Posted on 12/19/2004 9:19:36 AM PST by rushfreedom
Woman paraded abducted baby
By John Milburn
The Associated Press
MELVERN, Kan. - A woman charged with killing an expectant mother and cutting the baby from her womb was showing off the child 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.
After eating at the Whistle Stop Cafe in Melvern, a small eastern Kansas town, Montgomery and her husband visited pastor Mike Wheatley.
"It was a beautiful baby," 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.
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.
The arrest stunned many in this community of about 420 residents who apparently had believed for months that Lisa Montgomery was pregnant.
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 Web site included a picture of Stinnett, showing she was pregnant. The message board also led authorities back to Montgomery.
Investigators said Lisa Montgomery confessed to the crimes during questioning on Friday.
Jeff Lanza, an FBI spokesman in Kansas City, Mo., said that Montgomery was expected to make her first appearance in federal court Monday.
The baby's father and several other relatives 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 prematurely.
"She's doing well," hospital spokeswoman Carol Wheeler said.
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 whether 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.
To all those who posted these comments on an earlier thread.
No it was not a satanic cult. No it was not lesbian feminist. No it was not Aliens.
It was a deranged mother who had lost her baby. Hid it from her husband and others (How this could be done is unknown). She premeditated the abduction of another’s mothers baby. Even to the point of murder.
It is a sad story. I hope the press keeps covering the story so that we can learn from her story and so we can make sure justice is done for Bobbie Jo Stinnett and the family she left behind.
This is not the first time this has happened, either. There was another case in Ohio a few years ago. The case was very similar. I'll look and see if I can find it. Maybe someone else has info.
Maybe it is good that this woman hasn't been able to breed so far.
Holy poop! I found an article about similar cases:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/263193p-225301c.html
Scroll down to "Shocking list of savagery by women in the U.S." to see a list of similar cases. The Marines are gentlemen compared to a deranged woman who wants to be a mother. The instinct is strong.
Oops. I thought this was her "first". I didn't read carefully.
Oops. I thought this was her "first". I didn't read carefully.
Wrong. She has at least two of her own, but none with the man she is currently with. I suspect their relationship was/is rocky, and she thought she could cement it with a baby.
I remember the Oklahoma case well. Incredible that people can be so vicious.
Several thoughts come to my mind: Maybe he is mentally deficient. Maybe their relationship was on the rocks and he didn't see her much. Maybe he was in on it.
I keep wondering how this woman could do this alone--I guess she could have, but it sure seems like there might have been some help.
I haven't seen any picture of the supposed pregnant woman, but in the Ohio case she was fat (excuse me, "large") and her husband believed her when she said she was pregnant.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/10/05/pregnantwoman.killing.ap/
In fact, a number of fat women have supposedly given birth who didn't even know they were pregnant. I find that hard to believe unless you are a bit slow.
I suppose. (Thanks for the link) I had not thought of that. Still...??
It happens somewhere every few years, that and stealing newborns out of hospital nurseries or out of cribs in homes. A very feew women cannot handle the knowledge that they cannot have a baby or have lost a baby.
I am also wondering if she was under either psychiatric care or the influence of mood altering substances, whether or not the latter were prescribed by a doctor.
That Bica woman from Ohio did the whole thing by herself. She hunted her eventual victim, shot her, did the "c-section", buried the woman, passed the baby off as hers for 5 days, and finally killed herself when the cops came. The husband didn't know.
Boy, imagine if the article posted stated "she showed the baby to her Imam"......this thread would have about 500 gleeful posts on it by now....
Usually the woman does this alone. She has invented a pregnancy or is hiding that she miscarried. Men just don't have motherhood obsessions like that.
There does not need to be anything more. It is essentially the same as stealing a neonate from a hospital nursery or stealing a newborn from its crib right after the baby comes home fom the hospital. When you add these things to the more grisly Caesarians it is not so rare.
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