Simpson granted Underwood’s request for another sanity evaluation, by a doctor of his choice. Underwood has two months to tell Simpson which evaluator he’s chosen.
Dealing With This
As for Pacheco, he said he’s been focusing on work in South Dakota, where he now lives. He’s chosen freedom and he’s focused on staying out of trouble, he said.
“I’ve been sorry about all my crimes,” he said. He’s still bothered by Underwood’s case, and expressed deep sympathy for Elizondo’s family members.
She was a friend to him, and was always kind, he said.
“I’m just really sad to hear this has been going on for six years,” he said, weeping. “Because her family has to go through this.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
