A packing mistake could cost an American woman 12 years in Panama prison as her retired cop father fights to save her

On a Friday night broadcast, CBS News Texas set the scene like the opening of a crime show, except this time the “case” isn’t on the streets of Dallas, and the detective isn’t chasing a suspect – he’s chasing time.

Reporter J.D. Miles told viewers that Paul Inman, a retired Dallas police officer who spent 28 years working as a gang-unit detective, is now using those same instincts in a desperate effort to keep his daughter from serving a mandatory 12-year prison sentence in Panama after a loaded gun was found in her checked luggage.

Inman, now 56, told Miles he thought that part of his life was over, and then he found himself right back in detective mode, trying to build a defense in a country he’s never been to for a situation involving his own family.

What makes the story feel so heavy is the sheer mismatch between the alleged mistake and the punishment hanging over it, because Miles said Panamanian authorities are treating the case as smuggling, and the minimum sentence if convicted is 12 years.

Inman isn’t arguing that Panama shouldn’t take guns seriously; he’s arguing that his daughter isn’t a smuggler at all, and that she’s being swallowed by a legal system that doesn’t have much patience for explanations once the evidence is sitting there in the bag.

A Vacation That Turned Into A Criminal Case Overnight

Miles reported that the woman at the center of this is Sabrina Underwood, a 34-year-old mother of three from San Antonio, who traveled to Panama over the holidays for what was supposed to be a simple weeklong vacation to visit a family friend.

Instead of coming home with photos and souvenirs, Miles said she was stopped at the airport after authorities found a loaded handgun in her checked luggage, and she was arrested on a smuggling charge that comes with that mandatory 12-year sentence if she’s convicted.

That’s the part that’s easy to miss when people casually talk about “gun in a bag” mistakes – this wasn’t a brief inconvenience and a fine at the counter. According to Miles, Underwood spent 23 days in a Panamanian prison before she was recently released to house arrest, which sounds like relief until you realize it’s just a different kind of confinement with the same legal cliff still looming.

Inman told Miles he has one goal: find a way to help her, fast, before the system locks into a path that’s hard to reverse.

Miles also shared what Inman believes is the simplest explanation. Inman says the gun belonged to Underwood’s husband, a military service member and what Inman described as an avid gun person, and that Underwood was “completely shocked” when authorities found it.

If you’ve traveled with a family, you know how quickly bags become a chaotic group project, where one person folds clothes, another tosses in toiletries, and someone else “helps” by throwing in items that shouldn’t be anywhere near an airport. It doesn’t excuse anything, but it explains how a single mistake can happen without a person waking up that morning thinking, “I’m going to smuggle a firearm into another country.”

The “Smuggling” Question And The Detail Inman Keeps Pointing To

Miles described Inman’s approach as a kind of old-school investigative argument built around details that, in his mind, don’t fit a smuggling narrative.

One detail Inman emphasized to Miles is where the gun was found and how it was packed, because he says it wasn’t concealed in clothing or tucked deep inside layers where you’d expect someone to hide contraband. 

According to Inman, the firearm was in or near the outside portion of the bag, and he thinks that matters because if someone is smuggling, they usually try to conceal.

Inman told Miles that’s what he’s trying to show Panamanian prosecutors: if his daughter’s intention was to smuggle, why would the gun be in a place that screams “accident” instead of “scheme”?

The logic won’t convince everyone, and a prosecutor could still say intent doesn’t matter under their law, but it’s clearly the thread Inman is pulling on, because it’s one of the few things he can point to that feels like common sense.

It’s also the kind of argument that resonates with normal people, because most people think of smuggling as deliberate planning, not a messy packing mishap that ends in a prison cell.

Still, Miles noted that Inman has been trying – so far unsuccessfully – to convince Panamanian prosecutors that Underwood didn’t know the gun was in her luggage and “certainly isn’t a smuggler,” which is the frightening part of all this: the obvious explanation doesn’t automatically win, even when it’s plausible.

A Plea Deal That Doesn’t Feel Like A Deal

A lot of cases turn on plea negotiations, and Miles reported that prosecutors are offering Underwood a plea agreement that would still have her serving 12 years in prison.

That’s where the story takes an especially grim turn, because the word “deal” suggests compromise, yet the outcome sounds identical to the minimum sentence she faces if convicted.

