Reuters
- A female killer convicted of fatally strangling a pregnant woman, cutting her body open, and kidnapping her baby will become the first to be executed by the US government in 67 years.
- Lisa Montgomery, 52, will be killed by lethal injection on December 8, 2020, at the FDC in Terre Haute, Indiana.
- Montgomery was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in Skidmore, Missouri on December 16, 2004.
- Montgomery strangled Stinnett with a rope, used a knife to cut the baby girl from her womb and Stinnett to die. Miraculously, the baby survived.
- The baby, Victoria Jo, now 16, was raised by her father. During the trial, US Attorney John F. Wood said: “The only good thing that comes from this tragedy is that little Victoria is a healthy baby and is reunited with her family.”
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A female killer who fatally strangled a pregnant woman, cut her body open, and kidnapped her unborn baby will become the first prisoner to be executed by the US government in 67 years, the US Justice Department has said.
Lisa Montgomery, 52, will be killed by lethal injection on December 8, 2020, at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, and is the only woman on the government’s federal death row, The Guardian reported.
Other women have been executed in the US in the last few years, but none under the Federal Death Penalty, which “applies in all 50 states and US territories but is used relatively rarely” compared to state executions.
Montgomery was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in Skidmore, Missouri, on December 16, 2004.
Stinnett was eight months pregnant when Montgomery began chatting to her and faking her pregnancy under the guise of “Darlene Fischer” in a chatroom called “Ratter Chatter,” according to the Daily Mail.
The two soon began to form a friendship through both Ratter Chatter and email, discussing their pregnancies. Montgomery also told her family and friends that she was "full term" and due in mid-December.
However, she had undergone a tubal ligation in 1990 after her fourth child's birth yet continued to report a series of false pregnancies. Her husband, Carl Boman, soon became suspicious of her latest claim.
Montgomery's mother and sister had also been telling him she couldn't carry a child and he threatened to use it against her as he sought custody of two of the couple's four children with a hearing set for January 2005.
The two women had arranged to meet at Stinnett's home regarding the purchase of a dog. After initially denying the crime, Montgomery told investigators she had taken a kitchen knife, a rope, and an umbilical cord clamp with her.
When she arrived, Montgomery used the rope to strangle Stinnett but when she remained conscious and tried to defend herself, Montgomery used the knife to cut the baby girl from her womb, leaving Stinnett to die.
Miraculously, the baby survived and Montgomery tried to pass it off as her own by telling her husband that she had gone into labor during a shopping trip and went to Topeka Health Centre where she gave birth.
Stinnett's mother discovered her daughter's dead body at her home hours later. The following day, the police arrested Montgomery at her farmhouse and returned the baby to her father, Zeb Stinnett.
In 2007, a jury found Montgomery guilty of federal kidnapping resulting in death and unanimously recommended a death sentence however Montgomery's lawyers say she is mentally unwell, the Evening Standard reported.They said she experienced brain damage due to beatings as a child and argued that she was suffering from pseudocyesis, which causes a woman to falsely believe she is pregnant and exhibit outward signs of pregnancy.
In a statement, her lawyer Kelly Henry said: "Lisa Montgomery has long accepted full responsibility for her crime, and she will never leave prison. But her severe mental illness and the devastating impacts of her childhood trauma make executing her a profound injustice."
The attorney general, William Barr, announced the decision to proceed with Montgomery's execution in a statement that also detailed another execution, calling both "especially heinous murders."
Brandon Bernard, 40, was found guilty of the murder of two church ministers in Texas in 1999 along with two accomplices and will also be killed by lethal injection on December 10, 2020, two days after Montgomery.
Under Barr, seven executions have taken place since July, with Montgomery and Bernard's executions due to become the eighth and ninth the federal government has carried out this year, according to The Guardian.
The same month, the Trump administration ended an informal 17-year hiatus in federal executions after announcing a single-drug protocol for lethal injections rather than a three-drug combination, Reuters reported.
The last woman to be killed by federal execution was Bonnie Heady who was put to death in a gas chamber for the kidnapping and murder of a 6-year-old in Missouri, 1953, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre.
The baby, Victoria Jo, now 16, was raised by her father. During the trial, US Attorney John F. Wood said: "The only good thing that comes from this tragedy is that little Victoria is a healthy baby and is reunited with her family."