“The FBI is the most sophisticated law enforcement agency in the world, pursuing the most dangerous criminal when an unborn baby is snatched from its mother’s womb.”
“I can see the knife wounds. We knew then that the baby had been cut out.”
“The bureau mobilizes. As time goes by, if this person thinks they’re going to be caught, what would they do with that baby?”
“This isn’t my child. This wasn’t my daughter. In a sense, you feel that it is now. Get out of the doubt now.”
“Everybody was waiting, everybody was praying, holding their breath, hoping that she was found alive.”
“It’s afternoon in the tiny farming community of Skidmore, Missouri. With just 342 residents, there are few secrets here and no strangers.”
“Many of the people that live here have lived here most of their life, if not their entire life. Very close-knit and watch out for each other. People of Skidmore are very, very friendly. I think they’re just good, honest, down-to-earth folks.”
“Lifelong resident Becky Harper wraps up work at the town’s gas station and waits out front for her daughter, 23-year-old Bobby Jo Stinnett.”
“As soon as Becky got off work, they were going to drive to Maryville to a garage where I think one of them had their car, and they’re going to pick up the car.”
“Bobby Jo is pregnant with her first child, a girl she plans to name Victoria Jo. Becky can’t wait to be a grandmother.”
“They knew it was going to be a girl, so they were getting everything ready for that. And Becky was excited, of course, her first grandchild. They were anticipating that baby and the joy that it was going to bring them.”
“When Bobby Jo doesn’t show up, Becky is immediately concerned. Her daughter isn’t one to forget things. Becky tries to reach Bobby Jo at home.”
“Bobby Jo, it’s Mom. Where are you?”
“The phone rang and the answering machine picked up.”
“Call my cell phone, please.”
“Becky left a voice message on there, speaking into, you know, ‘Where you at? I’m waiting up for you. I’m off work.'”
“Around 3:30 p.m., she walks the two blocks to Bobby Jo’s small rental home. Something is not right.”
“The door was ajar, which Becky found unusual, and she went in and called Bobby Jo’s name. And of course, Bobby Jo didn’t answer.”
“Did you forget about me?”
“Then she found Bobby Jo.”
“Oh, my!”
“Bobby Jo is lying on the dining room floor in a large pool of blood. In shock, Becky dials 911 and describes the horrifying scene.”
“My, my daughter… I’m at my daughter’s house and she’s, she’s on the floor.”
“I was standing in the dispatch when the 911 call came in, and her response was, ‘I need help, and my daughter’s on the floor. It looks like her stomach has exploded.'”
“The dispatch operator does her best to keep Becky calm.”
“The mother was very frantic. She didn’t really know what to do. She didn’t know how to try to save her.”
“Sheriff Ben Espey rushes to the Stinnett home.”
“I was thinking that, as I was driving over, you know, is this going to be a murder case that we’re going to have to deal with, or is this a self-inflicted?”
“Yes, in here, please.”
“He arrives on the scene to find a desperate Becky administering CPR on her unconscious daughter.”
“Bobby Jo was laying on the floor on her back, and I noticed a lot of blood over this way.”
“The sheriff takes over CPR. In tears, Becky tells him her daughter is 8 months pregnant.”
“And I glanced at her stomach, and in my mind I thought, ‘No, she’s not. Her stomach is too flat. She’s not pregnant.’ And then, of course, I could see the knife wounds on the lower abdomen, and so I knew then that the baby had been cut out.”
“Whoever attacked Bobby Jo gave her a crude C-section. There is no sign of the baby anywhere.”
“EMTs arrive at the home minutes later and transport Bobby Jo to the hospital, but it’s too late. Doctors pronounce her dead at 4:27 p.m.”
“Detective Randy Strong arrives on the scene and learns that Bobby Jo died a painful and frightening death.”
“One of the first things that became obviously apparent to me was that there were ligature marks around her neck. I could see rope marks that were very visible, pressed into her flesh that appeared to be a small cord of some type that had been rolled, and I could see three distinct marks that had been left in her neck.”
“There are several jagged cut marks in Stinnett’s lower abdomen where the baby was removed. And there’s something else.”
“When I looked at Bobby Jo’s hands, there was hair there, which indicated to me that Bobby Jo had probably grabbed a hold of her attacker. Some of it looked like it was Bobby Jo’s hair, some of it did not.”
“It’s clear to everyone that the expectant mother fought for her child.”
