Posted on 12/18/2004 8:12:56 PM PST by Libloather
Kan. Woman Said to Show Off Stolen Baby
24 minutes ago
By JOHN MILBURN, Associated Press Writer
MELVERN, Kan. - A woman charged with killing an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb was showing the child off to people at a cafe and to her pastor hours before she was arrested, residents said Saturday.
Lisa M. Montgomery, 36, was charged Friday with kidnapping resulting in murder and was expected to appear in federal court Monday. The baby, whose mother had been eight months pregnant, was in good condition.
Hours before her arrest, Montgomery and her husband showed off a newborn girl at a restaurant, said Kathy Sage, owner of the Whistle Stop Cafe in Melvern, a small eastern Kansas town.
Many customers were surprised to hear the infant was only a day old, Sage said. She knew an Amber Alert had been issued for a baby missing from Missouri but did not realize the infant the Montgomerys carried was connected until hearing from a reporter on Friday.
"You read about this stuff," she said. "It blows you away when it's here. This stuff is supposed to be in New York City or Los Angeles."
Montgomery was arrested later in the death of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was found Thursday in a pool of blood inside her small white home in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore.
Montgomery's husband, Kevin, has not been charged in the case.
Authorities said Lisa Montgomery contacted Stinnett through an online message board, and investigators zeroed in on her using computer forensics. Montgomery was seeking to buy a dog from Stinnett, who raised rat terriers.
While Montgomerys ate breakfast, another customer showed the baby off around the cafe. After eating, they took the girl to visit their pastor.
"It was a beautiful baby," Mike Wheatley said. "Absolutely beautiful."
Wheatley and his wife commented that the baby, whom the couple called Abigail, did not look like a newborn because her head was not misshapen from passing through the birth canal, a common result of childbirth that soon goes away. The only marks she had were a small scratch on her head and a slight bruise on her hand.
The pastor had not seen the couple since October, and everyone in the congregation expected her to give birth around Dec. 12.
U.S. Attorney Todd Graves said Lisa Montgomery contacted Stinnett through an online message board after seeing a Web site about the rat terriers Stinnett bred and raised. The site included a picture of Stinnett, showing she was pregnant.
Investigators searched Stinnett's computer and found the victim had been communicating through the message board with someone claiming to be a Darlene Fischer who lived north of Fairfax, Mo.
Authorities, helped by a North Carolina dog breeder who was familiar with the message board, determined the communication from Fischer actually came from Montgomery's house.
The Montgomerys were taken in for questioning Friday, and Lisa Montgomery was charged. Investigators said she confessed to the crimes.
Officials said Montgomery had not hired an attorney. Messages left by The Associated Press at the home of Kevin Montgomery's parents went unreturned Saturday.
Jeff Lanza, an FBI spokesman in Kansas City, Mo., declined to discuss motives and said the investigation was ongoing.
He would say only that Montgomery was being held in Kansas and was expected to make her first appearance in federal court Monday, though authorities did not know whether it would be in Missouri or Kansas.
The baby's father and several other family members saw the infant, named Victoria Jo, for the first time Friday night at Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center in Topeka.
The infant was in an intensive care unit. Hospital officials said she was responding normally for a baby taken from the womb one month premature.
"She's doing well," hospital spokeswoman Carol Wheeler said.
The family was not speaking to reporters, but Victoria Jo's father, Zeb Stinnett, issued a brief statement calling her "a miracle."
"I want to thank family, friends, Amber Alert and law enforcement officials for their support during this time," he said.
Montgomery is the mother of two high-school-age children. Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey said Saturday that Montgomery had told people she was pregnant with twins, though investigators were still trying to determine if that was true.
"She told people she was pregnant and had a miscarriage and lost one of the twins," Espey said. "We're thinking she never was pregnant."
According to court documents, Montgomery traveled to Topeka, about 30 miles north of Melvern, on Thursday to go shopping. She called her husband from there, saying she had gone into labor and given birth.
Kevin Montgomery and the couple's two children met Lisa and the newborn in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in Topeka and drove home, according to an affidavit.
The arrest stunned many townspeople who apparently had believed for months that Lisa Montgomery was pregnant.
How "could you not know that your wife's not pregnant?" said Gary Deskins, owner of a convenience store in Melvern, a community of about 420 residents. "There's something missing."
This is just horrific! Thanks for posting the messages.
Chillingly, the man said Montgomery had posted a week ago on the Internet site that "she was going to have her baby on Thursday," the day of the murder. He believes this indicates a certain level of premeditation.
