Posted on 10/05/2007 10:06:14 PM PDT by Graybeard58
For the first time publicly, family members of Bobbie Jo Stinnett relived the horror Thursday of learning someone had strangled her and cut her baby from her womb.
They did it from the witness stand, in a packed federal courtroom where emotional memories and grisly photographs marked the opening day of testimony in the kidnapping trial against Lisa Montgomery, 39.
The Melvern, Kan., housewife and dog breeder took the baby because her ex-husband had threatened to expose her faked pregnancy and use it against her in a custody dispute, prosecutors contended Thursday.
Her defense attorneys conceded in their opening statement that she committed the crime, but they said she was so mentally unbalanced that she didn’t understand that it was wrong.
Authorities charged Montgomery with kidnapping resulting in death in the Skidmore, Mo., case from Dec. 16, 2004, that generated global news coverage. Should the jury convict her, prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
The baby, Victoria Jo, survived and today, at age 3, is doing well, her father, Zeb Stinnett, said from the witness stand.
Choking up as he answered questions from assistant U.S. attorney Matt Whitworth, Stinnett suggested that he has a painful task ahead.
“Have you explained to her what happened to her mother?” Whitworth asked.
“No,” Stinnett replied, simply.
Montgomery met the Stinnetts at a rat terrier show in Abilene, Kan., in April 2004 and became acquainted with Bobbie Jo Stinnett over the Internet.
Becky Harper recalled her shock at discovering her daughter just after she entered Stinnett’s small Skidmore home about 3:30 p.m. the day of the killing. Upon finding her daughter lying face up and covered in blood in a dog-grooming room, Harper said, she immediately called a 911 dispatcher, who instructed her to begin CPR.
“I told them my daughter was eight months pregnant and she looked like she had exploded all over the room,” Harper said.
Nodaway County Sheriff Ben Espey arrived and began organizing an investigation that was very short on leads. He soon realized he needed to put out an Amber Alert for the missing baby, a project that consumed hours.
Other than the baby’s gender, he had no good description, an important part of issuing such alerts.
Espey said he sought help.
“I called a U.S. senator and said ‘I’m aggravated and need this done,’ ” Espey testified.
The alert was issued hours after the crime.
The next day, authorities took Victoria Jo from Montgomery’s arms in her Melvern home. A critical tip to the Nodaway County Sheriff’s Department and timely computer forensics work by the FBI provided the important leads, said Sgt. David Merrill of the Missouri Highway Patrol.
Medical testimony from employees at St. Francis Hospital in Maryville provided the most disturbing moments Thursday. Obstetrician Richard Scott Holman noted that a gaping wound on Bobbie Jo Stinnett’s lower abdomen was consistent with descriptions of Caesarean sections on the Internet.
Prosecutors said they would produce evidence that Montgomery viewed such descriptions on her home computer.
Montgomery’s incisions were not professional, Holman noted.
“It’s not clean and smooth like I would make it,” Holman said. “It was very jagged.”
Some photos of Stinnett’s wounds were passed to jurors but not projected on a large screen in the courtroom. But they were clearly visible on monitors at the defense and prosecution tables.
Attorneys withheld the most disturbing images from jurors, though prosecutors entered them into the record. They will be available to jurors during deliberations.
Some family members wept quietly and some shielded their eyes as witnesses discussed the photos.
Having conceded that Montgomery killed Stinnett, defense attorneys asked few questions Monday.
In an hourlong opening statement, Montgomery’s lead defense attorney, Fred Duchardt, urged jurors to focus on the “why” of the crime, rather than how it happened.
Duchardt said defense experts would testify that Montgomery suffered from pseudocyesis, a false belief of being pregnant. That condition, and the “brutal and sadistic” treatment she suffered as a child at the hands of a stepfather, all were at play in Montgomery’s mind when she went to Stinnett’s home to look at a dog, he said.
“Lisa went for the puppy and something horrible happened after that,” Duchardt said.
Prosecutors contend that Montgomery planned the crime for weeks or even months.
They are expected to present evidence today about how investigators focused on her as the suspect.
For our sanity, it’s good we can grasp but little of this world’s horror.
For some reason, young Hillary reminds me of Squeaky Fromme.
HILLARY!!!
I would think that Hillary and her fellow dems (small d) would be rallying in support of Miss Montgomery. She was simply trying to rid her friend of tissues which attacking her body. Why would an unintended death in this attempt be any different than the same thing happening at the hands of a revered abortionist?
That is one jury I am grateful I'm not on.
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