“She not only was trying to save her own life, she was trying to save Victoria Jo’s life. She was struggling. She has defensive marks where her fingers were being cut, her elbows, the skin was coming off her elbows trying to fight back. Her feet were in a pool of blood, and she was trying to save Victoria Jo’s life as she died.”
“She didn’t know what the fate of her daughter was, and neither do police. Just 36 weeks old, she may have suffered oxygen loss or been killed during the crude delivery.”
“We visited with a physician at the emergency room, and it was his opinion that, uh, since Bobby Jo was over, over eight months along in her pregnancy, that it was a viable option that the baby may be alive.”
“So, with knowing that, there was an extreme sense of urgency to find the baby and to make sure that the baby was okay.”
“I was thinking in the back of my mind, how terrible that the, you know, the mom, the dad, the grandparents, the family couldn’t see this child be born, and they have no idea if the child’s even going to be alive.”
“This is the most horrifying crime Sheriff Ben Espey has ever handled, and he knows that he needs help. He immediately calls the experts in child abduction, the FBI.”
“Special Agent Curt Lanoivch is at home celebrating his birthday when he receives the call. He has a daughter around Bobby Jo’s age, and the crime disturbs him.”
“It’s horribly sad. The only reason Bobby Jo was killed was because she had a child that someone else was willing to kill her for. It was horrible.”
“Special Agent Lanoivch is aware that just one year earlier in nearby Oklahoma, a woman killed an expectant mother and cut the six-month-old fetus from her womb. The fetus was too young to survive. That case is on investigators’ minds as they look for the killer.”
“Based on profiling that others have done in child abduction cases, you’re typically looking for a female, oftentimes a little bit heavier set, typically of course of the same race as the baby that has been taken, and someone who has been telling people for some period of time that she’s pregnant, yet has never produced a baby.”
“If this killer was a woman, she appears to have carefully planned the crime. But what does she plan to do with the baby?”
“We did not know the mindset of the person who took the baby. The one thing that we had, we thought going for us, was typically the women who do these kinds of cases, they want the baby to survive.”
“But there is no guarantee that the premature infant can survive without medical care, and every minute until authorities find the baby could be the difference between life and death.”
“We want to find the baby because if any distress happens to the child, we didn’t think the the kidnapper would take that child to a hospital because there’d be too many questions asked.”
“Why did somebody decide to take a woman who was getting ready to have her first baby, a joyful occasion for everybody, and to, to do this horrible, brutal act? And the only logical conclusion for me is that it’s a monster. That person is evil.”
“December 16th, 2004. After 23-year-old expectant mother Bobby Jo Stinnett is found strangled in her home, authorities work frantically to find the missing baby girl that has been crudely cut from her womb.”
“The town reels as word spreads of the horrific crime.”
“I went straight to the street where Bobby Jo lived and there were police everywhere and yellow crime scene tape.”
“Officer, has there been…”
“There was an ambulance and that there were two or three deputies’ cars out on the street. I said to the deputy, ‘I hope that nothing bad has happened,’ and she said, ‘Well, it’s a homicide.'”
“Agents and local authorities have no idea whether the baby is still alive.”
“You have a missing baby. You’re the detective. You have to speak for Bobby Jo ’cause she can’t do it anymore. You have to save this child.”
“First of all, this had been committed during a violent struggle. We didn’t know at what point did Bobby Jo wake up and could the baby have been injured by the knife?”
“Investigators search every nook and cranny of Skidmore for signs of the infant.”
“They were looking in dumpsters, looking in the river, looking any place they could think to see. Had someone had an axe to grind against Bobby Jo and simply killed her and took the baby just as an act of spite?”
“But the child has vanished. Agents focus on finding Bobby Jo’s killer in hopes that the baby is with them. But who could be responsible for such an unthinkable crime?”
“People are normally killed by people that they know. I mean, that’s a proven fact.”
“Agents start digging into Bobby Jo’s background. She lived in the small Skidmore area all her life and was a cheerleader before graduating from high school with honors.”
“In May of 2000, she married her childhood sweetheart, Zeb Stinnett, just one year before her death.”
“She had a very sweet wedding. She looked like a princess, and it was right there in Skidmore across the street from where she was murdered.”
“Pastor Harold Haymon performed the ceremony.”