What website is he talking about?
Or advertise anything for sale, a car, puppies, anything. This could be looked at as a specific warning about relationships on the internet, but I think that is simplistic, and I still think relationships on the internet are no more or less likely to be dangerous than any other place where people meet strangers. We all need to try to be open to that 'spidey sense' that tells us something is wrong, and not deny those instincts.
That's her. Apparently she used an alias.
Take that back. Her alias was Darlene but you're right that it looks just like her.
I agree, there was NO way Bobbie could have known what was going to happen! Not only had she "known" Lisa Montgomery from the message board for a long period of time, Bobbie had also been involved with dog shows with Lisa. This link shows a photo taken of a group of people after one of these dog shows: http://imageevent.com/happyhaven/ukcshows/abilene42004?n=0&z=2&c=4&x=1&m=24&w=0&p=0
Lisa Montgomery is shown 2nd from the left, with Bobbie and husband Zeb on the far right. Even though Lisa contacted Bobbie to come to see her puppy as a "Darlene Fischer" when Bobbie saw her "friend" Lisa at the door (and knowing her for some time in person, as well as the message board) I'm sure she would have opened her front door with open arms to her "friend?" That is what makes this crime so extra horrifying!
As far as I can see, the only thing that would have saved Bobbie from what happened to her would have been a "rule" to never meet a customer alone. But... with all the planning Lisa put into this, and Bobbie "knowing" Lisa, I can't even see where she would have had a chance. Lisa as "herself" had already gained Bobbie's trust... all on her own... and Lisa had no reason to NOT let Lisa into her home!
I am sending a link to a memorial album set up for Bobbie's family for anyone interested in helping the family:
http://imageevent.com/bdoglvg/inmemoryofbobbiestinnett
Sincerely,
Karen Goodale
I think this is the federal charge. There has to be a way to assume federal jurisdiction and that is through the federal kidnapping statute. The states have jurisdiction over murders within their borders, but the federal government doesn't have such jurisdiction unless there is some nexus to them, like murder of a federal agent, kidnapping across state lines, etc. If the state prosecutes, undoubtedly it will be first degree.
There wouldn't be a federal kidnapping charge available either, except Montgomery took the baby across a state line. The distinction between "kidnapping resulting in death" and plain old kidnapping is that the former is a death-penalty crime, even at the federal level, whereas the latter isn't. The feds are keeping their options open in case something goes wrong with the state murder charge in Missouri.
Indeed, the federal charge may be the simplest and quickest way to get this Montgomery person put down like the rabid b**** she is. There's no question the baby was kidnapped; there's no question the kidnapping resulted in a death; there's no question this Montgomery person planned the kidnapping, regardless of whether she wielded the knife. So the federal kidnapping charge is a) open-and-shut and b) sufficient to receive the death penalty.
If the Feds try it I doubt they will seek the death penalty. That would be a miscarriage of justice in my layman's opinion
She (Lisa) posted on a homebirth forum that I frequent. I don't want to give out the URL because it's a relatively small "community", but she posted in October and again in November. She said she was planning a homebirth and was wondering if there was anything she was forgetting to get as far as supplies. I guess she was getting her "cover story" ready or whatever.
It is just so sickening.
Hey, MA.....that is SOOO creepy.
Goes to show you, you NEVER know who you are chatting with. We worry about our kids....but adults can be victims too. Guess the moral is: always keep your guard up no matter how long you've "chatted" with someone.
If she had pulled the baby out feet first and crushed its head before it was all the way out, it would have just been a partial birth abortion.
It is creepy, for sure, we're all a bunch of moms with babies over there!
But it is also significant, since she would have already miscarried (if she were even pregnant in the first place) and was making sure she could "register" the baby and get a birth certificate. It seems she had this planned for a while. Poor Bobbie Jo :-(
And I can't help but wonder how many other sick freaks are out there just lurking, reading... Makes me want to go out and buy a big bad mo of a shotgun :-)
Welcome to FR.
More like big time premeditation...sounds like she has been planning this since October.
But she has two high school age children of her own, so she isn't totally childless or barren.
Weird.
He didn't trust her. Very interesting...
Her (Lisa Montgomery) email was fischer4kids@hotmail.com ....that translates to "fishing for kids" to me...premeditated for sure. Just plain evil.
Life is not hard, just get a job and don't kill anybody.
by me..richandfamous
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