Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence and sexual abuse that may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.
Bobbie Jo Stinnett Found Dead
Bobbie Jo Stinnett was born on December 4, 1981, in Nodaway County, Missouri. Bobbie owned a dog-breeding business named Happy Haven Farms, primarily breeding rat terriers, which she operated from her home in Skidmore.
Bobbie maintained a website to promote her business. The website contains pictures of her with the dogs. She was also active on internet message boards dedicated to dog breeding.
In spring of 2004, Bobbie discovered she was pregnant. She began sharing the news with family and friends. She also shared the good news with members of a message board she actively used.
On 15 December, a woman who goes by the name of Darlene Fischer reached out to Bobbie via instant message. Fischer claims she was a resident of Fairfax, Missouri. The message read: “Please get in touch with me soon as we are considering the purchase of one of your puppies.”
Later that night, Bobbie told her husband, Zeb, and her mother, Becky Harper, that a woman from a nearby town would stop by tomorrow to look at the puppies.
On December 16, Fischer arrived at Bobbie’s home around 12.30 pm. Bobbie brought the puppies outside. The two women played with the pups for some time. At 2.30 pm, Bobbie received a phone call from her mother, who was at work.
She asked Bobbie to give her a ride home after her shift ended. Bobbie confirmed she would come pick her up. Shortly after 3.30 pm, Harper called Bobbie to check if she was on the way, but Bobbie didn’t answer.
Harper assumed her daughter was still engaged with the woman who had come to see the puppies and decided to walk the two blocks home.
When she arrived, she found the front door wide open. She entered the house and called her daughter. When she entered the dining room, Bobbie was lying on the floor, in a pool of blood.
Bobbie’s mother immediately dialed 911. When she found her daughter, she was bleeding heavily from the abdominal area. She told the line operator her daughter was eight months pregnant and needed urgent medical assistance. While describing the emergency, she said it looked like her daughter’s stomach had exploded.
Unborn Child: Missing
Paramedics rushed to the scene. They checked Bobbie for vital signs and tried to revive her. Bobbie’s condition was very delicate, and she was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Maryville, where she was pronounced dead.
Autopsy reports of Bobbie revealed that her unborn baby had been cut out from her womb. The cause of death was determined to be strangulation. The medical professionals who examined the crime scene told the police of a strong possibility that the missing baby was still alive.
A nationwide Amber Alert was issued. FBI and Highway Patrol searched for the missing infant. Investigators found no signs of forced entry into the house. This suggested Bobbie may have known the killer.
Detectives also began asking around the nearby area. They found one witness who reported seeing a dirty red subcompact car parked near Stinnett’s home that had never been in the area before.
A law enforcement officer also interviewed Bobbie’s husband. He was devastated by the loss of his wife and unborn child. He claimed he left home at 7 am to work at a manufacturing plant and had nothing to do with the crime. He had a solid alibi and was cleared of suspicion.
Investigators conducted a forensic search of Bobbie’s personal computer. In doing so, they hoped to find clues regarding Bobbie’s killer. They found that the last message Bobbie received was from a person named Darlene Fischer, who arranged a meeting with Bobbie earlier that day.
The police agencies also received a tip from a woman in Texas. The tip described a woman named Lisa M. Montgomery, whom the tipster had met at a dog show. She had also given birth on the same day when Bobbie was murdered.
The IP address attached to Fischer’s email account traced back to a person named Kevin Montgomery, who lived in Melvern, Kansas. When police ran a background check, they found that Kevin was married to Lisa Montgomery.
Confronting Montgomery
On 16 December, which was the day Bobbie Jo Stinnett was murdered, Montgomery called her husband around 5:15 pm and told him she had gone into labor while shopping for Christmas. She told him she gave birth in a maternal clinic in Topeka, Kansas.
She asked her husband to escort her home. They met in a parking lot near the clinic and drove back to their home in Melvern. Later that evening, the Montgomerys called friends and relatives to announce the birth of their daughter, Abigail.