“I can remember when Bobby Jo came into view, very pretty in her white wedding gown and her veil and all, and everything. You can tell that, uh, this was a very special, happy time for Bobby Jo.”
“The young couple was thrilled to be expecting their first child, a little girl they plan to name Victoria Jo.”
“She had a baby monitor that she and Zeb would listen to the baby’s heartbeat. In fact, they listened to the baby’s heartbeat for the last time the night before she died.”
“It seems implausible, but agents have to ask, could Bobby Jo’s husband, Zeb Stinnett, somehow be involved in the murder and abduction?”
“Zeb worked in Maryville, and that was an easy check, is to check to see if he was at work that day at that time, and he was. So, Zeb was ruled out.”
“From what we knew about Bobby Jo, uh, she, she appeared to be happy. She appeared to have a good marriage, to her husband loved her husband.”
“Agents broadened their search and learned that Bobby Jo had a unique hobby. She ran a dog breeding business from her home called Happy Haven Farms and advertised it through online message boards.”
“She raised Rat Terriers, and she went to shows. For her, it wasn’t just a hobby, it was a business. She raised these dogs.”
“She won prizes across the country on the Rat Terrier dog show circuit and had a reputation for only adopting her dogs out to good homes.”
“Bobby Jo was just sweet, wonderful person, willing to help you. If someone was new to the dog breeding or dog showing business, she would help them, just bend over backwards to do it. Just a sweet, wonderful girl.”
“Agents wonder if that friendliness somehow got her in trouble. Bobby Jo had been sharing the progress of her pregnancy with dog breeding friends on online message boards.”
“The Rat Terrier group, everyone we talked to, described itself as a pretty tight-knit group. They, they share a common interest, they love the Rat Terrier breed of dog. Even though some of them never met each other, they knew each other from talking online, sharing information about this or that, so they were very close-knit.”
“She would take pictures of herself in a mirror, of her front profile and her side profile showing her baby bump. It was in a room in the house that had a mirror, and this is the exact place where she was murdered.”
“Did her killer target her because of those photos? Agents process Bobby Jo’s computer to see if there are any clues that may lead them to her killer.”
“Then Bobby Jo’s mother, Becky Harper, reveals something important. Becky tells investigators that an unknown visitor was at Bobby Jo’s house right before she was murdered. The person was interested in buying one of her Rat Terrier puppies.”
“We knew that Bobby Jo received a phone call from her mother at 2:30, during which time she says, ‘I’ve got someone here looking at dogs.'”
“Could this customer be Bobby Jo’s killer?”
“Authorities interview Bobby Jo’s neighbor, who reports seeing a dirty pink or red car parked in front of Bobby Jo’s house. He knows it was an import but can’t recall the make or model.”
“It was parked in front of Bobby Jo’s house probably, the witness said it was there about 12:30, and did not see when it left.”
“The local sheriff tries to issue an Amber Alert, but it’s a struggle since the rules require a description of the child and the only person who has seen the baby is Bobby Jo’s killer.”
“You have to have six different criteria to meet the Amber Alert at that time, and we didn’t have all them. I didn’t have the hair color, I didn’t have the height, the weight.”
“Finally, around midnight, they get the Amber Alert posted, but it’s not much to go on: a white infant female, a dirty red or pink import car, and an abductor with potentially blonde hair.”
“Cheryl Houston, like everyone else in town, is hyper-vigilant looking for Bobby Jo’s killer.”
“One of the things that they were looking for was the red car. Every red car that went by, I was scrutinizing it, looking in there.”
“The case is at a standstill until investigators get a sudden break. A policeman spots a dirty red car that matches the description of the one in the driveway.”
“Suspect vehicle.”
“The chase is on, and officers can only hope that Bobby Jo’s little girl is within their reach.”
“Everybody was waiting, everybody was praying, holding their breath, hoping that she was found alive.”
“It’s been less than 24 hours since Bobby Jo Stinnett was found savagely butchered in her home, her infant daughter ripped from her womb.”
“Word got around real quick that somebody had cut the baby from Bobby Jo’s tummy, you know, that was it. And my heart was just breaking for Becky because I knew how close they were. I know that she was just absolutely devastated.”
“Investigators are desperate to find the baby.”
“But we didn’t know how long the baby would be able to live. We didn’t know what kind of condition it was after that rather crude C-section.”
“This isn’t my child. This wasn’t my daughter. But in a sense, you feel that it is now.”
