00:00Hello and welcome to the Dark Mystery Lounge.
00:03Today's topic is one I stumbled upon when I was looking at a list of women who were executed.
00:10I've already covered a handful on that list, but this one stood out for one reason.
00:15Instead of listing the state they were executed in, it said federal government.
00:20I'm thinking, oh lord, lady, what did you do to piss the federal government off?
00:24Then I read as much as I could about the case, catching myself saying, damn, periodically.
00:30Because what this woman did was nothing short of horrifying.
00:34So we are going to take a look at the Lisa Montgomery case.
00:37A woman who let a lie turn deadly.
00:44It was a typical day on December 14, 2004, in Skidmore, Missouri.
00:5023-year-old Bobbie Jo Stennett was expecting a customer named Darlene Fisher to come by to purchase a rat terrier puppy.
00:58Bobbie Jo and her husband Zeb ran a business out of their home, breeding and selling rat terrier puppies, and even showed them in dog shows.
01:07Business was good ever since they posted pictures on their dog breeding website.
01:12Bobbie Jo also worked at the Kawasaki Manufacturing Plant in nearby Maryville.
01:16They needed all the money they could get, since Bobbie Jo was eight months pregnant with her first child, a baby girl.
01:24She was so excited to finally have a child of her own, that she would talk non-stop about her pregnancy to anyone and everyone that would listen.
01:32Including on an online chat room called Ratter Chatter, which was for people who love rat terriers.
01:38Darlene Fisher finally arrived, and Bobbie Jo greeted the stranger, inviting her inside.
01:43They chit-chatted for a minute, and then Bobbie Jo turned her back to the woman to show her where the puppies were.
01:50That's when the lady came from behind and started strangling Bobbie Jo with a pink cord.
01:54Bobbie Jo put up a fight, grabbing a handful of the assailant's hair.
01:58But sadly, she lost the fight and died.
02:01The woman quickly went to work on Bobbie Jo.
02:04She cut open her stomach and removed the baby from her womb, cutting the umbilical cord.
02:09The baby girl was still alive.
02:11The woman left as quick as she came, leaving Bobbie Jo in a pool of blood.
02:16Her mother, Becky, arrived an hour after the attack to find this horrific scene and quickly dial 911.
02:23She described the wound inflicted upon her daughter as appearing as if her stomach had exploded.
02:28Paramedics attempted to revive Bobbie Jo, but it was unsuccessful.
02:33She was pronounced dead at St. Francis Hospital in Maryville, Missouri.
02:37Doctors and investigators noticed that the baby had been removed, so the clock was ticking to find the baby girl.
02:49Police went to work trying to find who had done this to Bobbie Jo and where her baby would be.
02:54After searching the house and talking to neighbors, they found out the description of the perpetrator's car was a dirty, red-pinkish, two-door vehicle, most likely an import outside of the Stenet home.
03:09An Amber Alert was issued.
03:11The alert initially was denied as it had not been used before in an unborn child case, and thus there was no description of the victim.
03:19Eventually, after intervention by Congressman Sam Graves, the alert was implemented.
03:25Police were able to trace Bobbie Jo's internet activity and the IP address of the woman she was corresponding with.
03:32The trace led to a farmhouse in Melbourne, Kansas, 170 miles away from the crime scene.
03:38The woman whom Bobbie Jo was talking with about buying a puppy was not Darlene Fisher, but 36-year-old Lisa Montgomery.
03:46Police immediately began surveillance of the home and saw Lisa with a newborn female infant.
03:52They also noticed a vehicle that matched the description of the one seen outside of the Stenet home.
03:58Lisa was arrested on December 17th, and the baby whom she had claimed was hers and called her Abigail was recovered unharmed.
04:07The baby was reunited with her father, and she was given the name Victoria Jo.
04:13Through DNA testing, it was confirmed that the baby belonged to Bobbie Jo and Zeb Stenet.
04:19Lisa Marie Montgomery was born February 27, 1968, in Melbourne, Kansas.
04:26Her mother's alcohol addiction led to Lisa being born with permanent brain damage.
04:31She was raised in a physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive home,
04:35where she was allegedly raped by her stepfather and his friends, and beaten from the age of 11.
04:41She sought mental escape through drinking alcohol.
04:45When Lisa was 14, her mother discovered the abuse and reacted by threatening her daughter with a gun.
04:51Lisa tried to escape by marrying at age 18, but both her first marriage and second marriage resulted in further abuse.
04:59She had four children before she underwent tubal ligation in 1990.
05:04She falsely claimed to be pregnant several times after the procedure, according to both her first and second husband.
05:11At the time of her arrest, it was speculated that Lisa's motivation stemmed from a miscarriage.
05:17She may have suffered and subsequently concealed it from her family.
05:21Further possibilities surrounding her motives were raised following speculation that her former husband planned to reveal that she had lied about being pregnant in an effort to get custody of her children.
05:33It was surmised that Lisa needed to produce a baby to counter this charge of habitual lying about pregnancy.
05:39Immediately after her arrest, Lisa confessed to the murder.
05:43The affidavit paints a picture of deceit and premeditation on the part of Lisa.
05:48She used a fake name and contacted Bobby Joe looking for a rat terrier puppy on the Ratter Chatter chatroom and emails on Wednesday, the 15th of December.
05:59Lisa knew that Bobby Joe was pregnant from the pictures on her website.
06:03On Thursday, the 16th, she drove all the way to Bobby Joe's house to murder her and took the baby.
06:09Then drove back and called her husband, Kevin, that same day around 5.15 p.m.
06:14Saying that on a shopping trip to Topeka, she had gone into labor and given birth.