The next day, Montgomery and her husband went to Whistle Stop Cafe for breakfast. The Montgomerys showed off the baby to the customers who were surprised to find out that the baby was only one day old.
It was abnormal for Montgomery to be already up on her feet only a day after she had given birth. After finishing their meal, they left for their daily errands and visited Reverend Mike Wheatly, their family pastor.
Investigators waited outside Lisa M. Montgomery’s home in Kansas. They saw a red car outside her residence that matched the witness’s description.
The couple returned home around afternoon 1 pm. Shortly thereafter, law enforcement knocked on the door. Montgomery’s husband answered the door and invited the officers inside. As they entered the living room, they saw Montgomery sitting on the couch with a baby in her arms.
The infant was sleeping soundly. Sgt. Investigator Randy Strong noted that the infant did not appear to be a newborn. Babies have a soft skull that is molded into a conical shape as they navigate the birth canal during childbirth.
Over time, the head regains its original shape. Newborn babies often have scratches/scars on their head from childbirth, but the infant Montgomery was holding in her arms had only a scratch above its eye.
Sgt. Strong explained that they were investigating the murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett. He inquired about the baby. Montgomery explained that she had given birth the previous day at a maternity clinic in Topeka.
He asked to see Montgomery’s discharge papers. She asked her husband to retrieve the discharge papers from his truck. He searched the truck but could not find them.
When the couple failed to produce the discharge papers, Strong asked to speak to Montgomery outside their home. She allowed a law enforcement officer to hold the baby as she stepped outside.
Montgomery explained that her family was going through financial problems. Unbeknownst to her husband, she gave birth at home with the help of two friends.
When asked to identify the two people, Montgomery said they were not physically present in the house but were available by phone in case she had trouble delivering the baby.
Montgomery said she had given birth in the kitchen. She told Strong that she had disposed of the placenta in a nearby creek. Shortly thereafter, she requested the officers to move the questioning to the Sheriff’s office.
Montgomery was taken to the Sheriff’s office for further questioning, where she confessed to killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett. Officers took the baby from Montgomery and safely reunited it with her family. She was named Victoria Jo Stinnett.
Confession
In spring 2004, around the same time Bobbie announced her pregnancy, Montgomery began telling friends and family she was pregnant. However, Montgomery underwent a sterilization procedure more than a decade ago.
This meant she was physically incapable of conceiving a child. Nonetheless, she claimed a positive pregnancy test result and began wearing maternity clothes and behaving as if she were pregnant.
Her husband and children, who were unaware of the permanent sterilization, believed Montgomery was expecting. Those who knew about the sterilization, including her ex-husband and his wife, accused Montgomery of deceiving her family. Montgomery simply responded that she would prove them wrong.
Montgomery, like Bobbie, bred rat terrier dogs. She became acquainted with Bobbie through an internet message board called Ratter Chatter. Montgomery used the alias “Darlene Fischer” to navigate the message board.
She had met Bobbie at a dog show in April 2004. Montgomery contacted Bobbie and arranged a meeting under the pretext of buying one of Bobbie’s puppies.
On 16 December 2004, Montgomery left her home in Melvern, Kansas, and drove 170 miles to Bobbie’s home in Skidmore, Missouri. She carried a cord and a sharp kitchen knife in her jacket.
Montgomery reached Bobbie’s home sometime after noon. Bobbie let her into the home, and the two chatted and played with the puppies for some time. Shortly after Bobbie spoke to her mother on the phone, Montgomery attacked her.
She began strangling Bobbie with a cord until she was unconscious. Montgomery then used the kitchen knife to cut her victim’s abdomen open, performing a crude cesarean section on her.
Bobbie regained consciousness due to the pain of being cut open, and a struggle ensued. She attempted to fight off her killer in an effort to save herself and her unborn child. Montgomery overpowered the pregnant woman and began strangling her a second time, eventually killing her.