“All they have is a description of the car seen in Bobby Jo’s driveway just prior to her murder.”
“We’d put out an alert to watch for a car similar in appearance to what the witness had seen: a small red car, maybe a Japanese product that was very dirty.”
“Within hours, a car matching that description is spotted a few miles from Bobby Jo’s home.”
“It’ll be a red Nissan, occupied by one.”
“When an officer flashes his lights, the driver takes off. Is Bobby Jo’s baby inside the car?”
“Go ahead and roll me in, assist.”
“For several minutes, the officer chases the vehicle in a nail-biting, high-speed pursuit.”
“He’s not slowing. 112. He’s still failing to yield. He’s…”
“Stopping on Settlers Road.”
“Finally, the driver pulls over. Missouri State Police get out of the car.”
“Exit the vehicle. Let me see your hands. Face away from me. Face away from you. Walk back to me. Any sudden moves, you will be shot. Do you understand? Put your hands behind your back.”
“And whatever there was no connection. He just didn’t have a driver’s license, didn’t want to be stopped, and he was speeding.”
“Disappointed, and with few leads, agents set up a command post and a hotline for the public to come forward with any information. The phone rings off the hook with people who believe they have seen the infant.”
“As our investigation continued, we had over 200 leads. I had 30 some officers following these leads non-stop.”
“Several tipsters share a frightening theory.”
“We had a guy say that he had overheard someone selling babies on the black market for $60 a piece.”
“Another caller says she knows three people who took Bobby Jo’s baby to sell. Investigators take down every detail of the tip, but it leads nowhere.”
“We had to go follow that lead up. We went there, couldn’t find anybody at home, couldn’t run down any of the people that were named.”
“The hours roll by as investigators scramble for answers.”
“It was a mad house, constantly answering the phone, constantly trying to get more information, constantly looking for updates. Nobody went home to sleep. We worked through the night into the next day.”
“The town of Skidmore is on edge, uncertain of what will happen next.”
“You know, when I got home that night, I found my steel baseball bat and put it beside the door of my house ’cause we didn’t know what was going on. I was scared.”
“Finally, at 12:30 a.m., 7 hours after Bobby Jo was murdered, agents uncover a major lead. A search of Bobby Jo’s computer reveals that she was communicating with two people just prior to her murder.”
“One email address is registered to a man named Jason Dawson who is connected to Bobby Jo through the Rat Terrier community. The other address stands out to investigators.”
“One of them was from a Darlene Fischer who had the kind of ominous email address of ‘Fischer for kids.'”
“We took it as ‘fishing for kids.'”
“Agents get in touch with Jason Dawson who says Darlene Fischer had contacted him recently to ask if anyone had Rat Terriers for sale near her home in Fairfax, Missouri.”
“Jason, when he received this email from Darlene Fischer, said, ‘No, I don’t have any dogs, but I know someone who does who happens to live in your area.’ So Jason then sends an email to Bobby Jo saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got someone who’s in your area who sounds like they’re knowledgeable and wants a Rat Terrier, why don’t you two get together?'”
“Dawson introduced Fischer to Bobby Jo in an online chat room then disconnected when he felt the women were properly acquainted.”
“Did Darlene Fischer and Bobby Jo set up a time to meet, and if so, is Darlene Fischer the mysterious customer who was at Bobby Jo’s house when her mother called? The answers to those questions may break the case wide open.”
“Who is Darlene Fischer? Did she come face to face with the killer, or is Darlene Fischer involved in this? We need to go find that out immediately.”
“It’s been 18 hours since Bobby Jo Stinnett was murdered and her baby stolen from her womb. The FBI and investigators are desperately searching for Darlene Fischer, a woman they believe may have been the last person to see Bobby Jo alive.”
“Was Darlene Fischer actually there to look at buying a puppy from Bobby Jo, or was she involved in the murder?”
“Agents comb over Fischer’s online posts looking for clues.”
“We knew that from the chat that Darlene Fischer was supposedly from Fairfax, Missouri, but a search in Fairfax reveals no one by that name.”
“When we couldn’t find any record of a Darlene Fischer in Atchison County, that is a red flag. Why can’t we find this person? Is it a person new to this community, or are we dealing with somebody that’s using an alias?”
“Then police get a chilling call that changes everything. A woman named Patty Hughes claims that someone she knows, Lisa Montgomery, might have Bobby Jo’s baby.”
