Guilty Verdict in for Woman for Stealing Baby

After many days of heartbreaking testimony and five + hours of deliberating, jurors have finally ruled in Kansas City, MO, that the defendant, Lisa Montgomery, shall be sentenced to death in kidnapping and killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett on Dec. 16, 2004, and stealing her baby from her womb.

It was a crime that shocked the nation, especially in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore, where Montgomery responded to an ad to purchase a puppy from Stinnett.

According to the Rocky Mountain News, prosecutors stated that Montgomery had violated Stinnett in the "most wicked way possible," mutilating the expected mother's body after killing her, and abducting her premature child to pass off as her own. Because of police finding records on the Internet of both conversations between Stinnett & Montgomery, as well as numerous internet searches on how to perform Cesareans, prosecutors claimed how that clearly demonstrated that the crime was premeditated.

Montgomery was arrested in her home the next day by police, where they (police) said Lisa Montgomery was showing off the infant as her own child. The Amber Alert system was believed to be the attributing factor of finding Victoria Jo Stinnett, and was immediately brought to Stormont-Vail Regional Medical Center in Topeka where she spent the weekend before going home with her father, Zeb Stinnett.

Jurors wept as they listened to the 911 audio tape of the frantic mother of Bobbie Jo, Becky Harper, who found her daughter's body. She told the dispatcher that her daughter was, "cold to the touch, and not breathing," and described the bloody crime scene, and how her pregnant daughter looked as if, "she blew up". Towards the end of the call, Harper pleaded for her daughter to wake up.

This trial had seemed to have added more trauma to the Stinnett family. Bobbie Jo is the third member of her family to be murdered within the last four years. A cousin was stomped to death by a boyfriend in 2000, and another disappeared two years ago. The untimely demise of Bobbie Jo has added more pain, leaving the widowed husband, Zeb, to raise his daughter as a single father, along with the victim's mother, Becky, who had discovered the gruesome scene.

Defense attorney Fred Duchardt, claimed that Lisa was not mentally stable at the time of the crime, due to sexual abuse Lisa Montgomery had endured in her childhood, and had claimed her step father had, "stolen her soul". One of Lisa's older children had testified on her mother's behalf, describing her mother as a kind and compassionate mother who had absolutely no recollection of killing Stinnett. However, statements from a previous husband, as well as other neighbors and church friends contradicted the child's testimony.

On Friday morning, the Montgomery couple had gone out to breakfast with their church community, and each had a turn holding "Abagail", (Victoria Jo) and were all very surprised the infant was only a day old. After breakfast, they took the infant to visit Reverend Mike Wheatly, of the First Church of God, who was surprised to see the infant, and claimed that he had doubted Lisa's pregnancy in the past.

According to Carl Boman, 43, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Montgomery's ex-husband, Lisa had pretended to be pregnant twice in the 1990s. He also had stated how she had cheated during the 14 years they were married and moved from Oklahoma to New Mexico to Kansas due to problems caused by her lying. Boman described her as a selfish, chronic liar, with low self-esteem, and critical of others but he never saw any signs of violence.

Prosecutors believe that Montgomery was faking mental illness to aid her defense. They also showed jurors crime scene photos highlighting the blows to Stinnett's head, injuries to her elbows, the baby removed from her abdomen and her fists holding blond hair, defensive cuts to her hands and strangulation marks.

"Look at the ragged abdominal cuts," she said. "This is vicious. This defendant mutilated her."

A sentencing date has yet to be set.