Lisa Marie Montgomery - the latest Federal execution in the USA.

Lisa Marie Montgomery - the latest Federal execution in the USA.

Soon after midnight on Wednesday January 13, 2021, 52 year old Lisa Montgomery became the first female inmate in 67 years to be executed by the US federal government. 

The murder.

23 year old Bobbie Jo Stinnett was 8 months pregnant with her first child at the time of her murder in her home in the small town of Skidmore, Missouri. 

Lisa Marie Montgomery, then aged 36, strangled Stinnett from behind with a rope and cut Stinnett's unborn child from her womb using a kitchen knife on December 16, 2004. The unharmed baby was safely recovered by police the following day. 

Montgomery met Stinnett in an online Rat Terrier chatroom called "Ratter Chatter". 

Montgomery told Stinnett that she, too, was pregnant. The two women began chatting online and exchanging e-mails about their pregnancies.  Montgomery used the name Darlene Fischer in these correspondences.

Montgomery drove 175 miles from her home in Melvern, Kansas to Skidmore, ostensibly to view the puppies, posing as Darlene Fischer. 

Bobbie Jo was expecting her that day.  The police found no sign of forced entry and believed that it was Montgomery who had arranged to visit Stinnett's house. 

Stinnett was discovered by her mother, Becky Harper, in a pool of blood about an hour after the assault. Harper immediately called 9-1-1. 

Harper described the wounds inflicted upon her daughter as appearing as if her "stomach had exploded". Attempts by paramedics to revive Stinnett were unsuccessful, and she was pronounced dead at St. Francis Hospital in Maryville.

The next day, December 17, 2004, Montgomery was arrested at her farmhouse in Melvern, Kansas, where the baby and was recovered. 

Montgomery claimed that she had given birth to it the previous day.

Examining Stinnett’s computer and her emails led detectives to a farmhouse in the 32400 block of South Adams Road in Melvern Kansas. 

Here, they found Montgomery with Stinnett’s child in her arms.  Police seized her computer and were able to discover that Montgomery had researched how to perform a caesarian section on her computer.  

Montgomery later confessed to the killing and abduction.

DNA testing was used to confirm the baby’s identity and she was later christened Victoria Jo Stinnett, by her father Zeb.

The perpetrator

Lisa Marie Montgomery (DoB February 27, 1968) resided in Melvern, Kansas, at the time of the murder. She was raised in an abusive home where she was allegedly raped by her stepfather for many years. 

She sought escape mentally by drinking alcohol. When Montgomery was 14, her mother discovered the abuse, but reacted by threatening her daughter with a gun. 

She tried to escape this situation by marrying her step brother at the age of 18, but both the first marriage and a second marriage to Kevin Montgomery resulted in further abuse, although in police interviews Montgomery admitted she was attracted to the S&M scene and that she "liked taking the whip". 

Montgomery had four children before she underwent a tubal ligation in 1990. Montgomery falsely claimed to be pregnant several times after the procedure, according to both her first and second husbands.

A Federal Crime

In this case the provisions of the Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932 applied, as the baby had been kidnapped and taken cross state lines. Montgomery was tried and convicted of "kidnapping resulting in death," in Title 18, United States Code 1201. 

Federal jurisdiction is established when a person dies as a result of a kidnapping. Violations of Title 18 may result in the death penalty or any sentence up to life imprisonment.

Trial.

Montgomery was tried before U.S. District Judge Gary A. Fenner in Kansas City Mo. in October 2007.

At a pre-trial hearing, a neuropsychologist testified that head injuries, which Montgomery had sustained some years before, could have damaged the part of the brain that controls aggression. 

During her trial in federal court, her defense attorneys, led by Frederick Duchardt, asserted that she had pseudocyesis, a mental condition that causes a woman to falsely believe she is pregnant and exhibit outward signs of pregnancy.

Montgomery was willing to take a plea deal in exchange for life in prison without parole, but the U.S. Department of Justice under President George W. Bush pushed for the death penalty.

Dr. V. S. Ramachandran and William Logan MD gave expert testimony that Montgomery had pseudocyesis in addition to depression, borderline personality disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Ramachandran testified that Montgomery's stories about her actions fluctuated because her delusional state fluctuated, and that she was unable to appreciate the nature and quality of her acts. 

Both federal prosecutor Roseann Ketchmark and the opposing expert witness forensic psychiatrist, Park Dietz, disagreed strongly with the diagnosis of pseudocyesis. 

It was clear from the evidence that the murder was premeditated and had been carefully planned out.

On October 22, 2007, jurors found Montgomery guilty after deliberating for five hours, rejecting the defense claim Montgomery was delusional at the time of the murder. 

On October 26, they unanimously recommended the death sentence and Judge Gary A. Fenner formally sentenced her to death by lethal injection. On April 4, 2008, a judge upheld the jury's recommendation for death. 

Subsequent legal proceedings 

On March 19, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Montgomery's certiorari petition. Montgomery was registered at the Federal Bureau of Prisons under number 11072-031.  

She was incarcerated at Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where she would remain until she would be transferred Terre Haute Indiana for her execution. She was the only female inmate with a federal death sentence.

Experts who examined Montgomery after conviction concluded that by the time of her crime she had long been living with psychosis, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorders. She was said to be often disassociated from reality and to have permanent brain damage from numerous beatings at the hands of her parents and spouses.

Execution 

Montgomery's initially scheduled execution on December 8, 2020 was delayed following her attorneys' contracting COVID-19. On December 23, 2020, Montgomery was given a new execution date of January 12, 2021. 

U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss found that "the director's order setting a new execution date while the Court's stay was in effect was 'not in accordance with law,'" prohibiting Montgomery's execution to be rescheduled until January 1, 2021, at the earliest. 

On January 1, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated Moss's ruling, effectively reinstating Montgomery's execution date of January 12. 

On that date, federal judge Patrick Hanlon granted a stay of her execution on the grounds that her mental competence must first be tested as it could be argued she did not understand the grounds for her execution, per the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

The stay was also vacated by a 6–3 ruling from the Supreme Court and the execution was ordered to be carried out. 

Montgomery was put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday January 13, 2021.  

She was pronounced dead (EST) 1:31 a.m. at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, following a 6–3 ruling from the Supreme Court to deny a stay of execution. 

As the execution process began, a woman standing over Montgomery’s shoulder leaned over, gently removed Montgomery’s face mask and asked her if she had any last words. “No,” Montgomery responded.  

Montgomery kept licking her lips and gasped briefly as pentobarbital, the lethal drug, entered her body through IVs on both arms. A few minutes later, her midsection throbbed for a moment, but quickly stopped.

The Stinette family said that the murder committed by Montgomery was so horrific that she deserved to be put to death regardless of her mental health.  

The city’s clerk, Meagan Morrow, who graduated from high school with Stinnett, said of Skidmores residents “They are [ready] for an end to this madness” “I hope Lisa gets everything she deserves.”