“You could see swirls in the floor in the blood, showing there was a struggle. I noticed her stomach had been jaggedly cut open and some intestines were protruding from the body”
– Ben Espey, Nodaway County Sheriff
Montgomery then extracted the fetus from Bobbie Jo Stinnett’s body, cut the umbilical cord, and left with the baby. She entered her car and drove away from Bobbie’s home. All the while, she held the baby in her arms and pinched the umbilical cord.
After driving a short distance from Bobbie’s home, Montgomery stopped to sever the umbilical cord from the newborn’s body and to suction any mucus from the infant’s mouth to prevent her from choking.
The infant, fortunately, was unharmed and healthy, considering it was born prematurely. Montgomery wiped the baby clean and retrieved a car seat stored in the trunk of her car. Montgomery installed the baby seat, placed the baby in it, and drove back to Topeka, Kansas. Upon return, she called her husband and informed him she had given birth.
Trial and Sentencing
Lisa M. Montgomery was arrested on 17th December 2004 and charged with kidnapping resulting in death. Since Montgomery had kidnapped and transported the baby between two states, she was tried on federal charges.
Montgomery pleaded guilty to the murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnet by reason of insanity. Her defense counsel argued that she had a very traumatic childhood which had affected her psyche.
She was physically and sexually abused since the age of 11. Her stepfather, Jack, who was a mean drunk, raped her once or twice a week. He would also invite his friends over to gang-rape Montgomery; an ordeal which would last for hours.
Afterward, they would urinate on Montgomery. Her mother would also contribute to her abuse as she would sell her body to the plumber or the electrician whenever she needed odd jobs done around the house.
On one occasion, Montgomery’s mother happened to walk into the room while she was being raped. Enraged, she put a gun on her daughter’s head and asked her,
“How could you do this to me?”
Montgomery’s stepfather continued raping and sodomizing her, often smothering her face with a pillow. If she resisted, he would punish her by slamming her head against the concrete. This gave Montgomery severe brain damage and became the basis of her early defense.
Montgomery’s defense counsel further argued that her actions were consistent with pseudocyesis. Montgomery had been experiencing a false pregnancy and could not discern reality from delusion.
After hearing two days of expert testimony, the court concluded that
Montgomery’s MRI results were not abnormal and thus did not show “any mental
condition or circumstance that would be relevant to matters at issue in this case.”
The court also rejected the defense’s “false pregnancy” argument by pointing out that Montgomery was fully aware of the sterilization procedure and thus was fully aware that she could not be pregnant.
Montgomery’s trial lasted for about four weeks. Lisa M Montgomery was found guilty of kidnapping resulting in murder and sentenced to death by a federal jury on 22 October 2007. Montgomery appealed this decision, arguing that the court had erred in its decision, as Bobbie’s death did not result from the kidnapping.
Her defense framed the argument as a challenge to sufficiency of evidence. They argued that murder occurred before the kidnapping was legally completed, and therefore the federal kidnapping statute should not apply
The court denied Montgomery’s motion and upheld its decision to execute her. She continued to contest the decision until she exhausted all her appeals. Montgomery was executed at the federal death chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana, on 13 January 2021 by the method of lethal injection.
Her execution drew significant attention and criticism from the press and activists as she became the first woman to be executed by the U.S. federal government in the last 70 years.
Aftermath
“This case has finally come to a close, but we will never stop missing Bobbie Jo. She
was a sweet and loving wife, daughter and sister, and would have been a wonderful
mother.”
– Statement from the family of Bobbie Jo Stinnett
Bobbie’s family, in the final statement to the court, thanked the members of the jury and law enforcement officials who worked tirelessly and found the missing newborn in less than 24 hours.
They stated that their priority now is Victoria Jo and giving her a normal childhood despite the horrific tragedies she was born into.