Miles asked Inman directly how worried he is about his daughter going to prison for many years, and Inman didn’t sugarcoat it. He said 12 years would be devastating for the family, devastating for her, and he doubts she could emotionally make it.

It’s a father speaking like a former cop but also like a parent who knows exactly what long incarceration does to a person, especially in a foreign system far away from home support, familiar language, and the basic comfort of knowing how things work.

Miles added another gut punch: Underwood’s three children are 14, 11, and 8, meaning if she serves 12 years, those kids would be adults by the time she’s released.

That isn’t just “missing some time.” That’s missing the entire arc of their childhood, the years where a parent is supposed to be there for school milestones, medical scares, and the everyday glue that keeps a family stable.

And it’s hard not to think about what those kids will carry, because even if everyone in the family believes this started as a mistake, the absence still becomes real, day after day.

A Retired Detective In A One-Man Race For Help

Miles framed Inman as someone who thought retirement meant slowing down, and instead he’s now running a one-man mission across borders, trying to gather evidence, make calls, and find someone in the federal system willing to take the case seriously.

Inman told Miles he hasn’t had much luck getting help from the federal government, which is the kind of statement that makes people angry even if they don’t fully understand what the government can or can’t do in a foreign prosecution.

There’s a harsh truth here: U.S. officials can advocate, they can communicate, they can offer consular support, but they can’t simply order another country to drop charges, and they can’t snap their fingers and undo a mandatory sentencing structure.

Still, people hear “American facing 12 years abroad over a mistake” and they expect a cavalry to show up, because that’s what we’ve been trained to believe: that if something goes wrong overseas, your government will muscle its way into the room.

Miles’ report, through Inman’s experience, suggests the reality feels far lonelier than that, and that gap between expectation and reality is part of what makes this story sting.

Inman also didn’t talk about his daughter like a headline; he talked about her like a person. Miles shared Inman’s description of Underwood as someone who makes friends wherever she goes, someone loud and fun, the type who walks into a party and ends up being the person everyone remembers.

That kind of detail matters because it reminds you this isn’t an abstract “traveler arrested abroad” story – it’s a specific mother, a specific family, and a punishment that doesn’t shrink just because her intentions might have been innocent.

The Part That Raises A New Set Of Questions Back Home

Near the end of the segment, the CBS News Texas anchor pointed out something that almost feels like a separate scandal hiding inside the first one: how did a loaded gun make it through U.S. airport security in the first place?

Miles echoed that concern and said the case raises serious questions about airport security in the United States, because the loaded handgun apparently traveled through airports before finally being discovered in Panama.

That detail can turn this from “family tragedy abroad” into “system failure at home,” because even people who have no sympathy for travelers who pack irresponsibly still expect one thing: that airport screening catches a loaded gun before it ever leaves the country.

If the firearm was in checked luggage, some will argue the security process is different than what happens at passenger checkpoints, but the public reaction will still be the same – how does something like that slip through, and how often does it happen?

It also adds another layer of dread to Underwood’s situation, because it implies she may have had no clue she was carrying something that would explode her life until she was already in a country where the penalty is brutal and the rules are not negotiated the way Americans expect.

Why This Story Hits Harder Than Most Travel Nightmares

Here’s the uncomfortable commentary this story invites: modern travel has trained people to think mistakes end with fees, delays, and maybe a stern lecture, but not everything in the world runs on the same scale of forgiveness.

Miles’ reporting makes it clear Panama treats gun crimes and smuggling allegations with a severity that doesn’t leave much room for “I didn’t know,” even if a person’s story sounds believable to American ears.

That doesn’t mean Panama is wrong to want strict gun control at its borders, but it does mean travelers can’t assume intent will save them, because a foreign legal system may focus on possession and outcome, not the explanation.

And while it’s easy to say, “Well, just don’t bring a gun,” this case shows how the risk isn’t always about a person deciding to do something reckless; it can be about a careless moment in packing, or a spouse’s habit, or a bag that gets used interchangeably without anyone doing that final “slow down and check everything” step.

Inman is fighting with the tools he has – logic, details, persistence, and whatever influence he can scrape together – but Miles’ report shows how steep the hill is when a mandatory sentence is baked into the system and prosecutors are offering a “deal” that still sounds like a life sentence in slow motion.

For one Texas family, this isn’t just a cautionary tale anymore. It’s a clock ticking in a foreign country, and a retired detective trying to solve the one case he can’t emotionally afford to lose.