“Patty Hughes knew Lisa Montgomery and had received a phone call from her saying that a baby has arrived.”
“Lisa Montgomery’s daughter was spending the night at Hughes’s house when she heard that her mother had just had a baby.”
“Okay, all right, but what’s so exciting?”
“My mom just had her baby.”
“Montgomery never looked pregnant, and Hughes has long been suspicious that she was faking it. She is also well aware that Bobby Jo’s baby was stolen from her body.”
“She was on these message boards and saw on the message board on December 17th, someone had posted a message about Bobby Jo having been murdered.”
“Hughes also reveals something shocking. Lisa Montgomery has something in common with Bobby Jo Stinnett.”
“She’s now showing Rat Terrier dogs, she’s in the dog circuit show. Uh, and it, it appears that she probably knows Bobby Jo.”
“Investigators now suspect they are hot on the trail of Bobby Jo’s killer.”
“That’s when I sent our two investigators, ‘You make a trip to Melvern, Kansas, and I want you to drive as fast as the car will run, and don’t stop until you get in her driveway, and you get in her house, and see if that’s our baby.'”
“They are even more alarmed when they finally track the mysterious Darlene Fischer’s location. It appears her name is an alias and that the emails were sent from the home of none other than Lisa Montgomery.”
“Agents raced the 150 miles to Montgomery’s house in Kansas, well aware that the closer they are to the killer, the higher the stakes get.”
“As time goes by, if this person thinks they’re going to be caught, what would they do with that baby? So, yeah, it was, it was a lot of pressure to try and recover this child as absolutely quickly as possible.”
“Agents arrive at the house and move into hiding. It isn’t long before a dirty red car pulls up with a couple inside.”
“Authorities wait with bated breath as a woman gets out of the car and carries an infant into the house. They can only hope that this is Bobby Jo’s little girl.”
“Is that a baby back there? It looks like it, indeed.”
“They prepare to approach the house. Suddenly, Lisa’s husband, Kevin Montgomery, opens the front door.”
“He can tell something’s up.”
“I said, ‘We’re investigating the murder of Bobby Jo Stinnett, Skidmore, Missouri.’ I said, ‘We need to talk to you, can we go inside?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, my wife’s inside, she just had a baby yesterday.'”
“Yeah, yeah, all right, yeah.”
“Kevin allows investigators to enter the home.”
“I walk through the door and immediately in front of me is a television, and it’s on, and at that very moment our Amber Alert is running at the bottom of the TV screen announcing that we’re looking for a baby in Ottawa County.”
“Sitting on the couch is Lisa Montgomery with an infant wrapped up in a blanket.”
“I can see the baby’s face, and I can see the color is good. So, that’s a relief.”
“The baby isn’t making any sounds, but something about the infant doesn’t add up.”
“What I immediately noticed is that the baby’s head is not cone-shaped like a baby that is given through natural birth and the head is shaped by going through the birth canal.”
“I was a medic. This looks like a Caucasian baby to me.”
“Investigators keep Lisa calm with small talk about her newborn.”
“Tell me about your baby.”
“And she said, ‘It’s a little girl and I had it yesterday. It was a surprise. I had it at the Top Women’s Clinic.'”
“Lisa says she was out shopping when she went into labor. She barely made it to the women’s birthing center in Topeka in time to deliver the newborn, named Abigail. Kevin says he and two of their teenage children went to pick Lisa up later that day in a restaurant parking lot near the birthing center.”
“Investigators nod, but the story is fishy. They keep a close eye on Lisa and the infant.”
“My big concern is, let’s get the baby out of her hands because I don’t know what she’s going to do. I need to talk to her, I need to keep her calm. I can’t even see her hands because they’re underneath the baby. I don’t know if she’s armed, I don’t know if Kevin’s involved.”
“Lisa and Kevin reveal that they had taken the newborn with them to eat breakfast and run errands just that morning.”
“And I said, ‘I need to verify that ’cause we’re going to have to verify all the details,’ trying to keep her calm, but I need to check and see, ‘You have some hospital discharge papers or anything that I can look at to follow up on that?'”
“Yeah, yeah, she goes, ‘Sure, Kevin, they’re out in the truck.'”
“Uh, I didn’t find any papers.”
“They’re out there, they’re, they’re in the truck.”
“Kevin checks and says he can’t find the discharge papers. Lisa remains eerily calm.”
