Woman gets prison for child endangerment

Atascadero woman who locked her granddaughter in a closet for days gets six-year sentence

By Nick Wilson | nwilson@thetribunenews.com

Comments (0) |

E-Mail

Text Size:

tool goes here

An Atascadero woman who locked her 10-year-old granddaughter in a closet for days was sentenced to six years in state prison on Thursday.

Tammi Underwood, 43, received her sentence from Judge Dodie A. Harman after entering a plea of no contest in June to felony child endangerment.

A no-contest plea results in a conviction without admitting guilt.

Underwood was arrested in March on suspicion of the alleged abuse of the girl at her home in the 5700 block of Carrizo Road.

The closets the girl was locked in measured 2 feet by 22⁄3 feet and 3 feet by 31⁄2 feet and smelled of urine, according to an Atascadero Police Department report.

Harman handed down the maximum sentence allowed by law for the child endangerment charge against Underwood.

But for the record in the case, Harman said that Underwood didn�t repeatedly beat the girl and that Underwood acknowledged wrongdoing early in the court proceedings; the record also now shows that Underwood didn�t have her 15-year-old son beat the girl, as was initially reported.

The 10-year-old granddaughter, as well as Underwood�s 15-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter each are under the supervision of the county�s Department of Social Services, said Tracy Buckingham, the agency�s assistant director.

�All three children are in different (custody) situations,� Buckingham said. �All three children need to be safe.�

Buckingham previously said officials at her agency were notified March 17 that the girl was repeatedly missing school.

Detectives seized a videotape from a camera pointed at the downstairs closet and used to monitor the girl, according to the police report.

The tape showed her leaving the closet, which which triggered an alarm.

About comments

Reader comments on SanLuisObispo.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Tribune. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.

What you should know about comments on SanLuisObispo.com

SanLuisObispo.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can't play nice. See our full terms of service here.

Here are some rules of the road:

Keep your comments civil. Don't insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the "report abuse" button. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.
Don't use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don't say anything in a way you wouldn't want your own child to hear.
Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.
Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and leave him a public message.
Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.
Don't repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.
Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That's spam and it isn't allowed.
Don't use all capital letters. That's akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.

You should also know that The Tribune does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the "report abuse" button to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at webmaster@sanluisobispo.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won't and vice versa.

If you submit a comment, the username of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them, but you may ask our staff to retract one of your comments by sending an email to webmaster@sanluisobispo.com. Again, make sure you note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us your profile name.