06:20The morning of Friday the 17th, she went out for breakfast with her husband, the baby, and her two teenage children.
06:27She showed off the baby as if it was hers.
06:30At first, she tried to lie about giving birth at a birthing center in Topeka,
06:35but there was no record of any births that day at that birthing center.
06:39On December 20th, 2004, four days after Bobby Joe's murder,
06:51Lisa was charged with the federal offense of kidnapping resulting in death,
06:56a crime established by the Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932
07:00and described in Title 18 of the United States Code.
07:04If convicted, she faced a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty.
07:09At the pretrial hearing, a neuropsychiatrist testified that head injuries,
07:14which Lisa had sustained some years before,
07:17could have damaged the part of the brain that controls aggression.
07:20During her trial in federal court, her defense attorney, led by Fred Dutert,
07:26asserted that she had pseudosiesis, a mental condition that causes a woman to falsely believe that she is pregnant
07:33and exhibits outward signs of pregnancy.
07:36Dutert attempted to follow this line of defense only one week before the trial began,
07:42after being forced to abandon a contradictory argument that Bobby Joe was murdered by Lisa's brother Tommy,
07:48who had an alibi.
07:50As a result, Lisa's family refused to cooperate with Dutert and described her background to the jury.
07:56Two more neuroscientists gave their expert testimonies that Lisa had pseudosiesis,
08:02in addition to depression, borderline personality disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
08:08They testified that Lisa's story about her actions fluctuated because of her delusional state,
08:14and that she was unable to dictate the nature and quality of her acts.
08:18Both federal prosecutor Roseanne Ketchmark and opposing expert witness forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz
08:25disagreed strongly with the diagnosis of pseudosiesis.
08:29Dietz said an ultrasound photograph of a baby that Lisa had copied from the internet,
08:35doctoring it so that her name was on it, and then showed it to her family,
08:39was an important part of the case.
08:40Quote,
08:41The ultrasound is one of the most important smoking guns to show that the defendant knew she wasn't pregnant in 2004.
08:49Unquote.
08:50On October 22, 2007, jurors found Lisa Montgomery guilty,
08:55rejecting a defense claim that Lisa was delusional.
08:58On October 26, the jury recommended the death sentence.
09:02Judge Gary A. Finner formally sentenced Lisa to death on April 4, 2008.
09:10Lisa was sent to Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas.
09:19All of her appeals were denied.
09:20At the time, she was the only woman with a federal death sentence.
09:25As the years passed, her execution date was delayed.
09:28The first date was for December 8, 2020,
09:31but it had to be delayed because her attorney contracted COVID-19.
09:35Her second execution date was finally scheduled for January 12, 2021,
09:42but it was delayed until the next day because Lisa had to have a mental health assessment
09:46to make sure that she was mentally competent to be executed.
09:50She passed the assessment and was flown to the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
09:57On January 13, 2021,
10:00Lisa was brought into the execution chamber with a mask on her face.
10:03She was strapped into the gurney.
10:06A female executor standing over Lisa's shoulder leaned over,
10:10gently removing Lisa's face mask, and asked her if she had any last words.
10:15Lisa quietly replied,
10:17No.
10:17She continuously licked her lips, nervously tapping her fingers,
10:21and gasped as the drugs started to flow through the IV and into her veins at 1.18 a.m.
10:27She closed her eyes as she waited to die.
10:30A few minutes later, her midsection throbbed for a moment, but quickly stopped.
10:35Lisa was pronounced dead at 1.31 a.m.
10:38She was 52 years old.
10:46Lisa Montgomery became the first female federal prisoner executed in 67 years.
10:52Only three other women had been executed by the U.S. federal government.
10:57Mary Surratt by Hanging in 1965,
11:01Ethel Rosenberg by Electric Chair in 1953,
11:05and Bonnie Hetty by Gas Chamber, also in 1953.
11:09It seems like for a small town like Skidmore,
11:12there were a handful of tragedies.
11:14Bobby Joe's cousin, Branson Perry,
11:16disappeared, and his case remains unsolved to this day.
11:20In the unsolved case of Ken McElroy,
11:23who was shot by two different guns,
11:25but no one was convicted for his murder.
11:28At a press conference after Lisa Montgomery was sentenced to the death penalty in 2007,
11:34Bobby Joe's mother, Becky Harper,
11:37and husband, Zeb Stennett,
11:39said they would do their best to make sure Victoria Joe
11:42had as normal of a life as possible.
11:44Members of the Nottoway Holt High School Class of 2000,
11:49which is the year Bobby Joe graduated,
11:51have a yearly memorial donation drive for the Stennett family.
11:55I swear, Lisa is nothing short of screwed up.
12:04I'm sorry, but I don't feel the least bit sorry for Lisa.
12:08Being abused as a child is no excuse for murdering an innocent woman.
12:12Bobby Joe never got a chance to be a mother,
12:14and that baby grew up without her mother.
12:17Mental illness or brain damage doesn't excuse the fact that she plotted in advance to commit this murder.
12:23She found someone who was pregnant around a similar due date,
12:27looked up how to perform a C-section,
12:29and lied like hell to her husband.
12:31She didn't think any of this through at all.
12:33She lied and got caught up in her lie to the point
12:36she felt like she had to take extreme measures to see that lie through,
12:40at the cost of a life and possibly screwing up that family's life forever.
12:45I hope that Victoria grew up happy and healthy.
12:48From articles that I read, she seems to be doing fine.
12:51Naturally, her family is going to be super protective of her.
12:54And now you see why I kept saying damn as I was reading this case.
12:59This is nothing short of messed up.
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