“Just looks like she’s sitting there holding her baby and everything’s normal. That five men are standing in her room talking about a murder and that’s not normal. Doesn’t appear to me to be normal at all.”
“Usually people are nervous and quizzical, not her.”
“Investigators asked to speak to Lisa alone. She agrees and hands the baby to an agent.”
“She’s straddling and walking like you might see a real woman that had just given birth, you know? It’s painful, so she’s making noises and complaining, and she walks out on the porch with me.”
“Outside the house, Lisa confides in Detective Strong.”
“Lisa told me, she said, ‘I want you to know that I really didn’t have the baby in Topeka yesterday.'”
“She said, ‘Now, Kevin’s not here, I can tell you the truth.’ She said, ‘I gave birth yesterday in my kitchen.’ She said, ‘It was okay though, I had two of my girlfriends here to help me, so it was fine. But we needed to save money. Kevin didn’t have a very good job, and I didn’t want him to have the medical expense, so he doesn’t know.'”
“But when pressed, Lisa can’t provide the names of her friends. She changes her story again, saying her friends coached her over the phone and that she threw the placenta into the creek.”
“Detective Strong wants to know the truth, but he is not prepared for what Lisa says next.”
“I’m trying to give her a reason to confess. Tell us the story.”
“And I said, ‘Lisa, you don’t want to go in front of a courtroom and sit there and not let them know why you did this. You don’t want them to think about you as a monster.'”
“And she said, ‘But I am a monster.'”
“Within 24 hours of Bobby Jo Stinnett’s murder, the search for her missing baby has led investigators to the home of Lisa Montgomery in Melvern, Kansas. Lisa can’t explain where she had her newborn baby girl and is breaking down under investigators’ questions.”
“She realizes I know that she’s responsible for this death at this point, and she’s really not cooperating a whole lot. She’s really not telling me too much, but I tell her at that point that I know that that baby’s not hers.”
“Lisa relents and says what investigators already know to be true.”
“I killed Bobby Jo.”
“She just finally said, ‘You have Bobby Jo’s baby.'”
“Lisa begins to confess what really happened. It quickly becomes clear that she thoroughly planned every detail of the grizzly murder, and that Bobby Jo was a carefully chosen victim.”
“Lisa, who has a history of faking pregnancies, had been telling friends and family for months that she was expecting twins.”
“When she faked pregnancy, she would take time off, manipulate folks with her claims of pregnancy. She was a lazy person, she was untruthful, she was very self-centered, narcissistic.”
“Lisa’s ex-husband, Carl, had recently filed to regain custody of their four kids. He threatened to expose Lisa for her lies.”
“Carl said, ‘Look, you keep telling people you’re pregnant, you know you’re not pregnant.’ And he was going to use the fact that she had lied in court, and the fact that she continued to spread these lies, to show that she was basically not a very fit mother.”
“Lisa didn’t want to pay her ex-husband child support and refused to back down.”
“She was just simply out to prove her ex-husband wrong, or the court wrong, that ‘See, I can get pregnant.'”
“Lisa needed to get her hands on an infant, and pregnant Bobby Jo Stinnett was the perfect target.”
“She at one point met Lisa Montgomery at one of the dog shows, and I don’t think they got along that well, but Bobby Jo was always kind to Lisa Montgomery.”
“A chilling photo taken after a dog show in April reveals a pregnant Bobby Jo standing just a few feet away from her soon-to-be killer.”
“Lisa followed Bobby Jo’s online posts about her pregnancy while she hatched her plan.”
“She knew the due date because Bobby Jo posted that. She also did research on premature babies because she knew this baby was going to be 1 month premature.”
“She told her husband, Kevin, that one of the twins died and that doctors wanted to induce labor on December 17th. When he said he wanted to be there for the birth, Lisa knew she needed to act fast.”
“She decided to get Bobby Jo’s baby one day earlier so her husband wouldn’t know what had happened.”
“But there was one final loose end to tie up. She needed to have a different name so that Bobby Jo would agree to meet with her.”
“She could not show up on Bobby Jo Stinnett’s doorstep as Lisa Montgomery because they knew each other. Lisa created the alias of Darlene Fischer along with the email name ‘Fischer for kids.’ Then she made arrangements with Bobby Jo to visit her home to purchase a Rat Terrier puppy.”
“Lisa carefully researched cesarean sections on the Internet and ordered a home birthing kit.”
“She has a rope and a knife in her pocket. She has a birthing kit in her trunk. She has a diaper bag, she has a car carrier. She’s on a mission.”
“Before she hits the road, Lisa anxiously covers her tracks.”
“She knows the wrongfulness of her acts. She knows that she must clean up her computer so she doesn’t leave behind any evidence. She deletes all of the Darlene Fischer emails… um, the creation of Darlene Fischer account, she deletes um emails to Bobby Jo, she deletes all of her Internet history, research of C-sections, of Bobby Jo, of Bobby Jo’s PhotoBucket account. Anything that’s incriminating, she systematically deletes.”
“On December 16th, Lisa drove the 50 miles to Skidmore, Missouri. Around 12:30 p.m., she arrived at Bobby Jo’s house.”
“Investigators speculate Lisa told Bobby Jo that she was a friend of Darlene Fischer’s and had plans to meet Fischer in Skidmore to look at puppies.”
“Lisa Montgomery went into Bobby Jo’s house with a knife in one pocket and a rope in another pocket and a plan.”
“She and Bobby Jo played with the dogs while Lisa waited for the right moment.”
“Lisa strangled Bobby Jo until she passed out then cut open her abdomen which caused the young mother to wake up. A struggle ensued and Lisa strangled the victim again, this time killing her.”
“She said it surprised her when the baby moved and that she picked up the baby, but she couldn’t move the baby because the umbilical cord was still attached. So she panicked, and she said she saw a knife on the floor, and she used that knife to cut the umbilical cord.”
“Lisa quickly carried the newborn outside and got in her car. She drove a short distance then tended to the baby.”
“Lisa Montgomery stopped, put an umbilical clamp on the umbilical cord, and cleaned the baby up somewhat.”
“Lisa then put the baby in a car seat she had stored in the trunk and drove to Topeka to call her husband, Kevin.”
“Hey babe, um, I had the baby.”
“She called Kevin and said, ‘I went to Topeka to do some shopping and I had the baby. I need you to come and get me.'”
“Lisa tells police that her husband had nothing to do with the sinister plot. That evening back in Melvern, the family celebrated the baby’s birth, totally unaware of what had just happened.”
“Lisa Montgomery is celebrating this arrival of Abigail Marie by filling out birth announcements with Victoria Jo on her lap, and her children are taking pictures. And we have those pictures of Lisa Montgomery just casually, calmly celebrating having company that evening while she still has blood of the real mother underneath her fingernails.”
“Authorities rush Bobby Jo’s baby, Victoria Jo, to the hospital. Amazingly, the infant has only a small cut on her eye as a result of the traumatic birth. News of her recovery sweeps the town of Skidmore.”
“It was a miracle. I still have trouble talking about that. I mean, that’s what you work so hard to get, and that to think that it couldn’t happen and then it does happen, and it’s just, it takes your breath away. It’s just too…”
“On December 17th, 2004, just one day after Bobby Jo’s murder, Lisa Montgomery is charged with the capital offense of kidnapping resulting in death.”
“At trial, Lisa claims to be insane, incapable of understanding the wrongness of her actions.”
“District Attorney Roseanne Ketchmark argues that the premeditated nature of Lisa’s acts prove otherwise, and so a big hurdle was showing to the jury, ‘No, she’s not insane.’ The issue is not does she have problems? Yes, she has issues. The question is, is she legally insane? No, she’s not legally insane. Lisa Montgomery is wicked, and she’s evil, that’s her problem.”
“The jury agrees with the prosecution. On October 28th, 2007, Lisa Montgomery is found guilty and sentenced to death.”
“Victoria Jo Stinnett is finally united with her grandmother, Becky Harper, and father, Zeb Stinnett.”
“Well, I think we’re all very happy to see a picture of Zeb holding Bobby Jo’s baby.”
“Victoria has a future before her that, you know, God has good things planned for her and we all rejoice in that.”
“Though Victoria Jo has gone on to live a normal life, the Stinnett family will never be the same.”
“Not only did she murder Bobby Jo, but Victoria Jo will never know her mother, can never give her mother a hug. Her birthday will always be the anniversary of the slaughter of her mother. It’s just, it’s sad that this little girl is going to grow up knowing that her birth, which was in some ways a miracle that she survived, is tarnished by the fact that her mother died at the hands of Lisa Montgomery.”
